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As author and writer communities grow larger and stronger online, I've been seeing many authors express their frustration with agents not providing any type of feedback when they send their query letter rejections. Now, typically agents don't provide feedback when they send out their rejections. Most often authors receive a form rejection, which has generic language describing why the agent didn’t pursue their manuscript.

I totally understand the author's side of this issue in wanting to get feedback from an agent rather than bland literary agent rejections. After all, you might be wondering exactly why your query package didn’t interest the agent, and just one sentence could offer you insight. When you get multiple form rejections in a row, it can feel like the agents didn’t even bother engaging with your query.

While this thinking is totally understandable, there are some specific reasons why agents don't provide feedback. In this article, I want to provide some insight on the issue from the literary agent’s side. I have experience working at a top literary agency in New York City and understand the process very intimately, so I want to help you understand where they're coming from with these vague and general form rejections. Spoiler alert: it is not because they don't care about you or don't want to help you!

They Don’t Have Time

The first and the biggest reason why agents cannot give you personalized feedback with your rejection is because they just don't have the time. It truly cannot be overstated how many queries agents get on a daily basis; anecdotally, I have seen agents talk about receiving dozens of queries a day. Those quickly add up over the work week, leading to a pretty severe backlog. At the agency I worked for, there were always hundreds of queries in the agency's inbox.

It's also important to understand that the agent's primary responsibility during their work day is to work with their current clients and negotiate book deals. After all, they only get paid a commission whenever they sell a client's book to a publishing house, so their investment is going to be in the authors they already have signed because that's how they put food on the table. Queries are an important part of an agent's job as well, but the review of those queries typically happens after-hours or if an agent has a slow period and has time to take a look at them.

That’s all to say that reviewing queries is not the primary task an agent is doing when they go to work and sit at their desk. When they do have time to visit their query inbox, they're trying to get through as many as possible, because to them it is more important to not keep authors hanging than it is to get back to fewer authors with personalized feedback. Even spending just an extra minute to write a sentence of specific feedback will quickly add up if they are reviewing dozens of queries at a time.

Writing Is Too Subjective

The next reason why literary agent rejections are often vague is because they know the industry is subjective and that other agents might feel differently about your query.

The book business is a creative field, and as such, everyone is going to have different opinions on what a great book is and isn’t. Because of that, agents don't want to inadvertently steer you as an author in the wrong direction with their feedback, because they know another agent might feel completely differently.

For instance, if they give you feedback that they didn't like the voice but another agent ends up loving the voice and signing you on because of it, that feedback wasn't even helpful–so why should they have given it at all? Agents avoid giving that type of feedback entirely because they know it's too subjective of an opinion, which might not be productive.

There's also the possibility that if they provide specific feedback to an author, then the author might think that fixing that thing is an invitation to resubmit to the agent, who will then offer them representation because they fixed that one thing. However, unless an agent specifically gives you a “revise and resubmit” response, you should not take it as an invitation to re-query them later, even if you revise the manuscript. Literary agent rejections should be taken as final even if you address any feedback they gave.

So, some agents want to avoid this potential miscommunication entirely, and that feeds into why they don't give authors feedback.

They Don’t Want to Discourage You

A “no” from one agent, a dozen agents, or even several dozen agents does not mean you are never going to get published. It truly only takes one agent to share your vision and become your publishing partner.

An agent may want to avoid giving you constructive or tough feedback because they don't want you to suddenly feel unmotivated and stop querying in total. They want you to get published and they want you to keep sending out queries to find your right match. They are simply saying, “It's not the right fit for me.”

In publishing, we often talk about agents as if they're on a pedestal, but remember: agents are author advocates. They are rooting for you to get published–they just have to be selective about which authors they choose to embark on that journey with, since their energy, time, and resources are limited.

Tips on Receiving Literary Agent Feedback

Now that we’ve talked about why agents typically don’t give feedback, let’s cover what you should do if you do get specific feedback.

If you get feedback from a literary agent in your rejection, this is called a “personalized rejection.” If you receive one of these, you should feel very encouraged because it means the agent did take the time to provide you feedback that was not required of them. It also typically means they seriously considered your query and saw the potential in your book.

However, my caveat is that if the feedback doesn’t make sense to you, do not do anything about it. If you don't agree with the feedback, do not feel the need to change your query or your manuscript. I frequently see authors get hung up on something an agent said, worrying over fixing the issue in the fear of every other agent rejecting them for that same reason. But remember, feedback is just one agent's opinion.

When I would start considering the agent's opinion is if it resonates with you. If it makes sense and you agree with it, then by all means feel free to incorporate it into your manuscript. Additionally, if you receive the same piece of feedback from multiple agents, then it might be time to consider it seriously.

I hope this helped you understand why literary agent rejections are so general and vague. Form rejections should not keep you from querying more agents. After all, traditional publishing takes a lot of perseverance and resilience! If you are currently embarking on a querying journey, don’t let the small rejections weigh you down–once you find your perfect agent match, it’ll all be worth it.

Thanks so much for reading, and happy querying!

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