Query Quest: Rejection #2

Recently, I received another rejection from an agent I’ve queried with my novel SECOND DAWN. It’s the second since I started this process earlier in the month. Now, if this was a rejection for a short story, it wouldn’t be post-worthy, but since I’m new to this querying thing, I’m finding all aspects of it interesting, even the rejections, so I’ll share it with you.

Here’s that second rejection.

Dear Aeryn,

Thank you for your email. While SECOND DAWN sounds interesting, I don’t think it is right for my list at this time.

I appreciate your querying us and wish you good luck in finding the right agent who can successfully champion your work.

This is clearly a form letter, and not too dissimilar from a form letter I’ve received from a dozen short story publishers. What’s interesting about this rejections is that it came the same day that I queried and the agent asked for only a query letter and a bio. No synopsis or sample pages. I gotta say, I’m a fan. Took very little time to send the query and very little time to get a response. That is a winning combo in my book. From what I saw on QueryTracker, it looks like this agent is equally quick with full requests as they are with rejections. I would absolutely query again with another project.

Now, this is not to say that an agent who wants more materials or takes longer to get back to an author is doing anything wrong. Every agent has a process that helps them decide which projects are the best fit, but after years in the short story trenches, I can’t help but appreciate a rapid response. 🙂

Thoughts on this rejection? Got one of your own to share? I’d love to see it in the comments.