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Rejections on a full manuscript. This happens when an agent requests to read your full book, making you hopeful that they will offer representation, only for them to then reject it — sometimes with no specific feedback as to why.

Why does this happen? What was wrong? The reasons I'm giving today might not be what you want to hear, but it's the real stuff, and hopefully, knowing these reasons can help you return to your manuscript and make it even stronger.

I'm using a post entitled "Why Agents Are Rejecting Your Work" as a jumping-off point for our discussion, which was written by author Parker Peavey House, who writes a Substack newsletter called The Writer's Attic. She's written two sci-fi novels published by Tor Teen and a collection of novellas published by Penguin. Before she published, she queried extensively and ultimately signed with three agents over the course of her career.

I'm going to read through her post and offer my insight from working in the publishing industry — I worked at a top literary agency and then on the editorial team at an imprint of Penguin Random House before founding my own editing business.

1. The Manuscript Still Needs Work

If an agent requested your full manuscript and then sent you a form rejection, the problem might be the consistency of your writing:

Writers often work very hard to improve their query letter and sample pages, but they don't put as much work into the rest of the manuscript. I totally understand this. That first hurdle is so difficult to get over that it just makes sense to rework the query and the sample pages multiple times. Now is probably the time to put your full manuscript through the same number of revisions.

I would rephrase this reason to be: "The manuscript still needs work." You might have an incredibly polished and compelling opening scene, only for the novel to fall apart midway through. Agents might send you a form rejection in this case because they can't quite articulate how or why the story went wrong, or they might not have the time to write up a detailed response.

To avoid this reason for rejection, be real with yourself right here, right now. Have you done several rounds of self-editing through the entire draft? Have you gotten constructive editorial feedback and made changes based on it? Have you made major changes to improve the plot, characters, and pacing? If you answered "no," your manuscript probably isn't as strong as it could be. So I recommend holding off on querying for now and returning to the draft.

2. Your Online Persona

This next reason is something that agents will stay quiet about, but it nonetheless impacts how they review your work:

You're abrasive or otherwise off-putting online. Not every agent is willing to work with someone who's difficult. If it's important for you to be outspoken to the point of offense, you'll need to find the rare agent who supports that. Otherwise, start viewing your public posts through the eyes of a business partner and delete anything that makes you seem unprofessional or unpleasant.

Remember that the author-agent relationship is ultimately a business partnership, so agents will be looking for authors they feel comfortable and confident establishing a professional relationship with. It's not totally unlike a company looking into a job candidate's background before hiring them. It's worth doing a quick Google search of your name and seeing what comes up. If you have public social media pages, what posts show at the top? What type of impression do those posts give the agent, and is that the impression you want to give?

If you have absolutely no online presence — meaning that nothing comes up when you Google your name — that could be a red flag to an agent as well, making them wonder if you're a real person or if you're using some kind of pseudonym. It's, of course, totally up to you how you manage your digital presence and what you share online. Just be aware that agents might look at it, and it could impact how they review your query.

3. The Agent is Overworked

Now, let's talk about another scenario. What if you just get ghosted after sending your full manuscript? Parker says:

If an agent requested your full manuscript and then didn't respond, the problem might be one listed above, or the problem might be the agent is overworked. She's so busy working for her own clients that she doesn't have the time or energy to review your manuscript after all. You can send a status check after a few months, but if that doesn't go anywhere, it probably means this agent's list is full and she won't have time for you as a new client. Keep querying other agents.

I've had several clients run into this issue: an agent requests the full manuscript, then goes dark. Months pass, and still no response. It's a bummer, and like Parker suggested, you should definitely send a check-in email just to make sure they received your full manuscript. But if you don't get a response, just write it off.

Keep in mind, it often takes agents months to review manuscripts even after they've requested them, simply because they have a backlog of client manuscripts, queries, and other full requests to review. It really could be that they simply haven't gotten to it yet, but intend to. Hopefully, they tell you as much — but they might not. If they don't reply to your check-in, just move on.

4. The Agent is Playing the Game

The next reason for ghosting after a full request that Parker cites admittedly isn't best practice in the industry, so I don't think it's all that common — but I'll read through it anyway:

Some agents won't bother to read your manuscript until you let them know you have an offer from another agent. At that point, they'll feel there might be enough merit to your work, and they'll go ahead and read it. Of course, if every agent plays this game, you'll never get an offer — but I don't think that's a likely scenario. (Resist the urge to lie and say you have an offer from another agent if you don't actually have an offer.) Keep querying other agents.

I don't think an agent who already requested your full manuscript would be doing this, because after all, if they're just playing the game and you get an offer of representation, then you'll still notify that agent because they have your outstanding query. So theoretically, they could just request your full manuscript at that point if they're really just waiting to see if other agents have interest. That's why I don't think this reason is all that likely or something you should be worried about.

The majority of agents accept queries because they genuinely want to receive work from new writers, and when they request your full manuscript, they fully intend to read it.

5. You're Querying the Wrong Agent

The next scenario is that you get a personalized rejection from the agent, which indicates they did read your manuscript and seriously consider it—but there's some specific reason they don't want to work with you. Here's what the problem might be:

You’re querying the wrong agent. It’s possible your manuscript is great as is, and that it has the potential to garner interest from publishers. But agents all have different tastes, and they won’t all connect with your work, especially if it’s unique. I got a huge variety of responses from agents on the manuscript that went on to be my first published novel (Where Futures End). Most of them said the writing was great (one said the manuscript had “glimmers of absolute brilliance”—and yet still rejected it). Most also said I should make significant changes, or that the novel just wouldn’t work for the market. The agent I signed with recommended I rewrite the first forty pages or so, and I found myself agreeing with her. We went on to get a deal from Penguin.
Keep querying other agents.

Parker's personal experience of getting an agent — and eventually a book deal with a Big Five house after numerous personalized rejections — speaks to a fundamental truth about the industry and the querying process: it's entirely subjective. What one person thinks is going to be the next bestseller, another person might think is a total waste of paper, or they might think it's just okay, or they might have specific critiques of it.

Agents talk about needing to feel passionately about every project and every author they sign, because they're ultimately serving as your salesperson. Agents don't want to have to fake their enthusiasm when they go to pitch your book to publishers — they want to feel genuinely excited about bringing this book into the world. That enthusiasm is often what allows them to get you a great deal.

So, at the full manuscript stage, they may see the merit and quality of your book but ultimately not think they are the right spokesperson for it. Try not to get too disappointed if you suspect this is the reason for your rejection, because it also means they weren’t the right agent for you. You don't want someone who's on the fence about your book, after all. You want someone who shares your vision and feels just as excited about sharing it with readers as you do.

6. Your Story Doesn’t Fit the Current Market

The last issue Parker talks about might have you rethinking your viable publishing avenues for this project: your story doesn't fit the current market.

Most writers think this is the only situation that applies to them. They believe they’ve written a work of genius, and that the only reason they can’t publish it is that their novel is far too different from other books to sell well. A few of these writers are correct!
Alas, all they can do is either approach small presses or write another book and see if that one happens to fit into the market.
Keep being weird, though. Sometimes, the brilliantly unique ones get through.

Now, this is something that is usually flagged at the query stage rather than the full-request stage. If you're writing a 200,000-word romcom, it could be the next great comedic love story of our generation — but more likely, it's really just way too long and should be cut down to industry standards.

If your manuscript is far off from industry expectations for your genre, you're likely going to get quickly rejected, so it pays to read widely in your genre to understand the current market and what readers of that genre expect and look for in terms of length, style, and structure. You should never compromise your artistic vision just to appeal to what publishers want, but just be aware that stories considered outliers are riskier from the publisher's point of view, and therefore it's going to be harder to find an agent who's willing to take a shot on that book.

7. Revise and Resubmit (R&R)

Now, there's one more type of rejection on a full manuscript that Parker's article didn't cover, which is what's known as a revise and resubmit — or R&R. This is when an agent gives you personalized feedback on why they're passing on your manuscript but opens the door for you to requery them if you revise the manuscript to address those issues. This is an encouraging response to get, because it means the agent was quite close to offering you representation and still could consider it if their concerns get addressed. I've seen clients go on to sign with agents after R&Rs, and one of the agents I featured in my Chapter Break newsletter stated that 25% of her authors came from R&Rs. But keep in mind there's no guarantee with R&Rs, and you might still get rejected, so I recommend still querying other agents with your revised manuscript.