Literary Agent Revision Request
If you're wondering about how to handle a literary agent revision request, how that informs your submission round, and what to expect when working more closely with an agent before an offer of representation, check out this video.
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Literary Agent Revision Request
Hello. My name is Mary Kole and I am with Good Story Company, and this video is all about literary agent revision. Now, I wrote a post many years ago on my Kidlit blog, and I will link it in the transcript of this video and in the description of the video. But this post describes all of the many different types of rejection you might receive. Now, a lot of writers are like, "Wait a minute, a rejection is a rejection, I didn't know there were types of rejection." Well, if you are new to the submission game, or you've been around for a while, but haven't really gotten a lot of different types of rejection, there are different types of rejection. They go from sort of the form rejection, which is sort of like, "Mmh, I connected with part of it, but not enough and I'm sorry, and best of luck." And you know, this business is very subjective and all of that. To sort of the more personalized rejection which means that the agent or publisher actually thought a little bit about your project, they had some ideas to do with your project, they just didn't really feel passionate enough about it to take it on.
So when you get this kind of rejection, there may be a revision request attached to it. This is probably the most desirable rejection that you can get that's short of an actual acceptance, or an offer a representation, or an offer of a publishing contract. So when you get one of these, they're very rare. Don't feel too badly about the project because that means good things are happening, even if they're not immediately good. That can be hard to swallow, but some writers go through an entire submission round of 50 to 100 agents, they never even see a revision request from a literary agent. So you are sitting pretty, even if it doesn't sort of feel very pretty.
A revision request is this. The agent felt passionate enough about the project to really put some thought into it. Usually, they were really on the fence about offering representation and then probably after a lot of noodling decided that they couldn't for reasons X, Y, and Z. But they liked it enough that they decided to convey reasons X, Y and Z to you, the writer, directly. If you get anything over two paragraphs of feedback from an agent, you have really stuck in their mind for some reason. And that's a wonderful thing. That means it's a hot lead and an open door for you to come back. Unless the feedback, of course, in those two paragraphs says, you know, "Get off the face of the earth." But not a lot of agents are sending feedback like that. So as long as it's two paragraphs of constructive, positive feedback, you are doing very well. And the agent most likely, if they have offered you this kind of feedback, will say something along the lines of, "Hey, I'd really like to see this again. Let me know if you revise."
Now, this is wonderful news, but it's also gut check time for you, the writer, you will need to think to yourself, "Oh, God, I always tell people not to write that in their manuscripts and here I am saying it." But think to yourself because it's like, well, who else are you gonna think to? Anyway, so you need to take the feedback and noodle it. Today's noodle morning apparently because everybody's noodling in this video. So you need to see if you resonate with it first and foremost, before you run off and start revising. I would recommend collecting all feedback from a submission round and seeing if you notice any patterns. So if three people called you out for your voice or your bristly character that's not very sympathetic, that's something to listen to if you resonate with it. Now, I know that being on submission is very emotional.
You may not resonate with a lot of the feedback that you get, because you're like, "No, it's perfect. I revised it for five years. You know, how can you say my character's unsympathetic?" Blah, blah, blah. All that is kind of noise and an emotional reaction to rejection or feedback. If you can get past that and push some of that aside and evaluate the feedback in a clear frame of mind, you may see some patterns emerging and now you have to decide whether or not you wanna address those patterns and whether or not you agree with them.
Now, again, sometimes we disagree with any critical feedback just because we don't like that it's there or that it's critical feedback. That's one thing. Now, sometimes we react to feedback that we know is just wrong for our project. It doesn't strike our gut or intuition very well. For example, if an agent writes back and is like, "Well, you know, maybe we could make the character a serial killer on the side or whatever, and I wanna pitch this as a romantic thriller." Well, if that's not the bones of your story, if that's not a story you're interested in writing, if that's not sort of your intention as the writer of the story for this particular novel, you are totally fine to put that piece of information aside and, you know, take the wisdom from the constructive feedback that you get and leave the rest.
Obviously, this is great advice when it comes to working with a critique partner, or beta reader, freelance editors, such as myself. If we don't vibe with a piece of feedback, we don't necessarily have to take it. Again, as long as you can sort of keep an eye on yourself and realize that your reaction to the feedback is actually valid reaction to the feedback and not just a knee jerk like, "Ah, I don't like feedback." So if there's a piece of feedback in the agent's revision request that you just can't see it working for the project as you intended it, it's totally okay to reject that piece of feedback.
Now, that might mean that your potential relationship with that agent, if they do take you on eventually, might be on the rocks because they have something very different in mind for your project than you do. That's also something to listen to, because not every revision request is going to align with your intention for the project and that means that agent may not align with your intention for the project. But if you see a piece of feedback, you think it's valid, you wanna take a crack at it, that agent is asking for a revision, maybe you're in business just a little bit later than you'd hoped. And so if they ask you to send it back, I would seriously consider responding and saying, "Hey, thank you so much for your time for your consideration. I see where you're coming from with this feedback and let me work on it and I will be back in touch." Don't put a time frame on it because that is a surefire way to do a halfway decent revision, feel a lot of pressure, stress out a lot, and turn in something that is not necessarily terribly great. So don't even put a time limit on it. Just say, "Thank you so much. I'll be back. BRB."
Now, if you don't necessarily vibe with the feedback, you can say, "Thank you so much for your consideration. I'll see what I can do here and my might follow up." You know, or you can send them the same message as I recommended for the one you're actually interested in. But you don't necessarily have to. That's the thing. A lot of people get a revision request, or an exclusivity request, or something else from an agent. And they're like, "Yes, absolutely, yes. Yes, yes." And, you know, they struggle to apply the advice. They don't necessarily vibe with it, or they're like, "Yes, yes, yes. I'll get it back to you in two weeks." And then they turn around sort of a half-assed revision, pardon my French, and it doesn't go well. So my recommendation is, if you genuinely like the advice, if you genuinely wanna work with this person based on that advice, if you think that you guys align, you and that agent based on the advice, then attack it, but don't set yourself up for failure by putting a stringent deadline on it.
The agent has a bajillion other things going on. They're not necessarily gonna be staying up all night waiting for you to get back with the revision. So be kind to yourself, and just keep lines of communication open. If the revision takes you six months, it's totally fine to check in and say, "Hey, just so you know, I'm still working, I look forward to getting back to you." Or whatever. Just don't check in every five minutes.
But the thing to do here is to then take the advice, work on it and see what you can do. Run this advice and your revision by your critique partners or beta readers. One way to use beta readers is to have them read with something in mind. So, for example, you can say to a beta reader, "Hey, I was told that my character is not very sympathetic. Does this draft address that issue potentially?" Maybe you give them that question ahead of their read, or you can give them that question after their read so it doesn't sort of taint their impression of the revised manuscript. So do the revision, run it by some people. If you don't have any people, you can tune into critcollective.com, a writing forum that's like online dating for writers where you can try and match up with some critique partners, beta readers, that sort of thing. Run it by some people and then resubmit.
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Now, how do you reengage with that agent after a literary agent revision request? You can just pop into their inbox. I would not necessarily prepare them for your submission unless a lot of time has gone by, and you've checked in with them at some point. But if it's three months, if it's four months, you don't necessarily have to be like, "Hey, I'm coming back." With a separate email, just come back. So say, remind them of your interaction and just say, "Hey, you gave me some really great advice about my character, Abby. I've taken it to heart, done a significant revision, and here is my manuscript for consideration." And then maybe as a reminder, paste your query letter and then the manuscript and maybe you will get a bite out of it and the agent will offer representation based on the revision. They may still pass, unfortunately. There, you will ideally have gotten an even stronger revision of your manuscript and even stronger project to go out to other agents with.
Now, the question of exclusives. If you are working on a revision with an agent and the agent asks for an exclusive review of the revision, it's generally considered a best practice to give them a bite of that revision before you send it out to anybody else because you're technically working on ideas that the agent has given you. The agent's ideas, and ideally, that revision request has been put in place so that they might get a crack at the project. And they are interested, they're expressing the level of interest. So the best practice would be," Hey, I'm gonna give you this exclusively." You can cap it, say, "I can give you this exclusively for two weeks, a month." Whatever you're comfortable with or leave it open ended. While the agent reads and considers, "I'm giving you this exclusively as a result of your revision request."
By making it open ended, you sort of risk potentially having the read drag out. I don't necessarily love exclusives, but the one exception is if the agent has given you feedback, and you guys are kind of working on it together without officially working on it together yet as client and an agent, it is sort of nice to be able to give them a sneak peek, an exclusive peek at what they are revision notes have sort of wrought with your manuscript. If they do pass, and sometimes this does happen, they just say, you know, "I really wanted to love it, but I'm still disconnecting with it on X, Y, Z." You could always do another revision and I give it back to them or then expand your submission strategy and send the newly revised manuscript to other agents who may be left over from your previous round of submissions, who may seem like warm leads to you still, or a cohort of newer agents that you haven't queried for the project yet.
My advice is always if you query somebody that has already seen the project and responded, you always want to be honest and just say, "Hey, I queried you with this previously, it has undergone significant revision." That's sort of the key word there. "It's undergone significant revision, I would love for you to consider it again." The worst that can happen is they'll say no again. But hopefully through this process, through getting a literary agent revision request, you have come out of the process with a stronger manuscript, one that you're more proud of, and something that either that original agent will bite or another agent will be attracted to because of the hard work that you've done. So it's not necessarily that a rejection is a no, sometimes a rejection is a soft no or a maybe. And you can decide whether or not you want to work that revision and try and get back in with that agent or other agents with a revised manuscript. This has been Mary Kole with Good Story Company, and here's to a good story.
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