I’ve been burying the needle recently with posts from the Author side of the equation, so today I want to pivot back to an Agent-centric topic: GUILT.
(yayyyy what a fun, light newsletter topic for a Tuesday morning!)
Okay, not the lightest. Not the most fun. BUT I got a question about guilt from a subscriber a while ago, and I found it to be an excellent one—not to mention timely for me personally! So I decided to write about it this morning.
The question:
Given the recent discourse on twitter*, which really opened a window into how many writers are struggling on their journeys, and how a cavalier, inconsiderate tweet from an agent can be blown up into something far more egregious than intended, I am wondering: how do agents sit with the fact that they have to reject hundreds of writers every month? Do they feel guilt (even though I don't think they should) about saying no to someone's dreams? Do they become numb after a while?
I'm lucky to be agented now, but during my querying days I definitely remember some days being harder than others, as well as crying over a full rejection or two. We are all responsible for managing our own mental health, but writing is such a personal, passionate thing that it is also kind of inevitable that an everyday part of an agent's job does contribute to people having a bad day or crying or even giving up on publishing altogether.
I know that you yourself have had a long journey as a writer and are very sensitive to this part of the process. I'm just curious how you and other agents think about this (and I wonder if this is the reason a lot of agents are CNR** now, so that they don't have to directly turn someone down?).
(brief aside for context)
*I believe the Twitter/X drama referenced here was an agent tweet about rejecting a query, but since she was enjoying the mood of the project, she said something like ‘who wants to write this?’—and shared some comps. Twitter freaked out about the agent ‘stealing ideas’ from the person she rejected, and the agent was fired.
**“CNR” means “Closed/No Response”—when an agent simply doesn’t respond (at all). In other words, instead of rejecting a query outright, they just ghost. For the record, I respond to all queries. CNR’s were my nightmare as a querying writer and I hope to continue responding to all queries. However, I don’t think guilt avoidance is why some agents adopt the CNR policy—I think it’s sheer volume of client load and query load, especially for more senior agents whose time is even more crunched due to a larger client list. I personally know an agent who does this, and it’s the only way she can stay open to queries and manage everything—so the choice for her was either close to queries so that she could keep responding to every single one, or stay open and give herself the flexibility of sometimes not responding. And I think staying open will give more writers the chance to “match” with her! For what it’s worth.
But back to the matter at hand. Guilt. Why did I find this question so timely? Because at 6 1/2 months into agenting, I’m trying to find my happy spot with what I’ll simply call ‘emotional regulation.’
For those of you who might need a teensy bit more context, agenting has a unique little bundle of challenges that can really take a toll on the emotional side of the equation, in part because of what our question-asker pointed out: this is SO personal. We’re not selling, idk, water bottles, or, like… mouse pads. These are peoples’ books that they’ve poured their time, energy, and hearts into; as agents, we hold the power to open the first door—or hold it closed, so to speak. And, in the process, hurt peoples’ feelings, which sucks.
But it’s not just rejecting authors that can bring about a case of The Feels.
Starting with the issue highlighted by our question-asker, here are some parts of the agenting job that can have—and have had—a negative impact on me, emotionally, at some point or another:
Rejecting authors who query me. This is the most obvious one—and sticks out like a sore thumb due to the volume/frequency. Let me give you a peek into my current query inbox, sorted by month, so that you can get an idea of the sheer volume of queries (and subsequent rejections) we’re talking about.
That’s 2,562 queries so far (I’m closed now, fyi, which is why July is mostly empty; I’m hoping to answer all outstanding queries and reopen in September). I request 30 pages up front with every query, so that translates to 76,860 manuscript pages—not counting the full manuscripts I request when I take a query to the next level, or manuscripts that come back to me via R&R’s through my email. Phew!
(Also, I should note that I don’t read all 30 pages of every single submission—I read until I’m certain I’m not into it. Still, it’s an astounding amount of material.)
This also helps explain why I—as well as many, many other agents if not most—use form rejections when it’s a “no.” I mean, can you imagine personalizing 2,562 emails??? I mean, I can, but, like… that would be a whole other part time job all to itself. With no pay. And… I have to make money with this job at some point? Ideally?
I’ll give you an example of one of my pre-written form rejections, which via the QueryManager system auto-fills the name and manuscript title so I don’t have to type it:
Dear {{first_name}},
Thank you so much for querying me! I am honored that you considered me to represent your work. I'm sorry to say that {{title}} isn't the best fit for me at the time, so I can't offer representation right now. However, publishing is very subjective, so hopefully another agent will feel differently!
Wishing you the best in your journey,
Jenna
For any curious, this is what it looks like on my end:
Anyway, YES. Rejecting authors is literally a huge part of this job. And, as you can see, I’ve rejected upwards of 2,300 authors. Yeeks.
BUT—it is a two way street, which brings us to the next item…
Getting rejected by authors I want after reading and falling in love with their book. This happens even more frequently for us newer agents. When agents are competing for an author, often the author (understandably) might be drawn to choose the agent with more experience. And even though of course I want every author to do what’s best for them and their career, this feels SO personal, btw!
Confession: I’m STILL not over the last author who rejected me—they were the most painful rejection of all (probs because their book made me cry 3 times at the park in public, which no book, published or unpublished, has ever has made me do)—and though I would never (never) try to poach an author from another agent (NO NO NO), sometimes I do whisper a secret little prayer, hee hee. “Please please please let X come back to meeeee…”
Which maybe makes me a little bit evil? But hey. Love makes us do crazy things?
Getting rejections from editors for my authors’ manuscripts; rejections that I’m in charge of passing along to my authors in a pre-agreed-upon fashion. Some agents forward these emails as they come. Others provide a weekly emailed update. I log them via a shared spreadsheet which my authors can check at any time—or not check.
There’s 100% a potential guilt factor here, too, because I personally hand picked these editors for this project and sent them my client’s project. So every “no” feels like a rejection that I almost… initiated? Ugh, does that even make any sense? Anyway.
In general, being the conduit of news for my authors (and trust me, there’s much more bad news than good—ugh). One not-so-fun one recently was hearing that an offer was on the way for my client’s book, and then, the next morning, having the editor say “actually nope.” Ay, whiplash. While the story has a 100% happy ending and the author landed with an incredible house/imprint (cannot WAIT to announce that deal!), I remember how icky it felt to have to text my author and be like “JUST KIDDING that offer I said was on the way is not, in fact, on the way.” Even though we were in the midst of happy offer time, somehow that really soured things for, like, a whole day. I felt guilty. Even… shady, somehow? Even though it wasn’t my fault. (Working on that) (Any therapists out there versed in Publishing?)
Always having more work than I can handle, including an overflowing query inbox, which represents hundreds of writers waiting for me to respond to them. Yep, the temptation for guilt here is also… large.
Always having a backlog of full manuscript requests sitting on my Kindle, and knowing these authors’ hopes are high that I will offer to represent them—and yet knowing that even if they’re all A+ manuscripts, I don’t have the bandwidth to rep them all (at least not all at once).
Constant pivoting. And trust me, this can take an emotional toll. Maybe I’m planning on tackling the query inbox and trying to answer some queries, but someone from elsewhere in the query inbox notifies me of an offer from another agent. If I like their pages, I have to prioritize reading their full manuscript, usually within 2 weeks. Frequently, 2-3 of these query deadlines might hit in the span of a week (they tend to come in batches, no idea why), which makes everything a bit nuts. Or maybe a client sends back revisions on their manuscript, which takes priority over queries. Or maybe a contract I’ve been waiting for lands from a publisher, and it’s time to drop everything else and go through all the deal points one by one (these contracts are 20-30 pages so it’s quite time-consuming!).
Pivoting itself doesn’t bother me—in fact, I enjoy all the different brain-spaces these different sorts of tasks occupy. The emotional part of pivoting is that I know there is an effect on someone else. The pivot means that someone (a querier or an author) goes up on my list, which forces everyone else down on the list—and I’m always very aware of who is now waiting longer than they might have wanted because of my choice to reshuffle.
Okay, okay. That was a lot of negative stuff. (Another day I swear I’m going to write about all the happy parts of agenting, which are MANY!!!) But I wanted to bring it all out, because all of this really illustrates how guilt can become a real problem in agenting.
I’ve actually been really attuned recently to the fact that we agents say “I’m sorry” a lot. Like, a lot a lot.
Just follow some agents on X and you’ll start seeing,
Sorry to everyone waiting on a response from me…
Sorry I won’t be reopening to queries in August like I planned…
Sorry—some unexpected family stuff came up and I’m going to take longer than usual with requested materials…
Sorry for the longer than usual response times…
Sorry I can no longer offer personalized feedback on rejections…
I logged into X/Twitter this morning and literally the first thing I saw was a post from a fellow agent—you guessed it—apologizing for delays due to query volume.
Heck, even my query rejection forms have apologies in them! “I’m sorry this isn’t the best fit for me at the time…” “I’m sorry for the disappointing news…” “I’m sorry to say that the story skewed a little too dark for me…”
I’ve been thinking recently about all these “sorrys.” And while I don’t think I’ll stop using them—society has deemed this is a polite way of acknowledging that I’m letting someone down—I DO want to do the work of excising the guilt and throwing it as far away from me as my emotional throwing arm will allow.
I’ve been kind of checking myself recently when I’m tempted to say “Sorry”—and examining if there’s a different way to phrase it. Often, there’s not an easy substitute I can come up with—or I don’t want to put that much time/work into rephrasing—but the point is, I don’t actually want to live in a constant state of “sorry.” (Miserable! Right?)
If I did that, er, I’d be a wreck. And I really want to guard my joy and happiness in agenting. This job is tough, and (as you saw above) SO full of rejection both on the doling out side AND the receiving side… just like all parts of publishing, it seems. If I start giving in to guilt, and let it eke in here, leak in there and seep in yonder, I know I have the capacity to make this job something I dread instead of something I look forward to.
This doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy for the authors I’m rejecting. It means I’m trying to build a boundary in my heart, and remind myself that I can’t let myself feel all the feels as I hit reject 2,300 times (literally). If so, I’d likely send myself into a mental health crisis—and no one wants that! (Especially not my husband, kids, or clients!)
So do I feel bad for rejecting people? I mean—I’m not numb. There is a twinge. I’m not gonna lie. The more personalized the query, and the bigger connection I have with that writer and their pitch/pages, the greater the twinge.
But I’ve taught myself (and am still teaching myself!) to take a deep breath and move on, because that’s my job. And to do my job best, I have to stay as happy as I can. I believe that happiness is one of the strongest motivators, and will enable me to have the longest career I possibly can. I want longevity in this career—this is literally my dream job—and keeping my mental space positive is a super important part of that.
Every now and then, especially when I’m rejecting a full manuscript, I am sooo tempted to spiral into imagining what the recipient of my rejection might be feeling upon reading my less-than-desired response—especially if we have a relationship on social media (ugh guys that seriously makes it SO much harder), or it’s after a Revise and Resubmit the author has busted their butt to do for me. There is 100% a stab of pain in my heart when I send those rejections. But after that stab, I have to take control of my mental reins, and refocus my thoughts, because that’s an unproductive path for me to walk down.
It’s really a very similar strategy to how I fall asleep when I’m anxious. If I’m having trouble quieting my mind at night, I replace the anxious thoughts with other, relaxing thoughts (usually the visualization of a peaceful scene). Except in this case, I replace the guilt with an immediate focus-switch to whatever is next: the next query, the next full, the next client manuscript.
So to go back to the original question: how do I feel about the fact that “an everyday part of an agent's job does contribute to people having a bad day or crying or even giving up on publishing altogether”?
Terrible!
So I force myself not to dwell on it, I do my best to mentally get back into my lane, and move on.
And heaven knows there is enough work waiting for me to refocus on.
I’m so curious—how do you handle guilt in your work life? Or heck, your life-life? Any strategies I should add to my arsenal?
If any other agents are reading this, I’d love to hear from you, too: how do YOU deal with all the rejections we dole out??
Guilt is such a tricky thing. Thanks for sharing your insight!
I've been a big fan of shifting my "I'm sorry" to "Thanks for your patience" where I can. I say it at least twice a day, often when I join a meeting I'm supposed to be leading 3 minutes late. Am I sorry? Kinda. I really appreciate punctuality, but I probably used those 3 minutes to pee after my two previous back-to-back calls and I'd make the same choice again. And maybe I'm actually a bit sorry I didn't make it 4 minutes so I could grab some string cheese to fight off the hanger that's been building.
You are an agent that wears their heart on their sleeve, so much abundance of love and respect for authors. We’re lucky to have you in the writing community and a champion for authors!