No matter how you cut it, it’s never fun being rejected. This holds especially true when you’re an author who’s invested a significant amount of time, effort and sanity in writing your book. It’s exciting when you query an agent and he or she requests to see your book. On the flip side, it can be a real buzz kill when your project is turned down.

Why do I bring this up? While I realize it can be a huge disappointment to have your project passed on by an agent, I want authors to know that there’s a proper way to accept rejection. For many writers, this is not a problem and they accept their rejection letters tactfully. However, I’ve interacted with other writers who overstep their boundaries with me when it comes to being rejected.

Usually when authors are rejected, agents should give them an explanation and a few reasons why their books weren’t viable. (NOTE: I am referring to when an agent turns a project down after requesting and reviewing it, NOT when a writer initially queries an agent and the query is declined). Personally, I think this is a pretty square deal, since an agent was interested enough to look at your projects in the first place. However, just because an agent tells you why he or she is rejecting your projects, this does not mean that he or she is still considering representing them.

There have been a few times when writers I’ve turned down have resubmitted their books to me with revisions I suggested in their rejection letters. Nowhere in these letters did I instruct these authors to do so, and nowhere did I say I’d give them feedback on their revised projects. 

Unless agents expressly state that authors can resubmit their books after correcting any issues listed in their rejection letters, the agents are not still considering these projects. Rejected writers cannot automatically assume that an agent is still working with them on their books just because he or she reviewed them once. It's hard to hear sometimes, but to put it quite simply, “no” means “no”.

Rachel