I don't have that much experience (this being my first novel) but it might have been possible that they had more than one thing on the table at the time and needed to narrow it down. I've certainly done the same thing when I grab an armload of books at the store but know I can only buy one. One agency can't represent everybody. It may be that they believed your book has promise, but it would take more work to get it sell-able than other proposals might, and thus elected to pass.I've been going back and forth about whether or not to post my experiences, but I figure I will.
They had previously looked at a full of my 3rd novel, and were not enthusiastic enough to take it on.
I queried them with my 4th novel. In my query, I made it clear what the premise of the novel was, stated my genre (contemporary young adult) and told them that my word count was 50,000 words.
I received a request for a partial, and in the email, Amy told me that my wordcount, at 50,000, was a little low, and would I be willing to make the book longer?
I thought it was a little early to be asking that question, but I said that if an agent interested in representing me asked me to make it longer, then I would discuss that possibility at that time, and attached my partial.
They got back to me very quickly, with one of the strangest personal rejections I've ever received. They did not mention anything that would have indicated that they read my pages. Rather, they said that 1) They felt that, at 50,000 words, it was too short for young adult 2) They felt that young adults would not be interested in reading what I was writing about, ie, the premise.
What I do not understand is, why request pages and get a writer's hopes up only to reject solely on the basis of information that was clearly stated in the query?
Not only that, but they actually asked me, out of curiosity, if other agents were considering the novel, in light of the fact that they didn't think young adults would be at all interested.
I have no hard feelings toward Amy and Linn, I'm sure they're nice people just doing their jobs as best they can, not unlike all of us, but this whole exchange left a bad taste in my mouth, and assuming I don't get an agent on this 4th novel, I don't think I'll be querying them again.
It also sounds as if more than one person weighed in on the subject when it got to that stage.