Do you love all of the types of food that your friends like? Probably not. Any why is that? We all have different tastes, right? What about vacation locations? Restaurants? Outfits? You name it? We don't all like the same things? And the same goes for books. In the publishing world, it is all about subjectivity.
Yes, we are very much trying our best to be rational and looking that things objectively and whether or not a book is marketable, but let's be honest, we are all still human. We all have our own likes and dislikes. There are simply times when we read a proposal and something just doesn't click with us. It is that simple. Does it mean the book is not marketable? No. Does it mean the book is poorly written? No. It just means, it isn't right for us.
This is part of the reason why I am always pushing for you as authors to take the time to truly research those editors and agents. Find out their likes and dislikes. Don't just see if they acquire your genre, check to see what it is about that genre that they like and hate.
For example, let's talk about romance. Are they someone who likes the stories really spicy or are they someone who says, make it spicy but keep it not so graphic. Do they like Alpha males or just the subtly hot guys. Do they want the heroines to be damsels in distress or kick butt heroines?
How about tropes? Are there tropes they hate? Come on now people, how many times do I have to say, I am not a big fan of road trip tropes or "band" tropes to get it to sink it? And yet...
You can even see this by looking at sites such as Publishers Marketplace and seeing who editors and agents are signing. You will see a pattern really fast and figure it out.
Again, we all try our best to not say, "ewwww, I personally don't like it" but hey, if I have to read this over and over again to edit it, you should want me to like it, right?
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