10 R&R (Revise & Resubmit) FAQ by Laura Galán-Wells

I am by no means an expert in R&Rs, but I did have an out of the ordinary agent querying journey so experienced more scenarios than most, with 86 partial and full requests, 9 of which turned into R&Rs. Additionally, my shared knowledge stems from writer support networks, blogs, podcasts, and agent interviews.

Disclaimer: There is no ONE WAY to handle R&Rs that all writers or agents would agree on, much less that would ensure success. I’ll aim to speak in terms of what I hear most often recommended.

1/ What is an R&R?

“R&R” stands for revise and resubmit. The agent is open to seeing your work again if you revise it. This might range from a nebulous, “If you ever revise this, feel free to send it again,” to, “I have ideas for how you could revise this. Would you like to hear more?”

2/ What if you’re not sure if it’s an R&R?

This comes up a lot. Sometimes an agent will make it extremely clear that it is an R&R, saying something like:

• I would like to offer you an R&R.

• I would like to invite you to revise and resubmit.

• Feel free to send this to me in the future if you do significant revisions.

But it can be more nebulous like:

• I wish the X had been Y. Please feel free to submit to me in the future. (Submit this project? Or a different one?)

• Feel free to send it back if you revise. (To your specifications? For someone else? For myself? How significant of a revision?)

And sometimes the reason for rejection is so specific and seems so fixable, you wonder if they would reconsider if you made the change. In these cases, it’s a good idea to check Query Tracker comments to see if you’re misinterpreting form language as personalized feedback.

3/ What is it okay to ask?

• I just wanted to make sure, is this an R&R?

• If I made x, y, z changes, would you be open to having a second look?

• Would you be open to my sending an outline of proposed changes before I get to work on the R&R?

• Anything at all you’re unsure about. Be bold!

4/ How often do R&Rs result in offers?

The figure I’ve seen floating around is that roughly 1 in 5 R&Rs results in an offer, but I have no idea how or when this data was collected. And yes, this is very depressing if true, especially since some of these are straight up ghosts where the agent never reads it, despite nudging, or the agent leaves agenting before they have time to. But even if the agent does read the R&R, they will often still reject, even if they feel you’ve executed what they requested.

You can read the details of the 9 R&Rs I received on my website—lauragalanwells.com—but to summarize for this question, they were from 8 agents (yes, one gave me two R&R opportunities), and ultimately 2 of these agents offered (in addition to agents who didn’t request an R&R) and 6 didn’t. It was definitely the case that more rejected than offered.

5/ Should I do the R&R? 

This is a very very individual decision. Some things to consider. 

An agent who does not very obviously ask for an R&R, or who doesn’t give very specific instructions, might be less likely to connect with a new version. 

An agent who specifically asks for an R&R and gives detailed suggestions, may still reject, even after acknowledging that you did what they asked.

Are there any patterns in personalized rejections you’re getting (again, after making sure it isn’t form language), or have you gotten more than one R&R? You may want to do a completely different major revision of your own.

Will the R&R make your novel stronger while also not changing/removing any content that is deeply important to you? It may be worth doing.

Note: Very rarely, an agent might ask for an exclusive R&R. You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re toward the end of your querying journey. If you do, I recommend putting a time limit on the exclusivity, for example, asking the agent if they’d be willing to read within 4 weeks. 

6/ Can I ask the agent for more guidance on the R&R?

Absolutely. I highly recommend it. You don’t want to go off and do tons of work then realize that the agent actually wanted something else. Or you may be willing to change some things and not others. You may want to explain to the agent why you want to keep something and ask if it would be negotiable.

When an agent once gave me very specific instructions via an edit letter, I wrote an outline for how I planned to address each point, and asked if she would be willing to look it over. She was happy to do so, and we went back and forth a few times until we both felt confident we were on the same page. She ultimately offered and was the offer I chose (Samantha Wekstein). She had an edge over the other agents who offered because I was already familiar with her feedback style, and loved it.

Ideally, you want to feel good about the R&R and know exactly what you are doing and why. Because it is a LOT of work, and the odds are high that it will be rejected. But if you agree the changes will strengthen the novel in a way that aligns with your vision, and it’s rejected, you will still have gotten a free developmental edit, and ended up with a stronger product.

7/ Should I tell agents with my query/partial/full about my R&R? 

This is very individual. Some people withdraw their queries with a note that they’re working on an R&R and will resubmit. If it’s an agent who is generally low communication with writers, or takes a really long time to answer queries, or only reads if you get an offer from another agent, then you may want to let them read whatever sample pages they already have. 

With an agent who has already given you a partial/full request, you’ll want to consider the same things, but you’re in a better position for the agent to see/read communications from you. You can ask if they’d like to read what they have now, or if they would rather wait for your revision/R&R to be ready. Give a rough overview of what the R&R will entail because they may prefer to see the current version instead.

8/ Should I offer my R&R (or revision I did for myself) to an agent who previously rejected my query?

Those who are okay with revised manuscripts being re-queried tend to prefer at least six months to have passed. If it was a query rejection, the sample pages should probably look significantly different or they’ll just reject again. But if they never got past the query letter in the first place, and that hasn’t changed, they may reject at that point. Consider adding a sentence or two at the beginning of the query letter to explain that you’ve done a huge revision. 

9/ Should I offer my R&R (or revision I did for myself) to an agent who previously rejected my partial or full request?

These agents are more likely to be willing to take a second look. In my experience, the vast majority of agents who rejected my partial/full said yes to seeing a new version after an R&R when I asked. Some even read three versions, and one of those ultimately offered. 

10/ How long should I take to do R&R? 

Advice on this is all over the place. I’ve seen writers and agents advise that you should take at least X weeks, but no longer than Y weeks, where X and Y are different number of weeks. If you do it too quickly, the agent might assume you rushed it. If you take too long, the agent might lose interest or lose track of/forget your project. Others point out that if you get a deal down the line, an editor might expect you to turn around edits in 3 weeks, so it might appear as a positive that you work fast. But not everyone works that fast, or can. 

But it’s complicated. We all work at different paces. R&Rs vary widely in scale. You may have beta readers or critique partners read it, or not, and they may be fast readers, or slow. 

My suggestion is to ask the agent for a guideline. Most will say to take as long as you need, and that’s the ideal. Your path is your own. Ultimately, they want the version they see to be the absolute best it can be, and would rather wait however long it takes to get a polished product.

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I hope some of this was helpful! Best of luck on your querying journey and please look me up across social media @lauragalanwells and check out my How I Got My Agent and 34 Querying FAQ blog posts at LauraGalanWells.com