Q: YA Sci-fi
R: 4 days later

Like others, I received a rejection related to my "illustrations" even though I was not submitting an art portfolio. I can see that many others have had the same reaction. I'm not on Bluesky, but I see the comment from somebody else saying she made a mistake and apologizes. Sure, I can give somebody the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure it's not intentional. I know agents receive hundreds of queries a month, most are rejected, and because of time constraints they use form rejections. I get all that.

Still, as somebody who has been in the querying trenches for years, we as authors are putting our hearts out to complete strangers, and to get rejection after rejection is hard enough. When the rejection is not even the right form letter, it hurts even more.

I was going to respond to her on QueryTracker but apparently you are unable to send messages after a query has closed. That she posted an apology on social media is fine, but when people don't see it, it doesn't land. Sending an apology to everybody affected by this would take time, but would also be the right thing to do. Not that I am looking for an apology for myself. I just wanted to let her know that this happened so that she could prevent it from happening to other authors in the future.

Q: 02/26/2026
Form rej: 03/03/2026
93k YA Dystopian Romance

Appreciate the opportunity to be considered.

Q: 3.2.26
105k Dark Academia Fantasy/Thriller
R: 3.3.26
Rejected for illustrations even though I submitted a novel so that’s confusing…f

@ everyone concerned about the illustrator form rejections saying their queries weren't looked at—QM allows agents to create form rejection templates and select the one they want to use when it's time to respond.

Based on Natascha's recent social media posts, she simply accidentally chose the wrong template. This is as easy to do as reply vs. reply all on an email, and is not indicative of how much attention was given to the rejected queries.

Agent responded within two days with kind rejection; however, the reason for rejection stated they were not looking for illustrations which is not what I submitted (I submitted a YA novel). Appears query was not actually looked at based on that comment.