on Jane Friedman site:

The long, frustrating process of querying seems so one-sided. Most queries receive form rejections with cryptic phrases like “I didn’t connect” or “just not for me,” or fall into the deep valley of No response means no.

Author after author asks on Twitter, in writing groups and workshops—why can’t they just say what’s wrong? Make a checkbox or a copy-paste? At least tell me, is it the writing or the story or what? It would take thirty seconds!

Well, no. Responding with brief-but-helpful feedback to your query takes maybe 10 minutes, after the agent has read the query and enough of your first pages to know the book is not a fit and why, then copy-paste “Sorry I didn’t believe your hero” or “Vampires are over.” But agents get upwards of 200 queries each week. Two thousand minutes a week is 33 hours. When are they supposed to, you know, work?