When should you revise a query letter or submission package?

Short answer: Ismita Hussain’s advice: A form rejection rarely identifies the problem, but repeated fast rejections or no requests across a measured batch are signals to review the query letter, genre, word count and agent list.

Answered by Ismita Hussain, Senior Literary Agent, Great Dog Literary.

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The agent’s answer

Moderator Sarah Fisk notes that most form rejections do not reveal whether the query, synopsis or pages caused the decision. Ismita recommends watching patterns rather than reacting to one response: repeated immediate rejections or a complete lack of requests after an initial batch can justify revisiting the query letter, genre classification and agent targeting. In a separate session, Rachel Beck says a long unsuccessful campaign is a reason to make changes and recommends seeking specific outside feedback through a course or professional critique. None of the three treats a single rejection count as a universal rule.

In Ismita’s words

It doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with the query letter itself, or something wrong with your manuscript.
Ismita Hussain, 43:37

Source: Query Letters 101.