Tuesday, April 16, 2019

The way to do it


Do you recall a previous blog post when I was railing against a rude rejection I'd received from a literary agent? It absolutely wasn't the rejection I was cross about, but the dismissive tone of their one line email: 

'Many thanks for your email and material but I'm afraid we're going to pass.'

You spend three years writing and rewriting a novel, agonising over it, trying your best to make it precisely what you want it to be, and they send you one dismissive sentence.

dismissive

synonyms:contemptuousdisdainfulscornfulsneeringsnidescathing,
disparagingnegativeunenthusiasticoffhandperfunctory;


This morning I got another rejection. This is how it should be done.

Dear Sue,

Thank you for giving the xxxxxxx Agency a chance to consider your work. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your submission.

Whilst I enjoyed reading your opening chapters, I am afraid that I did not feel quite gripped enough to absolutely fall in love with your writing.

As an agency, we feel that it is immensely important for new writers to have an agent who believes completely in the potential of their work to sell and who can therefore take that enthusiasm to the publishers. Accordingly, we need to feel really passionate about a writer’s work before we sign them onto the agency.

We receive nearly 600 manuscripts a week and can only take on a select number of debut writers every year. The result is that we have to be incredibly selective. This is an entirely subjective decision and I have no doubt that another agent will feel differently. 

I wish you the very best of luck in finding an agent who is right for you.

Best wishes,


OK. Rant over. 

Dave is still formatting the text: there are an awful lot of anarchic indents in it that need to be brought into line. He said this morning that seeing all the dialogue in the text - seeing it, not reading it - made him feel ill. What a good job he isn't my target reader.

You, my dear blog readers, are my target readers. 

I'm aiming to publish it in May.

I had a fab bike ride this morning, and met my friends up the hill again:








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