Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Writer Sends Rejection Letters to Literary Agents


One of our readers, fed up with receiving form rejection letters from literary agents, has taken to sending his own rejection letters to the agents: 
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RECEIVED:
Dear Writer,
Thank you so much for writing me about your project. I read and consider each query carefully and, while yours is not exactly what I am looking for, I would certainly encourage you to keep trying. I know your work is important to you and I am grateful that you wrote to me.
All best,
[redacted]
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RESPONSE:
Dear Agent,
Thank you for sending me your standard response and, while I appreciate your ability to copy and paste, your form letter is not what I am looking for in the way of feedback. It may seem sincere to you, and I would certainly encourage you to keep sending it to other writers, but I cannot accept it at this time.
Best,
Writer
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We spoke with the writer about his reasons for counter-rejecting those who have rejected him, and he had this to say:

"I kind of feel like the agents are all sitting on their cookbooks and vampire novels and nobody's taking on new clients.  They probably read queries looking for an excuse to reject them instead of with an ear for what might be good. If you've got anything quirky in your pitch, you don't stand a chance. Self publishing is sure to push them out of the picture eventually. In the meantime, I feel it's only right to bring them down to earth a little and give them a dose of their own medicine.  Maybe it's childish, but it gives me a laugh. You can't take yourself too seriously. That's the only way to make it through all the rejection and keep writing at the same time."

We applaud the writer's coping technique and have adopted it by preemptively rejecting all possible bearers of bad news, from mortgage brokers to members of the opposite sex.  And if the deli on 2nd Avenue that was out of chicken noodle soup this afternoon is reading this, we reject YOU.

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