My Favorite Rejection Letters

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yes, I’m officially being published by NineStar Press, with a release date of November 27 of this year. The final editing has yet to occur (I’m waiting to receive the first set of change requests from the editor assigned to me) but they’re already ramping up in various ways, including creating an author’s page for me on their site.
I’m doing some of my own ramping up, preparing a centralized mailing list for LGBTQetc centers, women’s studies / gender studies programs at colleges, and independent and/or LGBT-centric book stores. My publicist will be back from vacation late this week and will help me craft a set of emails to pitch to them the idea of having me come speak and/or consider my book (to sell, in the case of bookstores; to have a copy or two on shelf in the case of LGBTQIA centers; to use as assigned reading in the case of gender studies / women’s studies classes).

Meanwhile, I thought I’d celebrate the end of querying by posting some of my favorite rejection letters from lit agents and publishing house editors!
Most rejection letters are, of course, boring and have little to offer in the way of entertainment value. There are the genuine non-form-letter variety, which tend to be succinct and blunt little things:

**Not for me-thanks anyway.

Paul S. Levine

This is not for me, but thank you for the look.

Caitlin Blasdell

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… then there are the impersonal form letters which tend to have some generic reassurances (it’s all subjective, keep querying other agents, etc) to all those authors like me who fill up the agents’ slush piles:
**
Thank you for your query. Having considered it carefully, we have decided that LMQ is not the right fit for your project, and so we are going to pass at this time.

Tastes and specializations vary widely from agent to agent, and another agency may well feel differently. Thank you for thinking of our agency, and we wish you the best of luck in your search for representation.

Sincerely,

Lippincott Massie McQuilkin

Dear Author,

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to consider your query—thanks for sending it.

Unfortunately, the query didn’t appeal quite enough to my own tastes to inspire me to offer representation or further consideration of your project. I wish I had the time to respond to everyone with constructive criticism, but it would be overwhelming,hence this form response.

This business is highly subjective; many people whose work I haven’t connected with have gone on to critical and commercial success. So, keep after it.
I am grateful that you have afforded me this opportunity to find out about you and your project, and wish you the best of success with your current and future creative work.

All best wishes,
Eddie Schneider**
One variety of more personal rejection letter that would come in from time to time was where the agent said they couldn’t take on my book because it was too much like one they already had in their lineup. That was always encouraging to read after getting so many generic rejections that I started to worry that the concept or topic just wasn’t regarded as worthy of publication:
**
Dear Allan,

Strange as this may seem, Icurrently represent a project that is directly competitive with yours. In good conscience, I can’t takeon a project that competes withthe property I am now pitching. I wish you well,but have to pass on this. Best, Maryann Karinch

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Hi Allan,

Thanks for thinking of us! I’m afraid, however, it is a little too close to something we have forthcoming and potentially forthcoming on our list, so I have to decline. I wish you the very best of luck.

Best,

Lauren MacLeod

Allan: Thanks but I already did a similar book, BOTH SIDES NOW with Dylan
Khosla and my list is too small for another…Best of luck.

Sharlene Martin

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**
Then there were the “platform” rejection letters — the ones that basically said my writing was good and it sounded like a good story but that they’d have a hard time hooking me up with a mainstream commercial publisher because I wasn’t a household name, a writer with a following, a celebrity, etc.

Incidentally, I ultimately ended up doing as Alice Speilburg suggests below — putting my energy into querying small independent publishers instead of querying literary agents — but it made sense to try the lit agents first, since many of them don’t want to take on a manuscript that’s already been seen by a bunch of publishers.

**

Dear Allan,

Thanks so much for sending your heartfelt memoir. The big issue standing in the way of my taking you on is not editorial, since you write cleanly and smoothly. It’s a matter of platform, that built-in audience who knows the author through some form of media. With the comparisons you gave, it’s the authors and their reach beyond the book world that distinguishes them. Feinberg has long been a rights advocate in the spotlight, Boyle had a successful writing career as a man, and the Scholinkski was a case that got media coverage that led to a book deal, not the other ay around. Publishing is an industry that can ride a wave but is not so great at making them. It’s a shame that a good book is no longer enough, but I see a tough road ahead without a really impressive platform. I appreciate the chance, though, and wish you luck connecting with an agent who doesn’t share my reservations.

Christopher Schelling

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Dear Allan,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to considerThe Story of Q.I do like the subject here, but I’m not convinced that you have the platform for this to reach a mainstream audience in the current market. Your background lends itself better to a university press, and if you want to go a more consumer/trade route, it would have to be through a niche publisher like Seal Press. I’m afraid it’s not right for me, but please keep in mind that mine is a subjective opinion and others will feel differently. I wish you the best in finding a good home for your work.

Sincerely,

Alice Speilburg

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Finally —— and these are my real favorites —— there were the rejections where the lit agent or publisher didn’t feel that they could place it with a publisher but fundamentally liked my idea for the book and mostly liked my writing. Many of them made observations about my story arc or my character development that reassured me that readers will probably “get it”; and several told me that they wanted me to know that I had something fundamentally good here, which would serve a purpose, that the world needed more such books:

**
Dear Mr. Hunter,

Thank you for your query. It sounds like you have quite a story to tell. I’m afraid I will not be able to take you on as I work predominantly with our agency’s existing clients taking care of all their subsidiary rights matters. I wish you luck with your publishing endeavors and thank you for taking the time to write me.

Sincerely,

Joan Rosen

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Hi Allan
Thank you for your submission. As a gay man myself (who grew up in the
70s/80s!!) I read it with a great deal of interest. Unfortunately I didn’t
love it enough to take it on. I don’t have any constructive criticism
because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your writing. I think
it’s just a matter of finding the right agent who will work with you to
present to the best editorial team. Given your theme and writing skills I
don’t doubt that you’ll find him or her. Thank you for thinking of me and
giving me a shot at it.
Best,

Kevin O’Connor

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Dear Mr. Hunter,

I wanted to commend you for your story and personal fortitude. It takes great strength for an individual to dare to be different. Unfortunately, we are not sure that Ross Yoon is the right match for you. As a four-person operation, we must limit ourselves to a very small client list, accepting a fraction of 1% of the manuscripts we review every year. In this ever-tightening market, the list of publishers we work with increasingly demands authors with broad, national media outreach and international bestselling potential, and I’m we afraid we don’t see any of them biting on this.

This is by no means a final judgment on your work. The Supreme Court decision two weeks ago indicates that we are experiencing a different social climate in which LGBTQ issues no longer fall on deaf ears. Your memoir may find traction as we progress towards greater social change. I encourage you to look through recent deal listings on www.publishersmarketplace.com to find the agent that’s perfect for you.

Thank you again, and best of luck to you.
Elizabeth Smith

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Dear Allan,

Thank you for sending me your memoir “The Story of Q,” and my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I found much to admire, particularly the depth of character you convey and your clear and engaging writing.Thismemoir shines a unique light on how sexuality and gender develop and evolve, and the narrative you’ve crafted uses a more subtle approach that doesn’t hit you in the face with the narrator’s sexuality, just as a person’s sexuality doesn’t necessarily hit them in the face at any one moment.

Ultimately, however, while the story hasthe potential for exposing a truly unique perspective, the memoir is overloaded with extraneous development that makes it difficult to pick out what bits are going to be the most importantwhenpiecing together the whole. Given these reservations, I’m afraid I must decline offering representation.

Thank you for the opportunity to read your work and we wish you all the best in your writing endeavors.

Yours,

Serene Hakim

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Hi Allen

Thanks for the submission. While I totally get what you’re doing, I just don’t think I’m the right agent for it, so for that reason I’ll be stepping aside.

I wish you much luck with the book and in your search for representation.

Best,

Renée C. Fountain

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Thank you for querying. I do very much believe you have the kind of story that should be heard, but I’m going to have to pass on this. Publishing is a subjective business, though, and I’m sure you’ll hear many different opinions during the querying process.

Best of luck in your agent search,

Rachel Kory

Dear Allan Hunter,

Thank you so much for sending us the query for yourmemoir The Story of Q, which we have read with interest. The narrative is compelling but we are takingvery few new clients on at this timeand therefore we must pass.

One of the challenges with writing memoir is keeping the story in scenes so that it flows narratively rather than as a series of told incidents (and then this, and then this). I wonder if you might find ways to write more scenes, like in the opening with the boys who are violent. I really connected with you (the character) in that scene.

Ihope this is not too discouraging, as the writing is strong and we wish you all the best with your submissions and in securing representation for this project.

Thank you so much for sending this our way.

I hesitate to use the word “brave” when describing your story, because I know that word can be offensive to some in the LGBTQ(xyz) community, but please know you have all the love and support in the world and that the publishing industry is starting to open its eyes to the need for these kinds of stories.

I’m personally a huge fan of Caitlin Kiernan (though she writes sci-fi/fantasy) and I can’t wait to see more diversity in literature.

All my very best, and please make sure you keep submitting, as I know this agent stuff can be slow and disheartening!

brandie coonis

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Oh, and here’s how my statistics finally play out:
The Story of Q – total queries to Lit Agents = 974
Rejections: 966
Outstanding: 8

As NonFiction— total queries = 748
Rejections: 741
Outstanding: 7

As Fiction— total queries = 226
Rejections: 225
Outstanding: 1

The Story of Q – total queries to Publishers = 24
Rejections: 16
Outstanding: 7
Publisher Went out of Business after Making Offer: 1
Accepted for Publication (current): 1
(presumably those remaining 8 “outstanding” queries to lit agents and 7 to publishers will eventually be added to “rejections”. I age them out as rejections at 3 months without a response if I don’t get an explicit rejection letter)

I didn’t quite make it to 1000 queries, but damn I came close!

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This a reposted blog post. Cleared with the moderators in advance.

2

Congrats! Wow, that’s a lot of queries. How did you find all those agents? I’ve been querying a novel for the past few months, and I’ve only found about a hundred or so. Is there a database or some other resource that I’ve missed?

3

How cynical are you about the process and the industry?

From my layperson perspective those impersonal form letters with generic reassurances seem … sweeter and more honest than I’d expect. I assume they have to send out form letters just to get through the day, but they seem to go out of their way to say “hey, maybe I suck and am like the guy who passed on the Beatles, so don’t give up”. I wonder if it’s a little too easy to look back on these guys and laugh, forgetting that it’s a difficult and subjective job that probably has a lot of luck and timing in it too.

4

I used agentquery.com, mostly, with a handful of other resources to patch in (especially somebody’s blog about NEW memoir-specific agents which got updated every 6 months or so).

Querytracker was probably my second-most-used source, and publishers market place online mostly to verify that a given agent was actually alive and had done at least something since, say, 2004 and had ever, at least once, done a memoir or an LGBTish title.

Some of the 990-someodd queries were REqueries, i.e., to the same agent at a later date. For all that some people frown on it, I’m convinced they don’t remember having been queried by you a year later if you got no response or got a form letter rejection. Different if they took the time to write you a real one.

5

I hope not too cynical, but I would not tell an author like me to read books on how to get published, such as How To Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead or to listen to advice from places like absolute write water cooler. 99% of that kind of advice is heavily geared towards the person who wants to write and sell a book which can be a vastly different thing (surprisingly, perhaps) than being a person who has written a book and wants to sell it. Those types of sources are geared towards “write the kind of book that there’s a market for” and the people doing the advising often don’t have any particular insight into “how to sell the book you wrote that you want to get into print” unless the book you did write conveniently happens to overlap with the market trend.

I would cut my losses with lit agents sooner if I had it to do over again. Lit agents don’t really get involved with trying to sell books to niche publishers, and if your material isn’t mainstream with major sales prospects those are the publishers likely to publish your book, which basically means trying to find a lit agent is a hell of a lot more difficult than simply finding a publisher all on your own.

6

I haven’t been there in awhile, but I seriously doubt Absolute Write would actually say you should write a book for a market. Anyone in the business (and there are plenty in AW) will tell you that by the time you finish a book, the market will have changed.

I’ve gotten a lot of rejections over the years. More were personal than form. The one that sticks in my mind was when an anthology editor wanted to publish mine, but it would have been the only humorous story in the anthology. She wanted some humor, but mine was the only submission that was actualy funny and it didn’t fit.

Then there was the time I went to introduce myself to an editor. I was behind her when someone asked about an anthology I was in, saying they were disappointed. The editor said the stories were purchased by a previous editor; she didn’t like them, so she dumped them into an anthology. Then someone asked what sort of story she didn’t like, and she proceeded to describe a story of mine that I had sent to her. I decided not to embarrass her by introducing myself.

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There’s a blog about being rejected by publishers - www.rejectomancy.com - and if you read that you’ll understand that the rejections you’ve chosen to share are of the highest level.

8

Virtually all of the rejections I’ve gotten for the book I’ve been submitting (fiction, this time) have been form rejections. I think I’ve gotten one or two actually-written-by-the-agent-about this-work letters, but I couldn’t swear to it. Actually, half of my rejections are really what I call “Time Outs” – the agent simply never gets in touch with me, so after a certain time, I set it down as a “Time Out” rejection. It’s like a Pocket Veto. I’ve been keeping statistics on my rejections, and Time Outs are as common as flat-out rejections.

(Just for fun – my fastest rejection has been four hours after I sent it, the longest was 93 days, not counting "Time Out"s)

I think my overall favorite rejection was “I cannot represent this book – but send me a copy if it ever gets printed.”

9

Same here. They don’t have time, I guess. I give them 3 months then mark it and count it the same as a rejection.

10

I mark it as rejected after only a month. I have heard from a few after that time, but invariably it’s a formal rejection.

My average rejection time – eliminating the outliers like that 93-day rejection – is ten days, with a standard deviation about the same.

11

Interesting thread. Just out of curiosity, did you get permission from those people to publish their private letters to you? I assume so, but I also assume it’s not legally required. I could of course be wrong on both points.

Also, not to rain on your parade but I suspect some of the shorter ‘personal’ rejections (e.g. the ones saying they already had another similar project in the works) may have been form letters at least to some degree. Or they may not.

Sorry for the negative tone to this post - I’m not hating on you, honest! I admire your writing and your efforts to get published.

12

Naah. It’s an email to me and didn’t contain any request to NOT share it. I don’t think I need their permission, but I’d take any of them down for a lit agent who requested it.

Yeah, true. The ones at the top that went on about subjectivity and encouraging me to keep on trying were only obvious to me as form letters after I’d seen a whole bunch of them. The “similar project already” emails were rare so I was left thinking they weren’t form letters (and why would they bother to lie like that, what’s in it for them?) but you never know, do you?

13

Well, technically, the letter writer holds copyright and needs to grant permission. But I doubt anyone would bother taking you to court over it.