Can a Sista Get a—Hey Girl or Somethin’…

I’ve been missing in action from my blog for the last two months because I’ve been working on my manuscript and finishing the last of my edits. It’s pretty exhausting but a necessary part of being a writer and I thank God everyday for my editor. But more grueling then working on edits is preparing a query to send to agents.

I’m very diligent before I send out my letters: researching their websites, reading the guidelines, ensuring they accept my genre and making sure they accept unsolicited materials. But most importantly my queries and manuscripts need to be free of grammatical errors. So it confuses me when I receive responses/rejects that have errors and are often impolite.

Believe me, I am no newbie to the world of rejects. I respect and understand that these agents and publishers receive piles of queries and I give props to the ones who take the time to respond. But is it asking too much for these responses to have some sort of decorum?

Recently, I received two rejects via email. The first one wrote, 'not intrasted' and the second, 'no thannks'. This is their spelling not mine. They also didn't respect me enough to add a salutation.

Experts suggest that when we receive these rejects we should not respond in kind. Basically keep our mouths shut and move on. But come on. I’ve received my fair share of form letters and I’d rather have one of those then a response that has no thought put into it.

But as they say, ‘three is a charm’. The third email I received, though it was also a reject, restored my faith that there are agents out there who are not just kind and considerate but they also understands how hard it is for any writer to put themselves out there. I thank her and all agents like her. Below is the email I received minus the name of the agent.

****

Thanks for writing to me about your work.

I'm sorry, this is a pass for me.

Right now my list is very full, and I'm fortunate that business
is very good so I have to pass on projects that are not only
good and publishable but ones I really like. That's a good
problem for me, but it just stinks from the writer's
viewpoint, yes indeed it does.

I strongly encourage you to query widely. Other agents have more wiggle room
on their lists and are able to take on more than I can.

Please think of this as redirection to another agent, not rejection.

Very best wishes to you!

But I also want to point out that even if I had not received the third email I was not daunted by the first two. I actually chuckled.

If you believe that you have a good, no great story (and I believe that I do), keep putting your work out there.

You only need one yes.