Have you ever gotten someone else's rejection?

[Dragonfly45]

Ok, so today in my mail, there was one of my SASE's, but inside was a rejection of a partial for someone else. Some poor little soul is out there biting his or her nails waiting for response, and low and behold I have the answer...

[maestrowork]

I got two, and I wondered if my acceptance (yeah right) went to someone else. I sent the rejections back and told them they'd sent to the wrong person.

[zahra]

I got two, and I wondered if my acceptance (yeah right) went to someone else. .

Oh, that's right, start me dreaming. By 10pm I'll be convinced this is what's happened. Thanks. Cos I really wasn't quite loopy enough already.

[Julie Worth]

I've never gotten the wrong rejection, but sometimes I get two on the same submission. As if the agent wanted to emphasize how much it sucked, and one rejection was simply not sufficient.

[RickN]

I've never gotten the wrong rejection, but sometimes I get two on the same submission. As if the agent wanted to emphasize how much it sucked, and one rejection was simply not sufficient.

OUCH! Did the agent Fedex them? Signature required just to make sure you got the message?

[Maryn]

Yes, twice I've received someone else's rejection in the same envelope as mine, via my SASE. Both times their query letter was included, so I just made an envelope and sent it on without comment. (Although I couldn't help noticing things in the query I'd have done differently.)

Maryn, assuming good office staff is hard to come by

[Carmy]

I've never gotten the wrong rejection, but sometimes I get two on the same submission. As if the agent wanted to emphasize how much it sucked, and one rejection was simply not sufficient.


LOL It's bad enough getting one rejection, but two!

Glad to hear you didn't stick your head in the oven after that.

[callalily61]

I got two, and I wondered if my acceptance (yeah right) went to someone else. I sent the rejections back and told them they'd sent to the wrong person.

I did the same when it happened to me.

[jenngreenleaf]

No, but I’ve gotten an acceptance addressed to John once and Jeanne another time. :Shrug:

[Chicken Warrior]

I once got an empty SASE. I assumed that meant they were rejecting me.

[illiterwrite]

I once got two rejections on the same short story from the same journal, a couple of month apart. One was a handwritten note saying my story was touching and funny; the other a form letter. I chose to believe the handwritten rejection (though my story was most definitely not funny).

[Novelhistorian]

I have. I once got someone else's rejection, scrawled on the query letter, sent to me in my SASE. I got in touch with him to see whether he'd gotten my rejection. He hadn't, and I never heard again from that agent.

His query, BTW, was dreadful. It was pretty obvious he'd never bothered to learn how to write a query, had no idea how to present his book, and lacked confidence in it. Odd thing, he was an academic and presumably no stranger to research. So why hadn't he bothered to find out about how to do it right?

[Doctor Shifty]

Yes, twice I've received someone else's rejection in the same envelope as mine, via my SASE. Both times their query letter was included, so I just made an envelope and sent it on without comment. (Although I couldn't help noticing things in the query I'd have done differently.)

Maryn, assuming good office staff is hard to come by

If I was a agent or publisher I would do this often, but only with queries that did not include there own SASE. An easy way to get somebody else to pay the postage. :-)

Kim

[Crinklish]

I'm chagrined to admit that I've sent the wrong rejection letter to someone before--or two someones, I suppose. One of them called me, and as they read my letter back it was clear that it referred to a different submission I'd rejected at the same time. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the caller's letter in my files, and thus told her she was welcome to resubmit since I couldn't find the letter I'd meant to send. She then gave me attitude about the additional postage.

When the submission arrived again, I remembered it immediately upon reading the first paragraph. It was awful. But this time I got the right letter in the right envelope!

[Shadow_Ferret]

I always get the wrong rejection because I know they really mean to say they loved it. However, I've never pursued any of it. F--- em. If they can't get a simple acceptance right without screwing up, how do I know they won't screw up the rest of my writing career?

[DeleyanLee]

Sure--and, interestingly enough, they had my same name! ;-)

Seriously, the one time it happened to me, I got my rejection letter--along with someone else's rejection and yet a third someone's request for full.

You want to talk about some serious lack of quality control in someone's office? LOL! Some people should really not work without a caffeine IV, y'know?