Donald Maass Literary Agency

After a week, I received an e-mail rejection for DM. And I must say I'm very disappointed in their attitude. Other big agencies, no matter how busy they are, they always C&P my last name at least. It's a long and complex surname, BTW.

But DM sent a letter beginning with "Dear Author". I'm really disappointed. Maybe the only good thing is they didn't send it as mass mail.

starscape said:

But DM sent a letter beginning with "Dear Author". I'm really disappointed. Maybe the only good thing is they didn't send it as mass mail.

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Dear Author/form rejections actually aren't uncommon, and not necessarily a mark against the agency.

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

Dear Author/form rejections actually aren't uncommon, and not necessarily a mark against the agency.

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Yeah, they're about as common as oxygen usually. I got tons of them, some of them just little slips of paper in envelopes. Like, pre-made rejection postcards.

Nothing to fret over. It's not a personal afront.

tri

I think this is pretty common. I suspect it's because the email response is a macro, so it's just like they hit a button to reject it.

They probably get so many queries that even cutting and pasting would take up too much time (I think I read a figure of 35000 a year somewhere for one agency), but personally I would rather have a quick, impersonal response than be held in suspense.

Currently waiting to hear from Cameron McClure, who I queried on 29/01.

It's not an attitude, as someone said it's a pushbutton reject. These agencies get hundreds of proposals a day and can't personally respond to them all. I feel you though. I put a lot of effort into my origional round of proposals and felt slighted by standard rejections. Commiseration helps, and AW folks are great to commiserate with.

I tried to email a query to Donald's agency on Monday last (Feb 16). My email bounced. I believe my anti-virus software trapped and disposed of a trojan round about the same time...Hmmm

I just submitted a query yesterday. Mine didn't bounce so I guess we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed!

Just to note: Stephen Barbara is now at Foundry Literary + Media.

- Victoria

So far, I've found everyone very friendly at Donald Maass. I queried without pasting in the first five pages (oops!), and after a week, I got an email inviting me to send the first five. Not "Dear Author," either, so that makes me feel pretty good.

--Dev

Remember, this is a business.

They're checking the words to see if those words can make everyone money, and that's all. It's nothing personal, which I KNOW is hard to take since we are so attached to our books!

If they don't like that particular bunch of words, you try them on another agent and be working on the next bunch of words.

And I'd much rather have an impersonal rejection than one of those "If you send us anything else ever again we're getting a court order against you."

Now those just hurt!

Gillhoughly said:

And I'd much rather have an impersonal rejection than one of those "If you send us anything else ever again we're getting a court order against you."

Now those just hurt!

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Hey.....what are you doing poking around in my inbox??

Cameron McClure bumped me last night - I was amazed to see the email, as I kind of assumed that it had been so long since I posted it (27/1/2009) that it was a rejection by silence.

So that was kind of nice in a weird way.

Funnily enough, the synopsis and first five pages have now changed so much that the rejection materials looked a bit sad and amateur. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

starscape said:

After a week, I received an e-mail rejection for DM. And I must say I'm very disappointed in their attitude. Other big agencies, no matter how busy they are, they always C&P my last name at least. It's a long and complex surname, BTW.

But DM sent a letter beginning with "Dear Author". I'm really disappointed. Maybe the only good thing is they didn't send it as mass mail.

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Starscape,may I offer a bit of perspective? I'm a small trade press who receives hundreds of submissions a month, and I usually try to c&p the author's name into the rejection letter, but I often forget since it's a form rejection letter. Donald Maas receives thousands. He's lucky to remember where he parked his coffee mug. In the end, does the salutation make that big of a difference? The message is what you're after.

I just spent the weekend with Donald and other great, talented agents at the Big Sur conference, and I can attest that he is a lovely man who cares deeply about authors and great writing just as much as we all do. But please keep in mind that this is business, and you're after one thing; a yes or a no. Be grateful that he's one of those who makes every attempt to answer queries in a timely fashion. If you saw our offices, you'd faint.

Anything other than "yes" is "no."

There is no profit in practicing rejectomancy. Go on to the next agent on your list. Meanwhile, continue working on your next book.

In post #94 Aruna wrote:
"Does anyone check out the "What we're looking for this month" feature on the Maass website? It's updated each month and weirdly, some of the examples are very specific.
Anyone, for instance, got a ms on a gamer who reaches the top in South Korea, or a thriller with bike messenger as protag?"

Hi,
I'm new here and only saw this thread a little while ago. This post caught my eye because I DO have a thriller with a bike messenger protag! Weird. When I checked the DMLA site they still had holiday themed stories up from '08. I'd like to query them about my novel in case they're still looking for that type of thing but this post is from Jan '08. Would it be out of line to query for this even though their listing is a year old? Any tips/advice are much appreciated.

As far as e-mail rejections go, I'd rather get a form letter or preprinted postcard than nothing at all. Some agencies now just don't respond if they're not interested, and not all of them will tell you this up front.

RiseBeauty said:

In post #94 Aruna wrote:
"Does anyone check out the "What we're looking for this month" feature on the Maass website? It's updated each month and weirdly, some of the examples are very specific.
Anyone, for instance, got a ms on a gamer who reaches the top in South Korea, or a thriller with bike messenger as protag?"

Hi,
I'm new here and only saw this thread a little while ago. This post caught my eye because I DO have a thriller with a bike messenger protag! Weird. When I checked the DMLA site they still had holiday themed stories up from '08. I'd like to query them about my novel in case they're still looking for that type of thing but this post is from Jan '08. Would it be out of line to query for this even though their listing is a year old? Any tips/advice are much appreciated.

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Interesting! I say go for it. Honestly, I don't think they post what they're looking for and suddenly get a flood of that type of story. So query them!

dreamsofnever said:

Interesting! I say go for it. Honestly, I don't think they post what they're looking for and suddenly get a flood of that type of story. So query them!

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That's a good point. For some reason I thought they'd be overflowing with bike messenger stories after that. I'll take a shot and query them. It sure couldn't hurt. Thanks

Does anyone know what Jennifer Jackson's response time is? I queried her a couple of weeks ago and haven't heard anything. Is she a "no, thanks/no response" agent?

Rebecca_Rogers said:

Does anyone know what Jennifer Jackson's response time is? I queried her a couple of weeks ago and haven't heard anything. Is she a "no, thanks/no response" agent?

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I got a rejection from her after about four weeks.

Thanks, Vandal. I guess I'll just keep patiently waiting. ::sigh::

For some reason I thought he was older, but he looks pretty young in his profile pic on that website.

From what I've figured, he's in his mid to late forties. Type in his name under "images" in Yahoo. Also, he started in the publishing business in the late '70s.