The Daily Rejection

So far my inbox is silent. Dead silent. Cue ominous music.

Carleree said:

So far my inbox is silent. Dead silent. Cue ominous music.

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dum dum dum

Thank you for your inquiry. We are sorry that we cannot invite you to submit your work or offer to represent you. Moreover, we apologize that we cannot respond in a more personal manner.
We wish you the best of luck elsewhere.


This came yesterday, so it doesn't count. I would like to nominate it for most annoying, passive-aggressive form rejection EVAHHH!

deafening silence in my inbox as well. According to Query tracker, all the material I have out now (with 4 diff agents) is "overdue" according to their average response times.

Even more disconcerting, my personal website, which gets like...no traffic... had a hit from Toronto last weekend (one agent is in toronto area) and one hit from NY, NY on monday. And one google search from Georgia for "my name-author" also led some mystery person to my site. All of these visits were pretty lengthy and checked out all the pages. And so now I'm even more antsy. Are they gonna reply, or what???

omg Polly, that one SUCKS. What a b#tch!

yes, it's like they went out of their way to be rude in a sneaky way. But it's also funny today!

Do continuous rejections count? I've had a proposal and a full (both requested) out for a year and a half. Neither agent had responded to my nudges. I don't even deserve a frickin' form email, I guess.

Thinking of them is like, well, poking my tongue where I had the oral surgery. Wish I could stop doing both.

Hathor, would you mind name dropping (in code). I don't ever want to query those agents.

Polly,

I had that exact same rejection yesterday-and it was the second one from that agent for this book in two weeks. Not only does the form suck, she really wanted me to know how much she didn't want to read my book.

Careful,
Nothing yet. Not a peep. Maybe next week. Someone told me NY shuts down early on Fridays-but that doesn't explain the rejections I got late Friday night my time or Saturday afternoon. Sure, they have time to reject query letters, but not enough time to read my submission.

*grumbles*

carefulwithwords said:

Hathor, would you mind name dropping (in code). I don't ever want to query those agents.

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I'll send you a PM.

I got a form rejection just now and I'm feeling really crappy. I'm waiting for two more to come in, and then going to Kindle.

Sorry about the form Helen No chance for a slew of revenge queries?

How many have you sent out Helen? Most of us 'round here think you need to send at least 200 before you can be confident agents aren't interested.

I sent about 250 on my first book and quite a few on my second before I found an agent.

I just got two rejections for my two favorite shorts within 15 minutes of each other. How does that happen? How can things be out there for many months, and then they come in together like they were having some lengthy affair and are only now coming to tell me? And I signed out of my email because I'm afraid it will turn into a menage a trois...

I'm imagining a menage a trois where the participants simply talk.

"I'm sorry. I'm unable to take you on at this time."
"This is a subjective business. I wish you the best of luck."
"It just didn't grab me as I had hoped."
Etc., etc.

I shouldn't laugh, but I can't stop giggling.

I WIN!!!! I just got rejected by J&di R%^mer's Asst.

Sydneyd said:

Sorry about the form Helen No chance for a slew of revenge queries?

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What a lovely thought! I honestly don’t know right now, but I may change my mind tomorrow. Thanks for the reply!

Drachen Jager said:

How many have you sent out Helen? Most of us 'round here think you need to send at least 200 before you can be confident agents aren't interested.

I sent about 250 on my first book and quite a few on my second before I found an agent.

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I’ve been sending out since October and have so far sent approx 12 queries/subs. Wow, I didn’t realise you needed to keep plugging to that extent, lol. But then I haven’t even had any encouraging nibbles either. None have asked to see the full ms.

Still, your post is very encouraging so big thanks!

pollymilton said:

I WIN!!!! I just got rejected by J&di R%^mer's Asst.

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You're brave. I haven't queried her. Instead, I was rejected by everyone else at the agency

Hathor said:

I'm imagining a menage a trois where the participants simply talk.

"I'm sorry. I'm unable to take you on at this time."
"This is a subjective business. I wish you the best of luck."
"It just didn't grab me as I had hoped."
Etc., etc.

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*laughs*

Now I'm going to be unavoidably reading double entendre into all of my rejections. At least now they'll be a little naughty instead of just depressing.

Helen Taft said:

I’ve been sending out since October and have so far sent approx 12 queries/subs. Wow, I didn’t realise you needed to keep plugging to that extent, lol. But then I haven’t even had any encouraging nibbles either. None have asked to see the full ms.

Still, your post is very encouraging so big thanks!

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From my experience the best way to improve is to take that rejection, look at some of the possible reasons why you're being rejected, improve your writing, turn around and get it back out there. I went through a half-dozen cycles like that on my first novel and about three on the second, but it was a huge learning curve. I can look back at my first attempts and see a staggering improvement over the last two years.

Makes me wonder what I saw in myself back then that I figured it was worth carrying on.

Drachen Jager said:

From my experience the best way to improve is to take that rejection, look at some of the possible reasons why you're being rejected, improve your writing, turn around and get it back out there. I went through a half-dozen cycles like that on my first novel and about three on the second, but it was a huge learning curve. I can look back at my first attempts and see a staggering improvement over the last two years.

Makes me wonder what I saw in myself back then that I figured it was worth carrying on.

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Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Btw, I love your signature so true! LOL

nuttin.

2 rejections today--one at 5 and the other at 8pm (both central time). Since I also got a rejection from grad school today, I'm feeling particularly crummy.

Helen, that's a really low number of submissions. Some writers get lucky, but for most of us, it takes a lot of queries to get an agent.

You can look at whether you're targeting the right agents for your manuscript, whether your query is engaging enough and captures your manuscript accurately, and whether your sample pages are strong enough (assuming you sent sample pages with your query).

As I've revised my query over the past two years (submitting in batches after rewrites), my request rate for fulls has gone up significantly. It's a much stronger letter. Then the manuscript itself was falling short. Now I'm finishing another rewrite. Hopefully one those full requests will get an offer this time.

Nada here this week. I've been too swamped with work to finish my last bit of revisions. Frustrating. I've been checking in, though, and following what's happening, chuckling, wanting to throw something at an agent or two, and wondering like hell what happened at the gas station.

I was thinking something much worse, Carleree. Maybe they'll forget in a few months. Polly, don't you dare give up. Keep subbing, keep writing.