Your weirdest rejection

I got one that said something about, "It's not your fault, it's mine. Somebody shit in my cornflakes this morning." ---not exactly word for word, but the poopin' in cornflakes ref. was in there.

Does getting other people's rejections, along with my own, count? Yes, it's happened.

I don't know how weird this was -no cornflakes or poo- but it was a long, drawn out ordeal starting with a query letter followed by a synopsis request, then first 3 chapters, then asking me to develop a marketing plan for my book, finally the full...and then 6 months later, the rejection said something like "Good news!! I just sold something exactly like yours so I don't need yours after all."
wtf!

I got one where I was scolded for not paying attention to details - only to find that the editor (with a big name house and is still there) spelled my name wrong.

I also got one where it was my query, with a coffee stained, creased and bent Post-It that said "NO" in black felt tip - just in case I didn't understand that it really was a rejection.

How about a scrawled rejection on my empty, sealed SASE? Twice. From the same agency.

From a strange standpoint, a well respected agent who was interested in my query letter asked me to contact her a couple of months down the road if I hadn't obtained representation. A couple of months went by without representation so I sent her a copy of our original letters, a new letter and a chapter of my book. She wrote back about two weeks later explaining that I had no voice, or that she couldn't find my voice, or that readers look for a voice and there was none, or something. She then went on to say that she wasn't taking any new clients, and wished me luck finding an agent whom I presume would have to be shmuck since I evidently wrote a voiceless novel. So far I've been told that I have a great writing style, an overwritten writing style, no voice, a unique writing style, a comparison to Michael Connelly, an interesting idea, and a great concept, but no deal.... You know what I really am beginning to think? Agents don't have a clue. Seriously, I think they are so scared at making a poor choice and maybe losing their credibility there isn't a one who looks at a submission with an open mind. They say the business is very subjective and i'm sure that's true, but you would think that some consistency other than the rejection itself would surface from a couple of dozen agents, I haven't seen any.
I will not be detered.

I once received a personal rejection, with a few paragraphs of what might have been helpful criticism, had they actually been about my work.

The letter had the story title and my name correct, but the comments and suggestions had nothing to do with anything I'd written. Different characters, different setting, different plot.

Not sure if the editor had two pieces with identical or near-identical titles and got confused, or what.

I had a poem rejected by Peggy Nadramia at Grue Magazine back in the late 80s. I Googled her name for some reason recently and learned that she went on to become a high priestess in the church of satan. So I don't feel so bad about that one, as it turns out.

Skelly, I knew Pegg very well and had at least 15 rejections from her in 1988. Even Pandora rejected me. But I landed with Not One of Us, Amazing Stories, Ouroborous, Space and Time and a slew of others.

I also just recently found out about the high priestess thing. What a mind-blower. Kind of glad she didn't touch me stuff afterall.

Tri

skelly said:

I had a poem rejected by Peggy Nadramia at Grue Magazine back in the late 80s. I Googled her name for some reason recently and learned that she went on to become a high priestess in the church of satan. So I don't feel so bad about that one, as it turns out.

Click to expand...

Here's Nadramia's Wikipedia entry.

Bizarre story.

And here's a link I found where Nadramia discusses the link between Nazism and Satanism.

Weird stuff. But fascinating-weird. I can see them cutting that magazine in Hell's Kitchen in the 1980s. Those must have been some wild, esoteric times. Wonder if psychotropic drugs ever played a part in their editorial decisions?

Somebody should write an account of that whole thing. I would definitely buy that book. Any takers?

Mine was a hand-written, exceptionally complimentary note that accompanied my manuscript (I'd included postage to send it back if it were rejected), which had clearly been read straight from beginning to end. He said my book was awesome, he loved my style, etc. etc.... and that he would have immediately sent me a contract if he'd read my manuscript 6 months ago. Apparently he had too many clients.

So if he had too many clients, WHY THE HECK DID HE ASK FOR A FULL?

He then ended the note by saying that he wanted to see any other book I wrote. Again, WHY??