The Daily Rejection

kaitie said:

That could explain why I haven't gotten rejected today.

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It doesn't. I did.

Drachen Jager said:

Why is it we're held to a much higher standard than agents? I've seen plenty of agents with grammatical errors and other problems with the content on their websites.

>sigh<

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Garg! Tell me about it. Even some of my rejections look as though they were texted while the person was on a roller coaster and trying to keep her coffee from spilling while managing a small dog.

thankyou but Im very busy riht now and will have to pass .

I don't have much of a problem with it. We're asking them to judge us on our writing and trying to prove that we're capable. We have months to spend perfecting the query letter and making sure it's correct. If we have mistakes in it, it shows that chances are, we don't recognize the mistake. And considering how many writers out there submit work and can't put together a correct grammatical sentence, yup, we're going to be judged on it.

An agent, on the other hand, is being judged on sales and might have twenty seconds to type out a message on their blackberry before sending it off before moving on to the next one. I don't think it's so much that we're being held to higher standards as the standards are different. I have a feeling if we had a group of agents lined up who told us "You have one minute each to write and send a query letter, go!" they'd be a lot more forgiving about typos or spelling or whatever.

Picked up a new one this morning, btw.

It's Saturday!!!

. . . and I woke up to an R for a partial that I submitted last night. I had clearly stated my genre in my brief, two-paragraph query, agent asked for partial, and she turned it around somewhere between Friday night and Saturday morning with a note that she doesn't rep that genre. "Best of luck," she concluded. Yeah.

Two rejections today. One stated my novella was 'creative', but not for them. The other said they didn't like first person POV, and suggested I rewrite it in third.

Finally, two form rejections yesterday. Yeah, baby! Only five million more to go!

Why am I here on a Sunday morning? Because I just spent about 45 minutes vacuuming names off QueryTracker and sending out some routine queries, hoping to see some Rs on Monday morning.

Turns out I didn't have to wait that long. And no, I don't mean an Autoreply saying "We'll get back to you if we like it" -- I mean a personalized NO. Sunday morning they reject me. It's a sacred duty.

Wow, not really expecting anything on a Sunday. I was thinking with this book expo, none of us may see anything for a week or so, but you posted today and yesterday. Well, I only sent out the first 10 last week and received 4 R's, so with only 6 left out there, I'm not really expecting anything on the weekends. We'll see though.

The scene: Sunday morning, church. An AGENT is texting away on her iPhone. The PASTOR leans over the lectern sternly.

Pastor: Agent, are you texting during services?

Agent: Pastor, get a load of this query I'm rejecting. [reads Miss Plum's query out loud for entire congregation]

Pastor: Oh my word, you're forgiven. But that Miss Plum isn't.

I don't think it was like that at all. If you've been to QLH, then I'm sure your query was ready to send out and not embarrassing at all. I sent mine through with six different revisions before I sent it out.

I'm still surprised that they were sending out rejections on a Sunday though. I know I'm new to the query thing, and I am willing to accept rejection, but I thought on the weekends I might get a break from it.

David Poellot said:

I thought on the weekends I might get a break from it.

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Welcome to Hell.

I'm a little disappointed lol. I haven't had one in two days because of the weekend. Wait, is it weekend in America? Yeah. Tomorrow's Monday, ne? I'd assume that I'll get a couple then, but it's hard to say because of Book Expo. It's probably going to be a slow week.

David Poellot said:

I'm still surprised that they were sending out rejections on a Sunday though.

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Not a rejection but I once got an e-mail from an editor at 7am(her time) on a Sunday - and it was Valentines Day! Now that is dedication.

But queries are usually answered when the rest of the work is done, so getting one on a weekend isn't surprising

Sadly my inbox is still empty

Yeah, I'm going through rejection withdrawal, and I only started a week ago. I haven't had one since last Wednesday. Actually, it's not so much waiting for the rejection. It's more "does anyone want to see a partial?"

I know I'm very, very, very early in the game, but I was wondering if it's not stated on the website, what's the normal length of time you guys wait before declaring a non-response? Three months? I think I'm going to build some conditional formatting into my spreadsheet, so I need the parameters. It will give me something to do while I wait to send out the next batch.

I guess I could always write...

I got one today. Just the usual form, but nice enough. I'd hope for more tomorrow but I'm not sure if I should really expect much.

Honestly, I'm seriously getting into the idea of querying my next novel. I'll keep this one up as well, but I've even been playing around with my query letter. Now I just gotta finish the darn book so I can try it.

I dumped eleven more snail queries into the mail yesterday, so it shouldn't be long . . .

Anyways, a little share: I thought I had exhausted all the agent directories and searched up every legit agent in the country, and then I hit the full glory of QueryTracker. Yowza, 1055 agents? Okay, some are from the same agency, so it's in the 700s maybe, but still, there were tons of people I wasn't aware of. I've been going through one letter of the alphabet each day and sending out queries to anyone who 1) reps my genre and 2) comes up promising on other directories or websites. It's a tad indiscriminate, but it's gotten me a few requests from respectable people I never knew of.

It's also upped my daily rejection rate. So overall, it's a useful little ritual. I just hope I've had an offer of rep by the time I hit the Zs.

Nothing wrong with doing it that way Plum. You can't research each and every agency.

I still haven't gone so far as to mail any paper queries yet though. I figure if they don't accept e-mail queries they're probably not that interested in bringing in new clients.

In other news, I got a short 1 line e-mail from an agent on Monday. I almost closed it without reading it properly only to find it was an actual request!

"Send me the first three chapters via email."

And they're comin' in. Another two today. But at least I still have a full out there somewhere, lost in the shuffle, just screaming for a rejection that's sure to come any day now.

Be careful what you wish for....

Received a form rejection today. At least, I think it was a form rejection. It was very enthusiastic and encouraging, but I still think it was form. And it was from one of the biggies in fantasy, so.........

I'm holding onto what I've read in earlier posts in this thread that if you're actually receiving rejections, then your query might be fine as it is. I may still be tempted to send it through QLH for a seventh time though.

Well, I picked up two today. Theoretically I should be getting a request soon. Law of averages and all.

Drachen Jager said:

I still haven't gone so far as to mail any paper queries yet though. I figure if they don't accept e-mail queries they're probably not that interested in bringing in new clients.

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Not necessarily. I read one agent who said they want snail-mail queries from new authors because they control their spam by limiting their e-mail correspondence to people they know. I got some requests from people I snail-mailed.

In other news, I got a short 1 line e-mail from an agent on Monday. I almost closed it without reading it properly only to find it was an actual request!

"Send me the first three chapters via email."

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Haha, cool story! Congrats. Here's hoping we all get outta here and join up again in "The Next Circle of Hell."

*sigh* Another one. Not what I needed today.

Miss Plum said:

Not necessarily. I read one agent who said they want snail-mail queries from new authors because they control their spam by limiting their e-mail correspondence to people they know. I got some requests from people I snail-mailed.

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LOL, plus it cuts down on queries from people too young to have ever actually affixed one of those weird bright bits of paper to one of these funky-folded thingies and put it in that crazy blue box doohickie on the corner.

*Hugs* for IdiotsRus. You're awesome. You'll get there.

Picked one up earlier today.