The 238. Did anyone see this?

238 Represent!

That's bizarre. I wonder if the agency got hacked.

This was easy enough to find.
http://www.google.com/search?q=238+writers+rejection+email

jaksen said:

http://dverted.blogspot.com/2012/03/funny-but-true-query-story.html

http://lanceschaubert.org/2012/03/23/rejection-letter-fail/

There's gonna be many more.

About the possibility of being hacked? Interesting. But we got several diff. messages from an agent or assistant, and the final one apologized. Very confusing.

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*shrug* It was just a guess. Either way, it does sound like someone screwed up somewhere.

CC and BCC aside, who addresses an email: Dear 1 of 238 Authors I have to mail a standard reply to

This is funny.

I have even been rejected by a company that I have never sent anything to. When I asked them about it....they said sorry. I wonder how the world they even got my addy.

veinglory said:

CC and BCC aside, who addresses an email: Dear 1 of 238 Authors I have to mail a standard reply to

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I would say somebody who hit the send button by accident when they were still drafting a reply but I gather from reading the blog posts that the email you quoted was actually a parody response from one of the 238 rejectees, ending "I wish you success in finding representation as I know you will wish me success in learning how to use the bcc function in my e-mail." (I laughed.)

Wow. And that's an agency I'd love to be repped by... Weird. But still funny, especially since you didn't query.

This is made of awesome. Far better than the time I printed and bound some woodcut versions of Nigerian Spam emails, and sold them as artist's books for $6 each.

Far beyond making lemonade or hay out of this, the 238 can turn it into *gold*.

Cheers!

I have a query pending with them. Fingers crossed this means they're considering my query seriously.

This is one of those times where I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.

I am going to be sitting here reading these blogs all night.

Wasn't the same agency the vehicle of choice for a similar scam last year? (The scam was NOT on the agency's part, btw - someone hijacked their names.)

The person would trawl Amazon, email an author with a self-pubbed book saying "Hey, I saw your book and it's great - want an agent?" Then when the author said, "sure" the fake representative of this agency would make a lightning fast "significant sale," leading the unsuspecting writer to believe they'd make some serious cash. In one case, it came complete with an itinerary for public appearances that didn't exist.

The agent whose name was being used had a client who saw one of the happy announcements and checked into, then took the unhappy responsibility from telling the author the whole thing was a massively sick joke.

Yep, same agency:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/faker-impersonates-writers-house-agent-offers-book-deals_b34934

Someone needs to beef up their IT security.

One of the 238 Here - Donelle from my blog http://dverted.blogspot.com

I wondered if it was a fake email I got when I read the "Dear 1 of the 238..." but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. They all had the same assistant's email addy at the top under 'from' with the same font she'd used the first time she tried to email.

I'd be all for an article or some kind of collaboration about this incident, since it's just too GOOD (or bad) to go unnoticed. But I feel pretty bad for this lady. I'm wondering if she has a job anymore!

I pretty sure the email that starts with "Dear 1 of 238..." was a from one of the 238. He has a GMail account not a Writer's House account and was on the list of the original 238.

That said I also originally thought it was an email from WH as well until the rest started coming.

Overall it's been a fun day. I have my phone set to play a specific tone every time anything comes through my writing account and this is the first time I was hoping it wasn't a response to a query but more replies to the email.

MttStrn said:

I pretty sure the email that starts with "Dear 1 of 238..." was a from one of the 238. He has a GMail account not a Writer's House account and was on the list of the original 238.

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Ha - I bet the owner of THAT gmail account won't get published for a very long time!

Hah! The good humor and camaraderie which this has created almost makes me wish I'd been included in this rejection, too!

This has been the most fun rejection ever! I had already written off the query as a no since it was four months ago.

I never got an apology from them though - I received the first one with everyone's addresses, then a retraction email where they tried to recall the message, then another one the same as the first but with the addresses BCCed. Then the parodies from the 238! Sadly my ISP won't let me email that many people at once in case I'm a spammer, but the FB group will suffice. Fun day was had by most.