And the award for least effort put into a rejection response goes to…
It almost makes me look back through rose-tinted specs at ‘Dear ……………………….’; a form of address which always perplexed me more than a little. I mean, if you’re going to be made to feel utterly ephemeral to the person taking 10 seconds to read a synopsis it took you a week to compile about the novel it took you years to write, there’s no better way to do it than by receiving a template form with space for your name, and discovering they’re so uninterested in your submission that they haven’t even scrawled your name into the aforementioned space:
‘Your insipid ink-dribblings offend me so much I’m not even going to pretend you’re an autonomous being: Dear intangible concept so offensive to me that you do not even merit acknowledgement of your very existence, go away.’ *
This new no-frills approach however makes me feel like a sort of literary Jehovah’s Witness. Imagine if the tables were turned, and it was considered acceptable for authors to write prospective letters in the same way:
Read this.
Ta,
[illegible scrawl denoting extreme busyness with subtle undertone of scorn]
* Anyone who’s never received a rejection letter/note/word from a literary agent may wish to listen to this. It may help you to understand why many authors have no friends and hate everyone. And never get published.
((((Snort))))
THANK YOU for the vid. I, um, got 4 in 24 hours. Rejections, that is, so I can quite relate.
Sorry for yours. Send it out – again. Talent you got – in spades. Persistence I hope as well.
Peace, Linda
NOTE: new url: http://linda-leftbrainwrite.blogspot.com
Waging war with google…
I’ve had a couple of both forms of rejection, for previous book ideas. I never knew whether to take slight comfort from that fact someone (probably the girl that makes the tea) bothered to personally scribble the ‘no thanks’ to me, or to take great offence at the fact I clearly didn’t merit an extra sheet of paper. It comes down to something when a bit of A4 takes precedence. But then there are those sparkly rejections out there – the ones where they write and tell you why. I have had a few of those too, and I feel I want to hug those friendly rejections, when I have seen how harsh the other sort can be in their brusqueness. As for the author’s letter in the same way – hahahahaha. Oh I wish! Would that mean they spend two years composing the no thank you letter though?
And I love the youtube link ‘and your enclosed nasty niminy pinimy note’. Made me chuckle, thank you!
Thanks Linda, very much. I’ll update my links. The video is sadly not the original I saw, which was the actual scene from which the audio is taken. Someone’s clearly decided to lift it and replace it with some odd demented drawings. In an odd way, I think it works just as well as the image of Dylan Moran scowling as he puffs irritably away on a cigarette and slurps from a glass of red.
I know exactly what you mean, Jayne. As you may know, I received a personally written rejection letter from Pat Kavanagh shortly before she died. I was so very touched that someone as well known and busy as her took the time to read a first time submission from an unheard of first time writer, especially when you consider her existing client list, that it really didn’t matter that it was a rejection. Writers after all crave recognition – and it’s a small victory to be recognised as one even if it’s part of a “no, thank you.”
you should definitely send that letter. it would make you stand out if nothing else!
The business of literature, of publishing, is such a horrible place. Fortunately the old ways are rapidly becoming irrelevant as writers establish direct connections to readers without having to ‘submit’.
I have had many a rejection letter just like that in my time. While in the beginning, years ago it bothered me, now I take rejection as a challenge. A sort of “well if you don’t like it, there’s someone out there with good taste who will.”
p – Stand out before turned over perhaps!
Paul, I completely agree. The whole oxymoron of a “creative industry” is no more vulgar than when it’s found in publishing. As you know I also believe that it’s much easier for writers now to find an audience through the web, though I do think it represents a vicious circle. I think that people in general are now increasingly less polite and more abrupt because of how easy communication has become. Back in ye olden days before phones, modems and websites, communication was an art form; a series of rituals. It was an exercise in patience in which one exercised courtesy. We no longer think of the person who will be receiving our carefully handwritten letter. We’re now used to just seeing an email on the screen.
Hi Joanne – thanks for stopping by! I think the sad truth is that most agents and commissioning editors wouldn’t know a good book if it walked up to them, shook their hands and said “let’s do lunch”, and I really can’t stress enough that I’m not saying that as a bitter first time author with only 7 rejections under his belt! I think, as Paul’s already stated, that it’s much easier now for fellow frustrated writers to find not only an audience but each other. Everyone who’s commented on this post so far is a perfect example of how writers can now meet other writers that they never would have in the (increasingly less) Real World™ before.
I can’t decide which is worse, the dismissive “No Thanks” or the empty name space. Nevertheless, this is a great post.
Thanks, Ray. I suppose we’re expected to be grateful that they let us know at all! I think a great many people in publishing (though by no means all) really do forget that without those inconvenient creatures pestering them day in, day out to look at their indulgent scribblings, there would be no publishing at all.
it’s just fucking rude is what it is.
:( That’s incredible rude of them! If they want to have writers to publish, they shouldn’t send out letters like that.
Fucking hell that’s offensive. (wld just like to point out that as a commissioning ed on magazines I replied to EVERY SINGLE article pitch I received good or bad with a proper email). Christ it doesn’t take that long. Even if you make a template you can still personalise it with a few key phrases so that the hack/author doesn’t feel like complete merde. LLGxx
Just when I thought rejection couldn’t get worse!
pfeh.
the publishing gateway is a lottery.
2 glorious examples:
* several times in the last decade or so, people have submitted anonymously various classics or recent major award winners, to a wide range of publishers. in each case, they’ve been turned down by all; usually summarily but occasionally with accidentally hilarious comments about the unreadability of the work.
* rowling’s Harry Potter (you know, that marginally popular book) was rejected by ALL publishers, including bloomsbury. it was pure chance the bloomsbury guy was tired and hassled late one night and fobbed off a needy child at home with the manuscript, and only later buckled to her insistent ranting demands that he publish it.
It wasn’t until Travelling, Ziv and LLG left their respective comments that it even occurred to me that this response was indeed quite rude. Usually we trodden-on folk are pleasantly surprised by any response at all. As has been continually maintained on this blog, and not just by myself, it would be a happier world for us scribblers if more publishers and agents gave deeper thought where their fabled many lunches came from as LLG indeed does, rather than just see those authors unlucky enough to not arrive as an attachment to an already respected name as an inconvenience to get through before home time.
Thanks for commenting, Saltation, though I will forgive you just this once for mentioning She Who Shall Not Be Spoken Of. The article linked to in this former post details the very problems you mention with modern publishing, whilst this one demonstrates expertly everything I despise about it.
I don’t think you should give up. You are one of the most beautifully creative people I know – perhaps the way to look at it is that these publishers are unable to fully comprehend creativity outside the linear structure of publishing text. (That’s an adaptation of wise words from my dad – the wisest man I know). Sod them. What do they know? They’ll give Jordan a publishing deal for Chrissakes!!
Thanks, Nicster. My frustration with how publishing works, as both a writer and how I’ve seen it work firsthand, ran pretty deep and was a fine source of depression when I saw how literature was inevitably headed and the sort of people who are already taking over the industry. I’d like to think I’ll get the drive and hunger back to write again one day. It used to come so easily – now it’s just gone.
One should always write for themselves. Trying to get published pretty much killed off my interest and enthusiasm completely.