29 ways not to submit to an agent

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Tue March 5th, 2013, 11:54 am

My agent Carole Blake shares some advice and experiences from her side of the desk and includes a scary response to a reject letter!http://www.bang2write.com/2013/03/29-wa ... blake.html

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » Tue March 5th, 2013, 12:39 pm

My goodness some of these people are really aggressive!

I've heard of these types of tricks working for getting job interviews in an aggressive business environment, but surely when the whole point is the quality of writing, that's all you need to represent yourself. Wow.

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Tue March 5th, 2013, 12:54 pm

The one with the manuscript shoved under the loo door is priceless! That letter at the end is rather frightening. What sort of people are out there?

DanielAWillis · Post by **DanielAWillis** » Tue March 5th, 2013, 4:13 pm

Having read through the list, I feel much better. I have not attempted any of the 29.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Wed March 6th, 2013, 9:23 pm

I am not an agent, but my experience with my website means I can really, really relate to some of these tips.

#4 - "Don't trash other authors." I got an email recently from a self-pubber trashing a novel that was on my "Best of" list and going on about the excellence of his own novel set in the same general time and place. Why on earth would he think it would make his novel sound more appealing if he absolutely hates a favorite of mine?

#15 - "Don't write to me abusively..." This happened so frequently with self-pubbers who objected to my "brief critques" of their work (I bent over backwards to be fair and offer some honest praise along with the criticism) that I no longer do these critiques.

#25 - "read the submission guidelines" I so hate having to do extra work I don't have time for because people don't follow the instructions prominently posted on my website for getting their novels listed. I can only imagine how annoying this sort of thing must be for agents, who have even less free time than I do!

Justin Swanton · Post by **Justin Swanton** » Thu March 7th, 2013, 7:38 am

All classic lulus. I made one mistake when submitting my novel, and that was to ignore the standard submission limitation of 3 chapters. The publisher I approached specialised in exactly the kind of fiction I was writing so I threw caution to the winds and sent him the entire MS. He published it.

I wonder though whether the supply of faultlessly presented, well-written submissions doesn't far outstrip the demand, bringing it in the end down to luck. But we've already discussed this elsewhere.

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Mon October 7th, 2013, 1:40 pm

So funny! Thanks for posting, ECW!

Nefret · Post by **Nefret** » Mon October 7th, 2013, 2:08 pm

I'm not really awake yet. In that letter... did somebody really spell famous with an 'e'?

Historical Fiction Online

29 ways not to submit to an agent

29 ways not to submit to an agent

Whew!