Joshua Malbin

I’ve been going over my records of correspondence with literary agents today, and have realized that perhaps a quarter of the ones I’ve ever been in contact with have failed on some basic level of correspondence. So since they all have fairly snooty guidelines up on their websites about how to query them, here are my guidelines for how I’d like to be rejected.

1. Nobody expects any kind of response to a first, cold query letter. It’s fine if you don’t answer. No complaints here.

2. If you do answer, though, and request to see all or part of the manuscript, while it’s fine if you take a while to read it, I do eventually expect a form rejection note. At least ten different agents have asked to see chapters and then simply never responded—and never responded when I followed up, either. It’s not that hard to send a form rejection. Really.

3. The form rejection is fine. While I appreciate the intention behind sending a personalized critique of the work explaining why you didn’t like it, I’m not going to pay attention to it. I don’t know you. I don’t know what I think of your taste. Save yourself the bother.

4. If you request revisions, especially major revisions, and I put in the effort to make them, I think you owe me the courtesy of actually reading them. It’s pretty shitty to ask a writer to put in months of work on something and then not look at it. It’s less shitty, but still kinda shitty, to request revisions and then send a form rejection.

That’s it. How has the publishing world disappointed you today?

Share on Facebook