The continuing chronicle of Wesley's quest to be published; plus comments on popular culture, family life, and whatever else falls out of his head.

Friday, February 03, 2006

On Form Rejections

Over at the inimitable Miss Snark's blog, I was surprised to find out that agents don't generally send out comments or reasons for rejecting a manuscript after requesting on. I already knew that agents are under no obligation to let the writer know at that point, but I assumed that they would out of courtesy. After all, at that point the agent and author have been corresponding for several months, and the agent probably has an exclusive on the manuscript. I don't mean to sound self-righteous, but if an agent had my novel for a month or more, especially if other agents had expressed interest, I think I'd be owed an explanation.

Not that I have any recourse.

I've received three rejections in this round of submitting as of last night. Two were impersonal forms addressed to "Author." One of those didn't even mention the name of the specific agent I submitted to, but just the agency. And the third wasn't even that formal: They simply returned my query in the SASE and slipped in a 1x2" slip of paper that read "This does not suit our interests at this time." Not the most encouraging of rejections, I'll admit. But at least they responded. There are agencies that don't.

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