Five Days and Four Nights in Fabulous Rejection Pile

I don’t want to repeat myself too often, but query letters are a subject on which I spend an inordinate amount of time at the agency, and it’s something every author wants to know about. I’ve already discussed issues of copy editing, pitch, length, and various other elements, and surely I will again. So this time, I’d rather present a few case studies in how not to be published.

My absolute all time favorite has got to be The Messenger of the Covenant one. So, this author sends us her NF book proposal. Okay, well that’s already a little odd because we don’t really do non-fiction unless it’s a memoir or something with a narrative, but I let that slide. So the book turns out to be an examination of the mythos of the Messenger of the Covenant which runs throughout Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Well, we also don’t really do spiritual books, so this author was really missing the mark on who to query in two ways at once. Not a good start.
The proposal itself was fairly professionally done with a detailed table of contents and what not. The book’s hook was that it made the claim that the Messenger was a Jewish woman. Okay. Cool. I think that’s the only thing that kept me reading although the scriptural basis for this argument was not explained in detail within her query. Then came the chapter summary in which she put forward the case that SHE was the Messenger of the covenant.

Nope, that’s it. I’m done. I send a rejection. Two months later we get a reply from her saying that she never queried our agency, but it just so happens that she is in fact writing a book and it must be providence that we found her, so she re-pitched her crazy book to us.

Lady, listen. It was an e-mail. I hit reply. Your original query is right there. How can you possibly say you never queried us? Besides, I went out of my way to NOT personalize the form rejection at all. No “This was neat, but that needs work.” No “It’s neat, but we don’t really do that here.” No “send us your next work.” I mean, nothing. Just pure, uncompromising “go the hell away.” So why are you still talking to me? Did you honestly think that I spend my day making up e-mail addresses and sending preemptory rejections to everyone in the universe? What the hell? Suffice to say, if I ever see another query from that particular author, all the claims that she’s switched to a new medication and she’s doing much better won’t convince me to read her seriously again.


Join us next time for “1001 Awful Queries” OR “Five Days and Four Nights Pt. II”