# Rejection notifications



## Manole Dan (Nov 5, 2010)

If your book gets turned down, do you like your rejection message to be more "personalized" or do you prefer the standard "pass, good day!" message?


----------



## Susan Boulton (Nov 5, 2010)

Manole Dan said:


> If your book gets turned down, do you like your rejection message to be more "personalized" or do you prefer the standard "pass, good day!" message?


 

Actually rejections do vary in type. 

You can get the basic; no, but thanks for submitting.(Got tonnes of them, still getting them for short stories)

The sort that comment on your short story/novel and perhaps give you a hint of a critique before the rejection (Again hundreds of them and still they keep coming)

The golden one, where you exchange emails with the agent/publisher who has your entire manuscript in their hands and likes it but... well sadly not this time (Had that with two agents)

Then you get the one where you talk a lot about the manuscript with an agent. Do edits per their suggestions, then you get a thing called a contract


----------



## Manole Dan (Nov 6, 2010)

That's very true, but it wouldn't hurt if the agent/publisher would present you with a little opinion about your novel and maybe a little hint about at least one aspect of it that you could change to make it better. I know they probably haven't got enough time but they could prove at least, this way, that they've read the sample you attached in the body of your query message. Or at least they could make it a "I didn't like your book because...". I, for one, enjoy a good critique.


----------



## Susan Boulton (Nov 6, 2010)

Manole Dan said:


> That's very true, but it wouldn't hurt if the agent/publisher would present you with a little opinion about your novel and maybe a little hint about at least one aspect of it that you could change to make it better. I know they probably haven't got enough time but they could prove at least, this way, that they've read the sample you attached in the body of your query message. Or at least they could make it a "I didn't like your book because...". I, for one, enjoy a good critique.


 
Does a potential employer give you feedback on your interview? Because that is exactly what you are doing when you submit a manuscript. You need to look at it from a business point of view. Take the rejection and move on. 

Also if you do receive any comments it means that the agent/publisher saw something in your writing that interested them. They are the agent/publisher you mark up to approach with the next novel. 

Agents don't have the time to answer all queries they get with a critique. They are in the business of selling the work of their clients. Also I know agents who have made comments on a submitted manuscript and in return the author has harangued the agent for said comments and not seeing how wonderful they are. I can understand why agents don't comment.


----------



## thaddeus6th (Nov 6, 2010)

The personalised sort is my preference. I understand why this isn't the most common sort of rejection though.

I also like the quick rejection rather than the looooong wait.

But, most of all, I like the rapid acceptance  [Not had that yet  ]


----------



## Rodders (Nov 6, 2010)

With the rise of he internet, i can see people publishing their own books online and no worries about rejection. If you're name's already out there and people recognise it, that's got to help in the future, right? After all, it's already working in the music industry.


----------



## Manole Dan (Nov 6, 2010)

thaddeus6th said:


> The personalised sort is my preference. I understand why this isn't the most common sort of rejection though.
> 
> I also like the quick rejection rather than the looooong wait.
> 
> But, most of all, I like the rapid acceptance  [Not had that yet  ]


 
You and me both , but like they say: all is fare in love and writing books . The loong waiting has to do mainly with the fact that when you receive about 100+ manuscripts/day it's hard to get through them so quick. But then again thats an agent's job, and they ought to do it in a time frame that would be acceptable for both the writer and for them. It somehoh gets you down when you have to wait somewhere in between 1 to 2 month for an answer.


----------



## Manole Dan (Nov 6, 2010)

SJAB said:


> Does a potential employer give you feedback on your interview? Because that is exactly what you are doing when you submit a manuscript. You need to look at it from a business point of view. Take the rejection and move on.


 
You have a point there, but it's rather disturbing to realise that in the present days everything becomes a slave of the market, even an ideea. When you submit your manuscript you submit a part of you, something that is not possible to do when you seek an employment. I tend to look at it from the business point of view, but I'm still reminescing a time when books were strapped in leather covers and displayed with pride in someone's private library.


----------



## Manole Dan (Nov 6, 2010)

Rodders said:


> With the rise of he internet, i can see people publishing their own books online and no worries about rejection. If you're name's already out there and people recognise it, that's got to help in the future, right? After all, it's already working in the music industry.


 
Self publishing may become a valid option in the future for those that don't manage to get an agent. Or maybe publishing your book as an ebook. The market of ebooks is growing toghether with that of the Internet itself.


----------



## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 7, 2010)

Manole Dan said:


> I know they probably haven't got enough time but they could prove at least, this way, that they've read the sample you attached in the body of your query message.



You aren't a client, so they have no need to prove anything.  An agent's sole duty is to his or her clients.  If he or she spent time commenting on hundreds of submissions received, in order to prove rejected manuscripts are being read, that is time owed to clients and clients are being cheated.  I am sure that if and when you get an agent you will want him or her to spend as much time and effort as possible on _you_, and that manuscript that is so much a part of you, considering said agent would have _agreed_ to look after your best interests and that of your book.

For that matter, how would you like it if even _one_ person expected you to take time off from _your_ job, sacrifice part of your wages (as an agent does if he or she is not sufficiently zealous in representing clients), to give them a free critique -- let alone hundreds of strangers making the same request?  






> But then again thats an agent's job, and they ought to do it in a time frame that would be acceptable for both the writer and for them.



Nope.  The agent's job is representing clients he or she already has, and selling their books.  Trying to get new clients by reading submissions is to the agent's benefit, but the _job_ remains representing books of clients and doing what is acceptable to those clients.  What writers who have not signed with agent find acceptable cannot be a consideration, if it cheats the writers already signed.


----------



## Boneman (Nov 7, 2010)

I've had them all - was my own fault for sending out a book when it wasn't ready, back in 2007. Quite embarrassing when I look back... but I digress. 

I once posted a manuscript and I swear the rejection beat me back to my house (well, it felt like that!), and it was all my material with a 'No Thanks' written on it. Actually, I deserved that, as my work was terrible, and nobody in their right mind should have told me why, because, if they did that, they'd have to do it for the other 100 submissions that week and every week... Doesn't mean to say I liked it, but, as I say: it was my own fault.

I actually don't mind the pre-printed card that says: "Sorry we're sending you a pre-printed reply, but we get so many mss that it would be impossible to reply to them all etc etc." That has a certain quality to it, and they're probably the sort of agency that I might go back to with new work. I've had personalised rejections, and even some with a few suggestions, and those are definitely agents I would go back to with new work. 

And you have to remember: Agents need us. It's how they make their money. But they're not going to waste their time replying personally to every submission, or as Teresa says, they'd be neglecting their signed clients - and if I was one of those signed clients and my agent was spending all his time replying to every submission he/she received, I'd be pretty annoyed.

I think it comes down to this: it is what it is. Roll over the rejection (and if you get a lot, you really need to consider that your work isn't good enough in its present state, and do something about it) and move on to the next agent/the next rewrite/the next book etc.


----------



## J Riff (Nov 8, 2010)

... the best ones go something like:  " I don't think I would be the right person(agency) to represent your work, at this time."


----------



## chrispenycate (Nov 8, 2010)

Never having received a rejection letter (there are very good reasons for this, and they have very little to do with my immense literary talent, and considerably more with the fact I haven't yet written anything I consider submittable) I would think that a printed form letter would be preferable to "This is the third document you have submitted, an each has been worse than the other two. Your grammar sucks, your vocabulary is inadequate and it is obvious by the irrelevant words and homophones that crop up with impressive frequency that your spell checker is doing half the composition. Once again I was incapable of reading more than one page before throwing the manuscript into the corner, so I have no idea how putrid and overused your plot might be.

Go, and never darken my letterbox again.

Signed Tracy, assistant secretary to the secretary of the agent.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Something like this does suggest how you could improve, after all, even if it suggests the best way would be by dropping dead or taking up mushroom farming. Maybe there is an undiscovered writing niche in preparing scathing rejection notes for all combinations of literary incompetence, to be stored on the first rejector's computer, and bring royalties whenever used. (At least editors could be amused reading them, unlike the majority of the other work they are intended to peruse. Pop up advertisements for primary school level English teachers or slightly more advanced services, depending on the abysmality of the work in question, for electronic submissions? A whole tiny industry for agents/editors that no longer have the time to develop their own insults suggests itself; instant scathe, just add hot coffee and a Monday morning.


----------



## Manole Dan (Nov 11, 2010)

I, for one, hate that part when you are told: "the beginning isn't good, or the desdcription is much to accurate,etc", and if you ask them: "if I change the beginning, content, etc. would you accept my book?" they just don't respond to you anymore and that's that.


----------



## Susan Boulton (Nov 11, 2010)

Manole Dan said:


> I, for one, hate that part when you are told: "the beginning isn't good, or the desdcription is much to accurate,etc", and if you ask them: "if I change the beginning, content, etc. would you accept my book?" they just don't respond to you anymore and that's that.


 
That's not quite true. IF and it is a big IF, the story and the writing catch an agent's interest then, yes, they will consider looking at a revised manuscript, but that does not mean they will take you on. Even when you are signed with an agent that does not mean they will take your manuscript as is. Often you will find yourself doing re-writes and edits to get it into shape to place before a publisher. Then if a publisher decides to take on the manuscript, you will find yourself editing it again.


----------

