You state that if we must return your manuscript (or as we like to call it these days ‘ms’), we can send it back to you, but since you neglected to include the necessary three shillings and sixpence in postage stamps, I’m afraid that’s not possible. 9: IF YOU WANT THINGS RETURNED, INCLUDE POSTAGE In fact, it makes you look unprofessional, which is never a good thing in the literary world. I sincerely doubt that your (or any other unknown author’s) book would generate a million pounds for our agency overnight. A less ethical agency might have taken you up on your offer. It’s also a mistake to tender the rights to your work without pre-conditions. I believe you should consider splitting it into two, or even three, novels. Besides, at a thousand pages, your manuscript is already too long. We like your writing style, it became obvious that your book is still a WiP (a modern acronym which stands for ‘Work in Progress). When I read your offer to write extra chapters and/or rearrange the plot if 6: FINISH YOUR BOOK BEFORE YOU SEND IT OUT This unnamed man has a son (also unnamed) who works at a newspaper, but (like you) harbors an ambition to write paperbacks. Īll I could glean from it was that you’ve written a somewhat smutty storyĪbout an ill-groomed, unkempt man whose wife won’t give him space andĭoesn’t appreciate him (or his ambitions, I couldn’t tell which). Your covering letter tells me next to nothing about the novel you’d like us to represent, not even (and this is an enormous faux pas) its title. Used characters created by another writer without his or her express You should be aware of the potential for a lawsuit if you’ve You say your plotline is based on a book by another author – a Mr. 4: BE AWARE OF POSSIBLE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT In a similar vein, nor do we need to know about Readers (and agents) don’t care how long you or any other author worked on a novel (even if it did, as youĬlaim, take you years). Why else would you have sent it to us? To ask even once in a letter of enquiry is redundant, to ask twice, as you did, smacks of desperation. 2: LEAVE OUT THE OBVIOUSĪs for ‘will you read my book?’ of course you want us to read your work. Had you then telephoned our main office, a member of our secretarial staff would have gladly furnished you with the name of the person to whom you should address your letter of enquiry (in this case, myself).Ī little extra effort would have gone a long way, believe me. In this modern technological age, a quick call to Directory Enquiries would have gotten you this agency’s telephone number. To use the modern vernacular, I’m afraid you ‘Shot yourself in the foot’, not once, but twice, within your very first sentence. You start your letter of enquiry with ‘Dear, sir or madam, will you read my book?’ With that in mind – and please understand this is in no way a request for you to re-submit your work – I’d like to offer some observations about your letter of enquiry, along with some helpful advice which, if heeded, I believe will greatly increase your chances of getting past that all-important first stage of the representation process when you submit your work elsewhere. I share the frustration we authors feel when our work is rejected with little or no explanation as to why it’s deemed unworthy. Literary Agency will not be inviting you to join our client roster.Īs someone who harbors ambitions of one day becoming a published author myself, I fully understand your desire to become a ‘paperback writer.’ Yourself and your novel, I regret to inform you that The Write Good Read With reference to your recent correspondence seeking representation for the Daleks a couple of years ago), would have responded: We’ll never know for sure, but here’s how I think Agnes Hardacre, former senior agent at The Write Good Read Literary Agency (who some of you may recall sent me feedback on my query letter for Dracula vs. More information on Guest Post Promotion here.Įven though it wasn’t real, the most famous ‘query letter’ of all time has to be the one immortalized by the Beatles within the lyrics of their 1966 classic, Paperback Writer.īut what if Paul McCartney (who wrote the song) really had been an unknown wannabe, trying to get an agent or editor to read his book? What kind of response would he have got if he’d sent a query letter like the one he sang about? This guest post was promoted from the Forums.
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