I received an email today from a writer who tells this fine story:
"A prominent agent at William Morris once tried to seduce me away from my agency at a book party and afterwards with several charming follow-up phone calls. When I sent her my new manuscript, I was greeted with radio silence...for months. I finally called her assistant, who said she'd try to figure out what was going on. Several weeks later, I got a phone call back from the assistant saying that the agent (whose name, BTW, begins with an S) was renovating her kitchen and so couldn't read my work. I received my packaged-up, apparently untouched, manuscript the next day by messenger."
Have an outrageous rejection story? Send it to writerrejected@aol.com. You can't believe how good getting it off your chest will make you feel.
7 comments:
What - that's not a good enough reason? Sheesh - it's not easy picking granite colors, you know!
WR: i send greetings from the great pacific northwest.
also wanted to say that i love your blog. no, really.
i'll be back for more, count on it. laughed myself silly over your 'rejection contest winners.' great idea and bloody priceless results. hell, i may even be adding to your content in the near future.
i shall return. meanwhile, keep the faith, babe...
Hmm. Sounds like Suzanne Gluck.
This isn't exactly a rejection, but I had an agent pull me away from another agent. She called me on New Year's Day and told me that her New Year's resolution was to be my agent! I was so excited by her interest that I eventually dropped my original agent to go with her. (She told me what to write in a letter to my original agent about moving on.) Then, as soon as I became her client, she immediately started tearing me down, telling me how my next book probably wouldn't sell well and we wouldn't get much money and blah blah blah, how difficult it was to get published, how I'd be lucky if anyone wanted my book. After a while, I ended up writing her the same letter that she told me to write to the first agent. I felt relieved. But now I don't know. Is it bad karma to leave? Is it unwise to let yourself be seduced by another agent when you already have one? Is it better to wait to leave your agent until you have another one (like a job or a lover)? Or should you be an opportunist and go with whomever is the prettiest and most flattering? (Am I shallow?)
sa?, in my experience, you should only leave your agent if you are unhappy with her/him, not just because someone else might have a better offer. Because, as you can see, you may well get burned. If you're happy with your agent and have no real complaints, for the love of god hold on to her/him because a good client/agent match is hard to find. If, on the other hand, you're not happy, then of course feel free to shop around.
As someone with years of experience in the sales realm, I am becoming more and more convinced that some agents have studied at the "used car dealer" school.
I especially find the "My New Year's Resolution is to be your agent..." a diabolical line! Although it's evident that SA? shouldn't have abandoned her agent, I can fully understand why she was wooed by such a smarmy tactic.
Wow. If I ever get in to the world of publishing books or collections (instead of articles, et cetera), I'm going to be extra careful and buy a "Turd-O-Meter" so I can smell this stuff before I step into it!
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