News flash: Economic downturn cited in literary rejection letter. You had to know it was coming, right? Here's one posted by Write Meg! from an anonymous literary agent: "Thank you for considering us, but due to the economy, we are reluctant to represent women’s fiction at this time." That's quite a statement.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Your Entire Gender is Unprofitable
News flash: Economic downturn cited in literary rejection letter. You had to know it was coming, right? Here's one posted by Write Meg! from an anonymous literary agent: "Thank you for considering us, but due to the economy, we are reluctant to represent women’s fiction at this time." That's quite a statement.
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6 comments:
I've gotten multiple rejection letters complaining of the economy, and even an acceptance letter saying that they took so long because their funding was cut.
But the "we don't represent women" is a complete crock. Women are the bookbuyers. That's the ideal market for books. Either the agent is ignorant, or lying.
Lit J: Can you send me some of those rejections citing problems with the economy? It might be a nice series. I will make it anonymous: writerrejected [at] aol [dot] com.
Not representing women's fiction is a total crock -- and I wish they'd had the guts to just tell me I sucked and get it over with!
Thanks for the mention! I knew my humiliation would catapult me to -- um -- minor notoriety one day! I'm off to massage my bruised ego and check out the rest of the blog!
Holy crap. Time to haul out the male pen name...
rmellis,
But according to the publishers, men don't read fiction. Perhaps an androgynous pen name is the way to go.
"In these tough economic times, we've been forced to downsize women to 25% of the population. Men have been downsized to 20% of the population. The remaining 55% of the population will now consist of cardboard cutouts of people. Thank you for your understanding."
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