IDear Fellow Literary Lovers,
I have had a horrendous last five days. My brother's beloved dog, Rudy, passed away due to oral melanoma after surviving it for well over a year. He had to make the excruciating decision of letting Rudy be released to a final rest after she began having violent seizures. Then, my cat Romeo was found to have a tumor sitting atop his small intestines such that he can't properly pass food through his digestive tract. We had the tumor biopsied and fortunately, it is benign. Eventually, we will have the tumor surgically removed, but for right now, we need the little guy to get back to some semblance of normalcy before we approach that ballgame. I even devised a manuscript for this cat entitled How I Found My Purr: A Feline's A To Z Guide To Happiness. And I come home yesterday to check my email. I have a literary agent who I queried with this manuscript send me an email saying she failed to grasp the concept of the manuscript and would be forced to pass. Are you freaking kidding me? I have kindergartners who grasp that manuscript and can illustrate every page! Such is the case though with some people; they must live for the opportunity to send writers dingy, bonehead remarks. Now, let's get one thing totally straight: I am an English teacher and I have a responsibility to call people out when they end their sentences with a preposition or speak using double negatives; if you don't know what this entails I highly suggest googling it. I have zero inhibitions about calling students out on ignorant, vulgar behavior so I have absolutely no problem stating why some literary agents will be out of business soon due to unprofessional, asinine behavior. These are my top re asons why writers are turning to self-publishing and dropping literary agents like hot potatoes. Ready?!
1) If you are a literary agent and you choose to use the banal, vain platform of Twitter DO NOT
post portions of a writer's query letter or refer to them by name or manuscript in a facetious or
derogatory manner. This will come back to bite you in the ass. If you do it to me, you will be
hearing from my raging tort attorney with a lawsuit thank you very much. If you don't have
permission from a writer to use their work, guess what? IT'S PLAGIARISM AND
DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER! I know, I should have been an attorney.
2) Even if you think the query letter or manuscript you received from a writer is the most anal
retentive item since College Algebra, DO NOT send them a response back speaking in a
condescending "I Am The Queen Of The Literary Universe"manner. Agents, if you do this,
you are gaining a reputation, and trust me, writers let others know which agents are running around
with a chip on their shoulders.
3) If you are a literary agent and you request a full manuscript or full proposal from me, DO NOT
neglect to give me the courtesy of a reply. I don't care whether you want to rep me as a writer
or pass on the whole she-bang darling, just do the honorable thing and notify someone.
4) If you are a literary agent taking four to six months to respond to queries guess what?! DEVELOP
A MORE ORGANIZED SYSTEM OR YOU ARE NOT ONLY GOING TO BE LATE TO THE
PARTY, YOU WON'T EVEN BE ON THE INVITE LIST! DON'T GET ME STARTED ABOUT
THE DRESS EITHER!!
5) If you are a literary agent and you have a form rejection letter or email that you routinely send
to querying writers DO NOT WAIT TWO TO THREE YEARS TO REVISE THE WICKEDLY
PERVERSE DOCUMENT! It just makes you look so unhip and aged beyond your years.
Are we all on the same page now and reading from the same book?! And let us all pray that I receive some really good literary news SOON from an agent or publisher AND that my pit bull of a contract attorney likes what she sees. Because I cover my bases, cross and dot my alphabet letters, and seriously am ready to be published. Like YESTERDAY! ARE WE CLEAR?!
Love, Love, Love,
Grace, Amy, Dixie Diva, or whatever cute name you associate with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment