Rejection #21 Anubis Literary Agency
Thank you for giving this agency the chance to consider your work. Unfortunately, the material that you are proposing is not quite what we are looking for. We realise this will come as a disappointment but please bear in mind another agency may well feel differently.
All rejections are posted AS they were printed or written onto my submissions.
(239 left to go)
2 comments:
Hi Dominic
I've just very recently found your site, and it would appear we've something in common.
I too have a catalogue of rejections; however, nowhere near as many as you. My best wishes are with you. What do these Agents/Publishers want? And some of their submissions protocols are as bewildering as they are degrading! Have you ever had your Query Letter and Synopsis returned, without any feedback/response? I've just received the very same from Anubis: not a thank you or we'll call you. I'm not sure if this shows a total disdain towards my submission or not! I'm not going to phone, it'll probably ignite the situation... A relatively successful author advised me 3/4 years since that publishers and agents alike were putting into practice the policy of only accepting "celebrity" publications. You'll understand that this relates to the dumbing-down of the reading public (and on a global scale I hasten to add). When Norman told me this, I was dumbstruck; however, my rejections bare this out; as do yours. Some in the business were opposed to this, although, it would appear they had no choice in the matter. Even if new authors proved as fresh and exciting as say we are, potentially. We're facing an up-hill struggle even before we submit. Inferior celebrity claptrap is the door barring our way, and it needs to be kicked down.
Good luck mate.
Hi Weedi,
May I ask how you found my website? It's always nice to know if PR of any sort is working.
Well right now we have the economic downturn, a change in the industry (Move towards online, big publishers finding it harder to diversify) and the numbers game as I call it.
Agents and publishers tend to want the same thing to quote them. That is they want good books, with different ideas, but ones that are well written and don't include any extraneous bits in them. However what's the problem with that approach? Some books never see the light of day.
I have had it returned without feedback, but I later found out that agency was predominantly catering for scripts so that made sense in the end. But most of those I've contacted are quite happy to get back with signed feedback.
You should phone them, that advice has been given to me before, so I'm not sure where your author friend is coming from. But it's two sides of a coin, do I ring and dig a hole to climb down deeper into? Or do I stand at the edge looking in, thinking I know how deep it is?
Maybe we are over doing it, but it would seem paradoxical.
Norman Bates?
You're correct, books that pander in a good way to the mainstream will get published. A sci fi novel in the US got published and I read but three pages before tossing it in the bin, it was quite literally garbage in my eyes.
Well one thing that recently transpired in my mind was that not only must you submit, contact, re-contact, speak to and continually communicate with agents. But you must submit a book every 6-12 months to show them that you can write and to show them you aren't just going to disappear. At the moment this is my best strain of thought on how to get into the industry.
I have self published as well, but that's not exactly easy and I managed to sell 300 copies of my title.
Suffice to say I will be opening up a new rejection blog soon, for the sequel to my self published title, which I already have a rejection for from Puffin. I haven't reached the record 700 rejections yet (Recorded state side I believe) :)
Good luck to you to, feel free to email me if you want to discuss this some more.
oh p.s. Don't forget the story of the Edwardian books that were sent in to Agency's with their names changed etc, only to be rejected because they weren't quite there.
And one more thing, publishers tend to be better at wanting to give solid feedback than agents. But I have had one editor not get back to me about that...could be lots of reasons though.
Post a Comment