An Analysis of a Literary Agent Form Letter Rejection

By Joseph Malek

Like the many thousands of people who seek the services of a literary agent, I too have sent many query letters to those experts who promote the publication of some form of written communication to the public. Yes, whatever that might be, you can be sure that at least one of those literary agents specializes in the subject that you and I worked so hard to create so that the World's people can learn from and/or enjoy.

Believe it or not, I'm still waiting for some of those literary agents to respond to the letters I sent more than two months ago. Then again, maybe the delivery rate for the U.S. Postal Service is only 80%. or I wasted 20% of my time because what I sent was simply discarded. I wish that I could have hand delivered each and every letter so at least I'd know that 20% of my literary agent search work wasn't wasted.

Well, it seems that I'll have to wait awhile longer. So far, I've kept myself busy by writing short stories, house cleaning and analyzing the rejection form letters that I did receive. Most of them are exactly the same except for the name of the person who signed each one. As it happens, I also made one mistake in regard to selecting the proper agent for the kind of novel I wrote, and those replies I fully understand.

You see, those literary agents told me that my story isn't the kind of story that they promote. The truth is, they never said exactly what they promote, so I took a chance and sent them a letter. Keep in mind that each one of those people receives hundreds of query letters each week and maybe they just like to receive huge amounts of paper. There must be big money in the scrap paper business.

Some agents said that their client list was full. Is that actually what they mean, or are they saying: "I don't like money," or, "I have an office in the high rent section of the city because I like the view from the window," or, "I'm looking for ideas for my next novel."

Your guess is as good as mine, but this waiting has caused me to think of reasons that probably aren't true. One gentleman was kind enough to tell me that I did good work and he also wished me the best of luck. Thank you so much for that, but it's too bad for me that he didn't know any publishers who would publish my novel.

There you have it. They know people in the publishing business, so they also know just about what to send to those people so that they can both profit from the written works of art that every writer created in which to also earn a living.

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