How to Be Rejected by Agents & Publishers

Copyright 2002 by Patricia Anderson

Here is an even dozen of my personal favorite, surefire invitations to rejection:

1. Assure prospective agents and publishers that all your friends think you've written a masterpiece.
2. Liven up your query letter with a joke or two.
3. Begin it "Dear Agent or Publisher" and send out multiple photocopies; forget to enclose the SASE.
4. Submit your proposal in typescript with xxx's and white blobs, or print it in dot-matrix draft mode.
5. Use colored paper, clip art, and several interesting fonts; enclose it in a paisley folder.
6. Never query agents and publishers by regular mail; show intitiative by ignoring their requests for no calls or email.
7. Indicate that you have 500 pages of notes and just need someone to turn them into a book.
8. Avoid conciseness when querying agents and publishers; take up as much of their time as possible so they'll remember you.
9. Send them your entire unsolicited manuscript.
10. Tell them it will be the next number-one best-seller.
11. Insist on a large advance.
12. End with a flourish: "You'd be a fool to reject this one!"

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