Someone in the comments section of the last post asked about the content of my rejection letters. Herewith Denise Shannon’s reply: [Handwritten] Dear Thomas Litchford, [End Handwritten] Thank you for your recent query to the Denise Shannon Literary Agency. Unfortunately, we do not feel your project is right for us, but we wish you the …
I knew this day would come. It just took a little while longer than I initially thought, and there’s a good story about that if you read on. Elyse Cheney, Carol Mann, and Denise Shannon all sent rejections, and I got them all on the same day. ‘Hmm, that’s odd,’ you might be thinking. Here’s …
What is it with this obsession with author photos? Writers are a jealous bunch, but one of the things that gets them riled up the most is an attractive, successful author.
My last post may seem a bit harsh. After all, as NY Times book critic Janet Maslin points out, while Calamity Physics starts out on shakey ground, she gets her story into the clouds and dazzles the reader well enough. And the reader eventually gets over some of her more obnoxious writerly tics, like ending …
If this is what passes for good writing: Perhaps the June Bug understood Dad had felt that way about all the others, but armed with three decades’ worth of Ladies Home Journal editorials, an expertise in such publications as Getting Him to the Altar (Trask, 1990) and The Chill Factor: How Not to Give a …
Mr. Dahlquist received $2 million for his efforts. No wonder there’s such a marketing push behind the book. Here’s the story.
According to a story over at the great Publishers’ Marketplace, Borders and other mega book retailers have seen a big drop in sales this quarter. What do they blame it on? Not just the absence of Harry Potter, but the lack of any meaningful hardcover hits to move units and bring traffic to stores. Apparently, …
An innovative, if somewhat obnoxious use for rejection letters.
Here’s an interesting post over at Making Light about a somewhat pathetic, somewhat hilarious site about rejection. The basic gist is that authors tend to take every rejection personally while most agents and publishers are just trying to do business.
I’ve seen other bloggers write about the submission process, and I’ve even seen bloggers post copies of the rejection letters. It’s entertaining. But one has to ask: is it wise to do so? Miss Snark advises against it. Suppose I query an agent, and she Googles me and finds the blog (which just recently started …
