The Art of the (Impersonal) Personal Rejection
Every so often, I come across a well-written manuscript I find enjoyable but flawed. Unfortunately for the authors of these submissions, I'm working for one of the top literary agents in the United States; my boss doesn't need to accept any 'work-in-progress' novels. As a result, I grit my teeth and send out a lot of rejections—including rejections of projects I would represent but aren't right for the company.
This is how I react to finding a good manuscript...
...and this is how I look when I have to reject it a minute later.
I'm tired of issuing the exact same rejection over and over again. Obviously, a terrible submission equals a form rejection—but, in my opinion, authors deserve a reward for sending in a good but not-quite-perfect manuscript. (For an elaboration on this idea, check on this post from indie author Giacomo Giammatteo.) While I can't include any of my actual email correspondence for confidentiality reasons, the letter below is reasonably similar to my first attempt at writing a personal rejection.
My boss, Charlie*, told me not to send this letter to the author. His reasons:
(1) How do we know "making these changes" will raise the author's chances of finding an agent? We don't.
(2) If we liked this novel so much, why don't we want to take a second look?
(3) This in-depth assessment is likely to upset the author.
The first two points make perfect sense. I guaranteed the author a higher chance of agent representation if he took my changes to heart. Publishing doesn't work like that—getting a book published is a complex process, and there are no guarantees. Secondly, I refused to take a second look at a novel I claimed was "enjoyable." Why would an agent tell someone how to fix their novel and then not bother looking at the results once they did?
If the first two points were the only problems, Charlie would have allowed me to rewrite the rejection. The real reason why I ultimately emailed this author a form rejection revolved around the third point: my boss, along with a significant portion of this industry, thinks writers cannot handle criticism.
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| Your average writer, post-rejection. |
When the writer responded with a request for more information about the rejection, I again solicited Charlie to allow me to send him some information. With some tampering, I managed to get approval for this note.
Essentially, I took my five page reader's report and boiled it down to three paragraphs, then distilled that into a single sentence. This is considered "personal" in that it deviates from the standard form. My boss is great, both at his job and as a person, and I feel the same way about all of the other people employed by Folio Literary Management. In fact, I imagine the vast majority of literary agents are nice and sympathetic people. Unfortunately, most of the industry is more willing to dismiss dreams than to offer a splinter of hope.
Anyway, that's how to write a personal rejection!
*Charlie Charles, as you may have guessed, is a fake name.
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