... you referred to your manuscript as a "fiction novel."
... your book was previously published by an e-book publisher and now you want a print version of it.
... the first paragraph of your cover letter had misspellings or grammatical errors.
... you sent me a boilerplate email telling me you are "seeking representation." I'm not an agent.
... you want me to publish something that you have already self-published (badly) on Amazon.
... your manuscript was 150,000 words.
... I don't like or trust your agent.
... your book has no marketing handles, no easily-told marketing story that will let me describe it in a sentence or two.
If any of the above needs explanation, you should not be submitting to agents and publishers.
"... your book has no marketing handles, no easily-told marketing story that will let me describe it in a sentence or two."
I didn't really understand this and couldn't produce one when I wrote my first thriller (still, and probably forever, unpublished). But the penny had dropped by the time I wrote number two. I could sum it up in three words: "Trouble in paradise." It got published by a major e-publisher in the UK.
Now I'm two-thirds of the way into number three and I've already summarised it in a couple of short sentences to lots of potential readers ("Coming next . . .").
I read advice somewhere that the writer should write the query letter before he writes the novel. I didn't do that but I reckon there's a lot of wisdom to the suggestion.
Posted by: Canadian Apprentice | July 16, 2014 at 04:02 PM
The heck with your guidelines and marketing handles. I'm an artist. I write what I write.
Posted by: Jack Getze | July 16, 2014 at 05:07 PM
Jack, all ignoring these guidelines means is that you'll have a manuscript that's full of spelling errors, rambles on too long, and that you can't summarize.
Is that what art is?
Posted by: Question Mark Plus | July 18, 2014 at 05:19 PM
Yup. If there are no misspellings, it's not art.
Posted by: Jack Getze | July 19, 2014 at 07:01 PM