Someone is always watching!

There is one thing I have learned over the last few weeks. Literary agents think they are GOD! They will not take submissions (queries) even though their web pages say they do. When you submit a query letter to them you get an automatic rejection letter with in hours, even minutes, saying they are not interested when you know in fact they never even read the bloody submission. That’s what pisses me off. Turn me down on my own merit but not before you even read one word. But I ask, where would these parasites be without the very artists they reject so quickly? Nowhere! It is the writers that pay their bills so why can’t they treat us with a little more respect than they do? Sure some of us are new and have no track record to speak of but is that a reason the slam doors in our faces without so much as a howdy do? I don’t think so. The agents are much ruder than the publishers. Just query the publishing houses direct and you will get a warmer reception.

It’s a catch twenty-two, you can’t get into the larger publishing houses without an agent but can’t get an agent without a published book. Make any sense? Hell, no! But there you have it. The Good Old Boy System is alive and well in the publishing field. It’s all in who ya know and all in who ya blow! And since I’m not doing either it means I am stuck in the slush pile gathering enough rejection letters and emails to redo the office walls. 

So take it from a battled seasoned writer, forget about the agent for now. Just contact the smaller publishing houses directly and you will have more luck. Then after maybe you have sold something the agents will come running after you. I just hope that, like me, you have kept a list of the jerks who have shut you down before you could open your mouth to get a word in edgewise about your book, so when they come calling you will have the satisfaction of hanging up giving them the same time of day they gave you (and me!).

Besides, they’re too bossy! I want to do it my way and I don’t need some “those who can’t do teach” telling me how to do my job as they take money off the top.

That is my rant for the day!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS