Those who know me will know that I've been sending some books I wrote and illustrated to the various publishers and literary agents who accept such things.
It's a time consuming process packaging up all these blasted things, researching who to write to, rewriting the cover letter to suit.
A bit like applying for a job.
I have had many, many rejection letters, almost all of them a form letter.
I have had a good handfull of personalised responses which, according to the Writers and Artists
Handbook, is a very positive thing indeed - even if they have chosen to pass on the project.
This below however, is one of my favourite rejections.
I admire it for it's honesty, it's straight forward, no nonsense ideology.
It is written on a brief, badly photocopied slip of paper, and reads:
"Many thanks for the offer but regret the work does not show a profitable readership. Do try somewhere else in case we missed something".
God bless them.
Perhaps the one thing they missed doing was reading them.
It's not even "We didn't like your books" or "Thanks for sending them, but they're crap".
I assume they have some kind of scanning device they ran it through that measures the amount of lines in each drawing versus the wordcount, then cross references this will the best selling books since 1955.
If it scores over a certain number then it's going to be profitable.
I don't mean to sound naive here - I was entertained by the rejection rather than upset by it.
But really.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Choose One
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4 comments:
Ooh, you're part of the big paper shuffle. In and out and in and out.
I can see these as daily frames in a newspaper. Have you tried the Guardian? They have many supplements, different ones every day of the week, Society, Education, Money, Jobs, Reviews, etc., I am sure your graphic jokes (I don't know what they are called) would be just right, they are very good. A book would come later, of course. Have a look in their website!
Patricia!
The delightful Neil Ross suggested the very same thing only minutes before you, and I had considered it only minutes before him.
Brilliant minds think alike.
I am delighted you are enjoying them.
They come easily to me and a quick to draw.
and quite funny to read too.
and those folk with their crummy photocopiers, well if they can't shell out for quality photocopies, do you really want to work for them? there's prolly no good stationery to steal either.
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