the perfect literary agent rejection letter

As I wrote previously, the standard of rejection form letters from literary agencies is pathetic. I am not suggesting that they go to the trouble of constructing detailed critiques of rejected work, nor even that they bother with (some would say the common courtesy of) putting the author's name at the top of the letter and signing at the end.

However, if you're going to construct a form letter, why not spend more than thirty seconds and actually do it properly? The letter given below was written by me, this morning, in about ten minutes. It is friendly, helpful, deals with every type of author, fits on one side of A4 and does not encourage the rejected author to attempt to embark on a dialogue with the rejecting agency.

I offer this letter, waiving all my intellectual property rights, to any agency that wishes to use it. The single condition of waiving my rights is that no agency ever sends my own letter to me - whether you want to send a personal reply or a different rejection form letter is entirely up to you.

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Thank you for sending us your work to read and consider. Unfortunately, we do not feel that we can represent you.

Please bear in mind that this is the opinion of one agency and should not discourage you! There is a finite number of authors that we can properly represent. We can only take on a new author rarely and when we have a strong feeling that the writing is sufficiently fresh, exciting and likely to sell. We must believe we can convince a publisher to take the risk of editing, designing, printing and advertising your book. If we don't truly love the work, it makes the job of convincing others much harder.

Clearly you should put your best foot forward and move on. Here is our advice, most obvious ideas first:

• Contact other agencies (always remembering to find out their submission criteria before contacting them and never wasting your time writing to agencies who are not taking on new authors.)
  
  
• Contact other authors. Many authors have used authonomy.com or writing.com to discuss each other's work in a friendly and supportive environment.
  
  
• Get professional advice. The Literary Consultancy (literaryconsultancy.co.uk) or Writers' Services (writersservices.co.uk) both sell editorial advice.
  
  
• Find your own readers. Are you writing for children? If so, contact local schools and offer to read from your work and to answer questions on writing. Are you writing for adults? Contact reading groups and ask if they would be interested in reading your work – exchange their feedback for your presence at their meetings. For children or adult fiction, try asking bookshop staff if they could stock your book – offer to read, take questions, sign copies.
  
  
• Self-publish. Either lulu.com or createspace.com offer quick and easy self-publishing services. This does not rule out being published by a mainstream publishing house at a later date but would enable you to offer copies to schools/reading groups/bookshops.

Look again at your work. Be brutal – is it really the best writing you are capable of? Are there sentences, paragraphs or even whole chapters where you just thought that it would do? If so, erase them and rewrite them. Don't be precious – they are only words, you are not murdering your own children.

Are you reluctant to read to schools/reading groups/bookshops? If so, why? Do you not feel that your work is good enough? If you are not sufficiently proud to read it aloud to an audience, why do you think anyone should buy a copy in a shop and why do you think an agent would want to represent you and your work?

If you have read all of the above and are still determined then the best of luck to you. Feel free to write to us if you become a major success and we will congratulate you without a hint of sour grapes. But be prepared for a long, dispiriting and difficult slog with no guarantees and a good chance of a pitiful income even if your books make it to the shelves of the shops. You must throw yourself into this project with clear knowledge of the way the industry works, with thick skin to handle rejection and with utter faith in the quality of the work you are producing. If you cannot do all of that, be pleased that you have written a book but it is now time to find another career.

(Where we mention websites, they are examples of companies some authors use. We are not recommending or endorsing any organisations.)

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Over to you - feel free to pick it apart but I defy anyone to deny that it's dramatically better than the woefully rubbish examples of real rejection letters I gave previously.

P.S. I have sent a copy of this letter to my most recent rejecters - those being the company that sent two terse sentences on a 'with compliments' slip and the company that sent the bad news on a sticker placed almost straight on a small piece of green cardboard. It wasn't even a nice shade of green.

I fully expect to hear nothing from either of them - I certainly don't expect them to start using the letter. However, if I hear anything back then you, dear readers, will be amongst the first to know.