I am unabashedly pointing you to another blog post this morning (albeit a rather old one). Coming to you from the Buzz, Balls and Hype blog, here is a hilarious, and rather telling, letter to Santa from a literary agent to Santa, telling the jolly old elf exactly what he wants in his query letters.
A few of his main wishes:
- No telling me how bad you are at writing query letters. ‘Cus I’m pretty great at rejecting them.
- No calling. Ever. (Once again, the exceptions to this rule are Oprah and Stephen King.)
- No calling. “But I” – No. Don’t call. “No, you don’t understand, in my case — ” A, bah- No. If – No. For me- Absolutely not. Zip it. Don’t call.
- Sigh… You’re calling. Ok. What did I say about that? No calling… and if you’re calling, don’t be rude to me and insist on speaking only to my boss. Then, kissing up to aforementioned boss. Here’s why: guess who might be vetting your contracts, sending out your checks and processing your royalty payments one day, hmmmmmm….? Yes, that’s right, Fitzgerald. Moi.
- No emails that ask me if I accept emails. Please. This kind of nonsense makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a letter opener, and methinks it would be very hard to read your manuscript after that scene, no?
That a good enough start for you? Plenty other lumps of coal…er…I mean nuggets of wisdom throughout. Perhaps for this upcoming Christmas we should ask Santa for the wisdom to heed such submission guidelines.
I see that smile.