Agents' guidelines

I know this is not a positive way of looking at things but I do sometimes wonder if the guidelines used by publishers and agents are there to make it easier for them to reject submissions and are not designed to improve the chances of being accepted by those submitting.

I read Brenda's query letter and she seemed to be saying all the things an agent would like to hear. I don't think a letter written in the same format without the same content would have been successful.

Shelagh,

I have to agree. Some agents are far more particular in what they request, even down to the way you format your manuscript. I've forgetton which agent's blog I was reading, but she said that unless she received exactly what the submission guidelines stated, in the correct format, then she didn't even bother to read the contents of the emailed query or letter. I'm sure I saved the link, if I find it, I'll post it.

My impression from Noah Lukeman's amazon short about query letters is that agents look for reasons to reject as they go through stacks of queries.

I saw that as the same approach we all use when we go through a ton of e-mail. We don't have time to spend 10 minutes with each item, so we discard the spam, the newsletters we no longer care about, deals for which we have no money, until we get the inbasket whittled down to stuff from friends, on-going writing projects, etc.

My impression is that RED FLAGS (like bad formatting, narrow margins, sloppy editing) are going to kick queries into the waste basket about as fast as certain spam words kick e-mails into the trash folder.

Malcolm

I just saw this thread. For me I set guidelines to make it easier for me to read, absorb, and help the author. I don't know about other publishers. One author contacted me and asked me to read her manuscript. She asked how I wanted it submitted. I told her I needed a chapter sent via snail mail. She in turn replied via email that after she finished editing she would send it to me via email because she was "green". I told her don't bother to send it.

I do better with hard copies than computer copies because of my eyes. I didn't care if she was green or not. Evidently several other publishers felt the same way I did because she got rejected real quickly (I thought) from 4 other publishers.

For me there is a reason for everything. And NOT to make it more difficult for the author. Just to make it easier on me. But then... that is just my outlook.

I agree. Back in the day when I worked the slush pile, a well written query letter was the first sign that the writer "got" was needed. Following the submission guidelines is something many writers can't seem to grasp.

A well written query letter may not get you in the door but a bad one, or one that doesn't follow the guideliness, will result in a fast rejection.