Blog of the Week:
The Rejecter...

Written anonymously by an assistant to an literary agent who says he (going with the universal masculine here--I have no inside info) rejects 95% of what comes in, The Rejecter has been posting answers to readers' questions and offering honest advice to writers querying agents since 2006. The Rejecter is also an agented writer with several books under contract, so there's a both-sides-of-the-desk perspective to the blog.


Why did you start your blog?
When I was submitting to agents years ago, and not working for one, I would have loved to have had this blog and find out who that scumbag was who rejected all of my queries. Now I can explain, sometimes at length, why I am not a scumbag out to crush all of your hopes and dreams, unless your novel is really bad and/or racist. Then, dream-crushing time it is.

Why are you anonymous?

It allows me more freedom to talk about my work. Not that I'm anyone significant in publishing anyway and if you said my real name in a group of agents they would know it, but I can safely say "I rejected this" or "I rejected that" without it being a slur on my boss, who does know about my blog. I think she even read it a few times. I don't quote people's query letters, but I do say stupid things people do to prevent other people from doing them, and I couldn't do that if I wasn't anonymous. Theoretically I could, but it might get me into trouble. Also, I'm fairly sure a ton of queries would reference me or be addressed to me at work if I said where I worked.

What do you offer your blog readers?

Whatever they want, really, aside from reviewing their queries for them. Most of the blog is me answering questions or posting about something that I feel would answer some questions about what to do or not do when submitting to agents. Also the publishing industry is very complicated, and I make some attempts to explain it, and why most people are rejected (their books are bad), and why most authors don't make money (books are not a profitable enterprise and most lose money for the company) and why agents charge 15% (because time is money and they will spend a ridiculous amount of time on your book if you are a client and not make minimum wage for it in the end).

Here's a link to The Rejecter. Be sure to read comments to the posts--there's some good and useful discussion there.