This query arrived in my inbox this morning. It is possibly a joke, but experience tells me it is not. I have pasted it verbatim. How many things about it can you count that would irritate a prospective literary agent? (Not including the fact that the author attached the manuscripts to the email.) I’ll wait for some comments before providing my own list.
Dear sir /madam, 9/11/15
As a literary agent i request your office to edit and assist on selling my three short stories.I have given you undue authority to work on my behalf.You can deduct your professional fee from the sales proceeds.My payments can be send through either PAYPAL or WESTERN UNION money transfer.
Thanks
[Name Withheld]
Update: 12/12/15
Okay, so here’s a very quick list of what ‘got my goat’ (as my mother would say) about the query above:
- The author has taken no time to personalise his approach. I have no insight into why he decided to contact me – for example, if I had represented another writer whose work is in a similar genre to his – and therefore it feels anonymous and scattergun.
- ‘As a literary agent i request’ – aside from the lack of punctuation, the lack of graciousness and understanding as to how agents operate is profound. Assuming that I’ll jump at the request is probably the worst part. Unfortunately the fact is that an unpublished author has little bargaining power on querying an agent, unless they have millions of fans on social media or are a celebrity.
- Asking me to sell short stories – my Submissions page (at the time of this query) clearly stated that I do not represent fiction.
- Asking me to sell THREE short stories – this person has no idea about the business of publishing, which is difficult to respect given the quantity of information available online. Submitting short stories to literary journals and magazines is the lonely work of the isolated writer who does the work in the hope of acceptance, and at a later time, of publication of a longer work. Perhaps a BOOK of short stories.
- ‘I have given you undue authority to work on my behalf’. Well, thanks very much. Even if it was due.
- ‘You can deduct your professional fee from the sales proceeds.’ Again, you’re too much. Thanks! I’ll be sure to spend the time and money to set up an account with Western Union in order to pay you your proceeds, which will come to exactly … nil. You must not be aware, sitting under a rock as you evidently do, that literary journals mostly pay nothing in cash. In any event, no one in their right mind mentions money in their initial piece of correspondence with anyone, on any topic … do they? Or have I missed some recent transformation in business etiquette?
