The Nobodies: I Rather Like This One

Only a few days after declaring that I would self-publish The Nobodies at some point this summer, I received the following letter from an agent to whom I submitted a query letter earlier in the year. I must say, I rather like it, and I’m a bit saddened she didn’t have greater interest in my book.

Dear Author,

Well, it’s finally happened: after over thirty years of answering every query letter that has ever come my way, I’ve been forced to finally acknowledge that a new era is upon us all. Before the arrival of e-mail submissions, I used to receive perhaps one hundred queries a week. That was a lot of queries but it wasn’t frankly unimaginable. [Company] now receives more than twice that on a daily basis and it’s becoming impossible to attend to much of anything else! I’m so sorry for the impersonal response, I hate to do this. Writing a good book or a good proposal is among the hardest things in the world to do; I promise, we’re not unsympathetic! You have our word that we are reading every single query letter that comes our way, but from now on, we’re only responding personally if we’re sufficiently curious and would like to read further. Please don’t take offense at this Draconian measure—there is undoubtedly a wonderful agent out there for whom your book might just be the perfect match. Toward that end, we wish you all the best!

Take care,

Damn. Just look at that paragraph. It’s a beast. And she used exclamation points. Wow. Just wow.