Rejection Letters - Why I Hate Them (not what you think)

Okay here’s my rant this week.

It’s about rejection letters. Not the fact that I receive them for my writing submissions to agents and publishers, I expect that. The problem I have is the way they reject.

When a writer submits to an agent or publisher they have very strict guidelines to follow in regards to submission format. (see my blog post below for an example of what they expect)

So if the writer doesn’t stick to these guidelines explicitly their submission immediately goes into the trash and not even read. Therefore we writers diligently craft each submission query letter to each agent’s or publisher’s demands, in the hopes said agent or publisher will read their query letter and reply with hopefully a request to see more. If we do receive a rejection slip, which is more often than not, we writers do expect a little respect.

COME ON PEOPLE! Would it hurt to send at least a half-page letter explaining why we were rejected? Perhaps some hint as to why we were rejected, besides the “This doesn’t meet our current needs” line. Some of the rejection “letters” I’ve received are no more than a 2” x 1” scrap of paper saying “we’re not interested at this time”. Really? Is this the best they can do?

There should be some guidelines for rejection letters. Something with at least three paragraphs, each one stating the - who, what, when and why they are rejecting us. I realize these people are very busy, but at least some sort of form letter (actually mentioning the title of our submission) with check-boxes of reasons for rejections.
If it weren’t for us writers you agents and publishers wouldn’t even have a job.
Show us some respect!

There, now with that said, I need to start working on some more query letters to send out. Now where are those guidelines….