Proof positive.

In a recent post I hypothesized that agents are scared of cryptozoology when offering representation. I believe I have what is irrefutable proof.


Dear Mr. Haddon:

Thank you for your recent correspondence. I regret to say that your
work doesn't appear to be the kind ofmetarial I am currently looking for
at this time. I am looking to take on new clients, but only with material about which feel very strongly on a personal level.
..blah blah blah, good luck, blah blah blah...


So there you have it. There's no problem being a first-time author, no mention of a schedule being too overloaded - nope. I don't like the premise. Normally I wouldn't gripe, but this particular agent has gone on record in some online interview that one of her pet peeves is grammatical mistakes in authors' query letters. And there she goes and makes one herself. (Read that last sentence again, I made sure it was copied verbatim)

Oh well, at least she bothered to type my name in the letter instead of 'Dear Author'. Man I'm sinking into that cynicism I was hoping to avoid. Ah who cares, there's only a couple of you reading this anyway.

At this point...

the screenplay route might have a better chance of success. My co-writer, John (who's a very talented writer) is going to speak with a casting agent in early Feb. He's got connections, so this might take off.

We'll see.

As for the book, I've been fishing for critique from the general public via the internet, but nobody seems to really want to offer it. Weird.

I've got two queries out right now. One e-query, another through snail mail. If I get rejections on these, I might have to revamp the query to downplay the scifi element and uplay the historical fiction aspect to it. Probably a better move these days.

I'm resisting the urge to get cynical

I just got an email rejection - nine weeks after the query. Why bother responding?

I'm getting the feeling agents are scared of cryptozoology (the main subject of the book).

Wussies.