A flavour of the RNA conference, photo by Mark of Mostly Books. For comprehensive and useful writerly reports on his talk and others see blogs by Ray-Anne and Debs and LizSee Mark's blog too, of course, but ignore his phrase 'fierce drinking'!
Here are hints from the excellent talk by Literary Agent Caroline Sheldon - her 10 pet hates:
-single spaced manuscripts in tiny fancy fonts (should be double spaced)
-lacklustre submission letters with little information
-proposals for 'fictional novels' - what other sort are there?
-non-consecutive chapters - always send the first three
-invitations to 'peruse' a manuscript
-humorous submissions that aren't funny
-rusty paperclips, treasury tags, too much sellotape
-undersized envelopes, unstamped envelopes, international reply coupons
-absence of contact information and undated letters
-submission letters that say your mum loved it
3 comments:
Thanks for posting those pet hates, I shall make a note of them.
Thanks for the link to my blog too.
Ha ha, love these pet hates. I can relate to many of them, esp the treasury tags, rusty paperclips and sellotape, and that ghastly word 'peruse' (ugh!).
'Humorous submissions that aren't funny' really made me laugh!
I'm enjoying myself imagining a submission which incorporates all ten pet hates simultaneously - but then, I'm not an agent. If I were so start a pet hate list for journal submissions I'd soon be grinding my teeth!
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