A List of Things That Make Me Automatically Reject Your Work

For Real

Hey friends,

Sometimes I look through various #askagent threads on twitter to see what y’all want to know, but that hasn’t ended up in my Q&A inbox yet. (If you’re a paid subscriber you can respond to this email with a Q for the next Q&A Thursday!) It’s the usual stuff most of the time: word counts, what makes a query stand out, is X trending¹? etc, etc. We’ve covered that stuff a lot here, and if you’re new to these parts, don’t sleep on the archive. Most of the questions, though, hinge on fear. What should I avoid that will completely obliterate my chances, since I have worked so long and hard on this and all my worth and identity is tied up in this one book????? I mean, not specifically, but basically.

So here is a list of things that will cause me to automatically reject your work:

It is in a genre I don’t represent.