5/11/09

Getting on My Black List

A commenter asked this question, referring to this post:

What ELSE will land an author on the never-publish-this-person list?


There are only two things that will get you on this list.

1) Dishonesty—which includes plagiarism (as mentioned in the previous post), also lying to me, and unethical behavior with past publishers

and

2) Being too hard to work with. This includes personality conflict issues, fighting me on every single thing, refusing to market their book, behaving in ways that make it harder to sell their books—basically being obnoxious and/or clueless and refusing to change.

This is what gets you on MY list. Other publishers, editors and agents may have different things on their lists.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Editor:

I just wanted to follow up on the MS I sent two weeks ago titled Jerry Notter and the Full Blood Princess. Its a seven or eight volume series about a girl wizard raised by humans who ends up going under cover to school to a boys school to become a fully fledged and educated wizard. It's middle grade reader, but with my talent for adapting popular ideas into a cogent storyline, there's sure to be some young adult or maybe even adult cross over. See yourself standing near the cockpit of a commercial airliner and looking back over hundreds of passengers reading my novel. Can you see the covers looking back at you with your publishing house monogram embossed in gold? We're gonna make some serious literary flow with this. Can you dig it?

I'm also working on two other projects and I wanted to give you a heads up. The first is a teenage romantic thriller about a fanged non-human who instead of killing his human prey, falls in love with her and protects her from his kind. Its an amazing, non-stopper you won't be able to put down. Can you say blockbuster? Movie rights? Oprah?

I know you're busy so I won't bug you about the querry I just sent off to your offices, but just know that its gonna Eclipse anything you've seen in years.

Keep in Touch,

J.K. Meyers

Tristi Pinkston said...

Heeheehee ... best query letter I've seen in a long time. :)