Writers, there are some surefire ways to be absolutely certain that you will get rejected by literary agents. If you’re a masochist and you thrive on rejection, you’re gonna want to jot these down and do them. Those of you who are badass writers and actually want to see your work published should make a point of avoiding them.If you REALLY want to get rejected:spell the name of the agent or agency wrong in your query letter

If you REALLY want to get rejected:

1. spell the name of the agent or agency wrong in your query letter
2. query the agent about the kind of book they don’t handle or
3. (and this is my favorite) assure the agent that your book is going to be a best-seller that will make both of you MILLIONS.

#1 shouldn’t need any explanation, but I’ll give you one anyway. A misspelled name indicates that you’re sloppy. You haven’t paid enough attention to something that should be important to you: the person or agency who could turn you from a wannabe to a published author. It also strongly suggests that your manuscript will be rife with misspellings and typos. That may not be the case, but remember: literary agents are on the receiving end of many, many queries. They are looking for reasons to winnow that number down into something manageable, so they can determine if there is a potential winner in the pile. Don’t give them a reason to reject you before they even get a look at your manuscript.

#2 is, I’m sure, extremely aggravating to agents. Almost all of them specialize in specific genres. Like the rest of us, they have types of books they love to read, and types of books they do not. If you send your futuristic fantasy novel to an agent who mainly reps cookbooks, you are wasting both of your time. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. It’s very easy to find out what genres agents handle; just go to the agency’s website.

IF YOU WANT TO SKIP THE TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING ROUTE AND GET YOUR BOOK INTO THE HANDS OF READERS YOURSELF, SCROLL DOWN.

#3 shows a naivete that agents will no doubt want to steer clear of. You can certainly make your case about your book’s potential appeal to a vast swathe of readers, but finesse it. If/once your book is accepted by a literary agent, the proposal* that will be sent to publishers will have to be very specific about the demos of the readers your book will be targeting. You’re going to have come up with hard numbers for that. In the query letter to the literary agent, though, give them an overview of your intended readership.

I’ll delve into the art of query letter writing in another post.

*I’m putting together a free guide on book proposals. Check back later.