How to write a good rejection note

I am a successful collector of rejection notes. In fact, I have accumulated more rejection notes than any other writer I know. With this wealth of experience, I feel qualified to give a couple of tips to agents and publishers on how to write a good rejection note: one that will get the point across without making you look unprofessional.

First of all, write well. Every rejection of a manuscript purports to be on the grounds of inadequate writing (and not, for example, on the grounds that the book contains not a single jewel heist or S/M episode). So do yourself a favour and write properly. If you formulate yourself in ungrammatical sentences – or not in sentences at all – you may at least make the rejected author feel better about being rejected by you. You may also make him or her feel a fool for having submitted the work to you in the first place.

Remember that you have to grab your reader’s attention from the very first line. Yes, I know you get hundreds of submissions. Yes, I know you have to send out standardised rejection notes. But if you demand that a prospective author writes to a specific person at your agency or publishing house, have the good grace to remember that the writer has a name, too. It takes a second to write “Dear Billy” or “Dear Mr O’Shea”. “Hi” does not impress. I probably won’t even read the rest.

Use references. If you have a list of famous writers you have rejected, mention them. “By the way, we also rejected JK Rowling,” is definitely a winner. That will bring a smile to the face of any rejected writer.

Here is an example of a good, well-formulated rejection note:

Dear Billy,

Many thanks for sending us this proposal, which I read with interest. I

considered it carefully but I'm afraid on balance it just doesn't quite grab

my imagination in the way that it must for me to offer to represent you. So

I must follow my instinct and pass on this occasion. I'm sorry to be so

disappointing, but thanks for thinking of us. Of course this is a totally

subjective judgement, so do try other agents and I wish you every success.

The agent has remembered my name, and has thanked me for my submission – which was, after all, directed at a specific agency that I thought might be interested. Of course, he probably says the same thing in every rejection note. It doesn’t matter. It is courteous, and gives the impression that this person is a professional who cares about his work. (Now if he had also remembered the title of the work, it would have been perfect.)

Here, on the other hand, here is an example of a poorly-written rejection note – which I have assembled from several examples.

Hello,

Thank you for your recent submission. I'm afraid that your project

wouldn't be for me. Good luck with other agents. The WRITERS AND

ARTIST'S YEARBOOK and THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK lists agents

and gives advice on getting published.

This is the kind of guy who probably drops his girlfriends by text message. Not only can he not remember my name or the title of my work; he can’t even place an apostrophe properly – but he has the gall to assume that I’m not familiar with The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. (I have a book tip for him. It’s called How to Win Friends and Influence People.) Maybe he thought that this brusque, it’s-a-tough-world-out-there approach would make him come across as cool as the next Dan Brown hero. We’ll never know. Instead, he just succeeds in giving an amateurish impression of himself and his business.

With the many rejection notes that aspiring authors constantly accumulate, it can be hard to get their attention. So please remember that you are competing against a great many others, all of whom think that their rejection is the special one. A personal, well-formulated rejection note may make all the difference in whether you succeed in establishing a reputation as an agent or publisher with a professional, conscientious approach, or someone who really ought to be in a different business. Good luck!

Billy O’Shea’s new novel, The Clockwork Railway, will not be appearing any time soon.