Carina Press editor Angela James blogs about why publishers don’t often send personalized rejections. Well worth a read.
My favorite personalized rejection over the last year? “Your story made it to our ‘perhaps’ pile, but sadly we can’t publish them all.” It made me laugh. The editor also apologized for the length of time it took to receive a reply, which is always nice. (No, it wasn’t Angela James!)
Do you have a favorite personalized rejection line? Paraphrase it for me, baby.
I had one that said the perfect agent will snap up my book — it didn’t happen (yet!), and the agent that sent it was my perfect agent. Also, an editor said a requested full (a different book) had a lot of reads and there was discussion about it, but in the end they didn’t think it was strong enough. Since I’d forgotten about the request, I was pleased that it had gone so far.
LOL, Edie, I’ve had the “some lucky editor will snap you up” line in a rejection letter from an agent who’d had a full a very long time and decided it wasn’t quite right for her. The lucky editor never did snap me up – but it was nice to hear. That book was BORROWING ALEX. When I was unpubbed and entering it in contests, the judges either loved it or deplored it with a passion.
BTW, that’s a great reply about the reads. Same thing happened to me but with an agency. So many “so closes” happen in this business. You have to get used to it, because it’s just how the ball bounces. It’s hard not to take rejections personally, but if you experience enough of them, somehow you manage, LOL.