Following up on the previous post, I was amazed and alarmed to discover this message from US agent, Erin Murphy, at the Editorial Anonymous blog:

I have been queried via email by a man writing as [redacted], whose email ID says [redacted]–so I’m not really sure who he actually is. He has queried me at least once a month since November for an adult historical novel–the same novel in every query.

In November and December I sent him form rejections, which state clearly that I only represent children’s books and outline my submission policy. After that, I just deleted his inquiries.

I just got another, and this time I sent him a firm reply asking him to remove me from his email list and stating how many times I’d heard from him already.

This is what I got back:

“I know you would like to be left alone. But you are a literary agent, and I have a job to do. And I do apologize for any future queries that you must receive.

“But until [my novel] is published, you will be queried.”

In this case, there’s a fine line between querying and stalking!  You can read the complete post, plus comments here: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/03/queryfail.html

Don’t be that guy.  Please.

Tommy

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