As the DOW declines and stresses rise, we've noticed a difference in our correspondents (some invited, some not): there is a certain tension in the emails. Today, already, I've received two curt emails from authors demanding explanations for their rejections. What used to be the poor form of the few ("Clearly you are not a real agency if you do not recognize the genius of my work"; "You should know that someone at your office is not capable of understanding author submissions"; "Won't you be sorry when this sells 100,000 copies?"; "Clearly your agency is for niche works and not bestsellers [like mine]...good luck with your company in this tightening economy") has become much more common.
To those reading and considering a job in publishing: you will encounter many of these. Sometimes you spend extra time going over a project you especially like--only for the author to contest every one of your well-meant suggestions. Sometimes you will spend extra time trying to be compassionate--it is, after all, never easy to reject a memoir about, say, the death of a child or caring for a parent with Alzheimer's--only to receive angry mail insisting that the only reason you've said no is that you are a cold-hearted person.
My boss has a theory: in this time, people are desperate. A book advance--even several months down the line, even if it's only $2,000 from a small press--could help a great deal. It would be horrible to think that, if only the author had pushed a little harder, maybe, just maybe, the assistant/associate agent/agent would conclude, "You know, you're right. Because you say so, I will take another look."
It's horrible to say that a few angry authors have ruined the chances of the sweet ones--there are many authors who are so very kind and pleasant that, were I to encounter them in my daily life, I would want them as my regular interlocutors. But because detailed rejections give angry authors something to take hold of--points to dispute, rather than the slippery, "This isn't right for us"--it becomes dangerous to offer specifics, and form letters--for the sake of efficacy as well, of course--become the standard way of doing things.
A friend--actually, the friend that got me the internships that got me a position at my current company--loves to say that publishing "steamrollers [one's] soul." Quantity makes any one item--be it a terribly sad memoir, or any object or experience--seem less special. We receive hundreds of such memoirs, can even file them into sub-categories--the terminal illness memoir, the Alzheimer's memoir, the breast-cancer-survivor-rediscovering-her-sexuality memoir. We must, for our own self-preservation, develop some sort of emotional distance.
As tough as we try to be, it's still hard not to be hurt, however, by author complaints. We seldom reply (for what could one say?); we've even considered an office-wide policy of blocking all but the very most promising rejected writers--so that we don't have to see these emails.
To be a writer--as so many of us are--rejecting the work of other writers feels, at times, like an overwhelming responsibility. Some joke; very, very few do not, when it gets down to it, take this seriously. Some become paralyzed with indecision, terrified of rejecting the next bestseller. We have the power to turn a few typed pages into a book that can change lives. We don't forget.
