Blue Collar Royalty Apr. 2015 | Page 10

Stop  It     By  Weasel  Patterson     So,  you’ve  finally  written  something  that  you’re  proud  of.  You’ve  taken  hours  of  your   life  and  have  forced  some,  hopefully,  well  written  material  into  your  trusty  little   word  processor  and  are  ready  for  the  world  to  see  it.  Such  wonderful  news.  And  like   any  good  little  writer  you’ve  gone  out  and  begun  your  search  for  publishers  who   may  be  interested  in  your  work.  Publishers  who  can  give  your  novel  or  poetry   collection  the  best  of  care  and  help  you  in  gaining  readers.  But  you’ve  made  some   mistakes  along  your  writing  career,  mistakes  that  are  pretty  much  common  in   today’s  world.       As  a  publisher,  I’ve  sent  out  a  fair  amount  of  rejection  letters.  I  could   probably  over  flow  a  novel  with  the  notices  I’ve  emailed  to  people  that  Weasel  Press   has  not  accepted.  But  that’s  all  a  part  of  the  writing  experience.  A  lot  of  the  rejection   letters  are  from  the  same  mistakes  maybe  you’ve  made  in  the  past.  Even  I’ve   probably  made  them.  That  is  how  natural  they’ve  become.  Knowing  that  is  kind  of   scary,  but  I  suppose  it  all  comes  with  the  territory  of  publishing.       I’ve  noticed  as  we  progress  into  a  massively  tech-­‐savy  society,  our  emails  and   query  letters  become  less  formal.  They’re  littered  with  LOL’s  and  smiley  faces  as   they  try  to  push  out  the  next  top  novel,  and  that’s  sad  to  see.  You  as  the  author  are   trying  to  get  your  work  out  there,  but  there’s  no  way  you’ll  be  taken  seriously  if  your   query  letters  are  unprofessionally  written.  They  can  be  short,  simple,  but  they  need   to  at  least  look  like  you  know  what  grammar  is.  It’s  pretty  much  the  first  impression,     10