Poets and Writers magazine features a round table conversation of four young literary agents, in which they reveal some of the things they hate:
* "When I get an email that says, 'Dear Agent...' and I can see that I'm one of seventy agents who got it."
"Bad punctuation, bad spelling, and passive voice."
"Writers who have a lawyer send you something 'on their behalf.'"
"When people talk about whom they would cast in the movie version of the book."
"Anything that says something like, 'This is going to be an enormous best-seller, and Oprah's going to love it, and it will make you millions of dollars.'"
"When they tell me why nobody else has taken it on--when they tell me WHY it's been so unsuccessful."
"When it's the totally wrong genre." (for that agent)
Surely WE have never done any of these...
(For help on the right way to write a book proposal and find an agent, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey.")
