Came across the following while looking at a literary agent’s submission guidelines: “We appreciate all queries. But please note that most publishers today are highly selective about what they publish, and often decline to consider works by unknown or uncredentialed writers. We do our best to overcome these strictures for our clients, but they are powerful obstacles.”

Basically, if you aren’t a published writer with a strong fan base and a lot of twitter followers, fuck off.

The unpublished writer may then ask, “But how do I get published if no one wants to publish unknown writers?”

The answer is simple, my friend: “It’s not our fucking problem. Come talk to me when you’ve been published and can sell a fuck ton of books.”

So, I’ll keep on sending query letters. There is nothing else I can do. Start another book could be one option. I’ve done that. I have a collection of short stories. Thirty or more an editor can choose from.

“But nobody publishes a collection of short stories unless you are a well established writer already.”

“Well, I’ve written another novel.”

“But you aren’t published. It’s really hard to get an unknown writer published.”

“Yes. We’ve been through this.”

“Great. Look forward to hearing from you when you are an established writer with a strong fan base.”

“Got it. I’ll build a readership for a product that doesn’t exist.”

“If you can make that happen, we can probably get your book published.”