International Agent & Editor Pet Peeves

It turns out agents of all nationalities
have similar pet peeves. A panel of
agents spoke at the WFF here in Italy
and were asked about their pet peeves.
Here is what they had to say:

Sabine Schultz (editor, Tea, Italy): "The biggest reason your book won't get published is because you didn't write it. You must write. "I get queries saying 'This is the first draft, and there is much I want to change, but I just wanted to see if you are interested.' "

Loredana Rotundo (ARR Literary, Italy): "Don't tell me you'll be on bestseller lists. Lack of humility is a red flag. Forget instant stardom and be happy with whatever happens."

Judith Ann Miramontez (Book Cents Literary, US): Avoid sad, sappy statements about your personal life. It's not professional.

Leah Hultenschmidt (editor, Dorchester, US): Don't bind anything with staples or anything else. She wants unbound, single-sided, double-spaced, numbered pages. "Also, when I ask for three chapters, don't send chapters 5, 14 and 23 because 'they're the good ones!' "

Georgia Garrett (AP Watt Literary, UK): She hates reading a partial overnight only to see an e-mail the next day from the author saying "WAAAIIIT! Here is the NEW draft!" It's not a pet peeve, but she reiterated that it does help when you start a query with a sentence in the vein of "Because you represented such-and-such work, I think you would be a good fit for my book."

The book festival here in Matera, Italy
is a big to-do, and these panelists
were sitting down to be filmed for TV.

Click to continue.