Molly Friedrich gave it her best

I got this rejection today from Molly Friedrich today. A form rejection, but still a little different:


Dear Author,

Well, it's finally happened: after over thirty years of answering every query letter that has ever come my way, I've been forced to finally acknowledge that a new era is upon us all. Before the arrival of e-mail submissions, I used to receive perhaps one hundred queries a week. That was a lot of queries but it wasn't frankly unmanageable. The Friedrich Agency now receives more than twice that on a daily basis and it's becoming impossible to attend to much of anything else! I'm so sorry for the impersonal response, I hate to do this. Writing a good book or a good proposal is among the hardest things in the world to do; I promise, we're not unsympathetic! You have our word that we are reading every single query letter that comes our way, but from now on, we're only responding personally if we're sufficiently curious and would like to read further. Please don't take offense at this Draconian measure-- there is undoubtedly a wonderful agent out there for whom your book might just be the perfect match. Toward that end, we wish you all the best!

Take care,

Molly Friedrich

So at least she tried to answer all the letters personally. I give Molly a thumb's up for effort but not two thumbs up because it was, after all, a rejection. Besides, I have a daughter named Molly and I am predisposed to think highly of all of them.

Yours in rejection,

Phil