I’d like to coin the term inundation-hostility. Its definition is simple: an abundance of digital suitors seeking recognition. AKA too much pressure all at once. Imagine your teenager’s cell-phone and the constant pilling of messages they receive just during dinner. Hundreds. How do they keep up?

A letter to hard working agents, editors and publishers,

Inundation-hostility appears to be effecting many publishers and agents as well. Either that or I suck, and I know I don’t suck. Not totally at least. Therefore this is my perception of the cause of the difficulty breaking into the literary market. I lack a degree in professional writing, nonetheless, I am creative as hell. But I totally understand. With the plethora of queries coming in I may pass-up unknowns as well.

If I had to create a form letter for all of the denied query letters I needed to produce, to reduce the redundant stress of it all, I would do it. My God, I’d be overwhelmed with all of the requests from highly energized best seller wannabes. Even the form letter displays irritation. “Due to the immense volume of queries we receive we cannot possibly respond personally.” Damn.

Hey, I get it. Every message, email, tweet, snap or follow request can feel like pressure. Pressure to allow a stranger to impinge on your agenting fatigue, personal space and bubble. Yes, I think social media has taken on a living form. An entity that stalks, lives and breaths. For example, even though a person messaging you is half a world away it feels like they are breathing down your neck.

It’s pure survival mode for the publishers and agents getting four-hundred to one-thousand queries per month. If I were an agent and having a bad day, I might just delete a whole weeks worth knowing still that it wouldn’t help me catch up. I’m so sorry. Not really.

Please do not, under any circumstances, think I feel bad for you. I mean, I feel bad, but not, all at the same time. You are the leaders in this industry and have control over what gets in and what doesn’t. Your opinion seems to matter more than the buyers. Your command on the market puts choices in the buyers hands. Without you narrowing it down there would be pure chaos. And unless a writer has a formal training on how to engineer a query letter to your liking we are going to get the digital boot.

Additionally, please consider my argument that publishers are missing one major and fundamental detail–more labeling of sub-genres in retail. Otherwise your buyer will suffer from their own case of inundation-hostility and walk out of the store empty handed and feeling stupid. Especially the person who decides, “I’m going to start reading more,” but hasn’t purchased a book in twenty years, or ever.

During my most recent visit to our local Books-A-Million I took particular and curious notice of how its buyers required such guidance toward what they did or didn’t know they were looking for. The genres with signage with more than one word were busy. The vast, single word genre of Fiction was completely empty; no surprise, and I think I heard crickets. The Science-Fiction and Young-Adult sections buzzed with business along with Best-Sellers and Book-Club which showcased the gold standard authors who have become household names: Steven King—Maine’s very own horror master, Tom Clancy,  Nora Roberts, John Grisham and of course, Diary of a Wimpy kid.

I asked a clerk where the Feminist-Fantasy section could be found. “There isn’t one,” she replied.

I can imagine that with all of your expertise sub-genre’s could potentially put you over the edge considering your newly diagnosed Inundation-Hostility disorder, however, for the average reader we need it. It helps focus our interests to the type of books we like to read. I think a Hot-Firefighter genre might be pushing it but, I hope you get my drift.

Rest assured my fellow women with feminist fantasies, there will soon be a Feminist-Fantasy section if I have any impact at all.

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

Tina L. Hendricks