How To Woo Publishers and Agents

From a recent thread on rasfc comes the following post by the Inimitable Dave Langford, well worth repeating here:

   A few years ago, Ben Jeapes (as publisher of Big Engine Books) had an
   exciting exchange with an author whom he kindly allowed to remain anonymous
   (I wouldn't have):
   http://www.sff.net/people/ben-jeapes/crank.htm

   Now the author has endeared himself to Miss Snark with a stunningly
   ingratiating query letter -- or rather, circular -- which incidentally
   makes it easy to track him down:
   http://misssnark.blogspot.com/#6956402040073746888

   Even Thog couldn't bear to read the sample prose on our man's website:
   http://www.spaceark.net/excerpt/excerpt.html

My response, in part:

   Honestly, I think my stapler and pencil holder got sucked off my desk 
   into the talent-void vortex generated just by loading that page in my browser.

   [Disbelief sets in; goes back and tries again] Aaargh! It burns! It burns! 

Miss Snark (if you don't already know) is a literary agent who keeps one of the more entertaining blogs in the business. It's a very good resource in terms of learning about agents and queries. (Likewise I recommend Evil Editor.)

For all I worry about being a pest because of sending a polite query two weeks ago, I forget sometimes just how low the bar is set to be infinitely better (both as a writer, and in terms of politeness and social cluefulness) than the majority of authors (and author-wannabes) out there.

Makes me feel very sad for agents and publishers, to be so beset by idiots. I promise to do my utmost to never be one.

FYI! Deadly pet food!

If you haven't already seen this:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/17/petfood.recall.ap/index.html

Menu Foods -- a major manufacturer of dog and cat food sold under Wal-Mart, 
Safeway, Kroger and other store brands -- recalled 60 million containers of wet 
pet food Friday after reports of kidney failure and deaths.

An unknown number of cats and dogs suffered kidney failure and about 10 died 
after eating the affected pet food, the company said in announcing the North 
American recall.

[...]

Recalled cat foods

Americas Choice; Preferred Pets; Authority; Best Choice; Companion; Compliments; 
Demoulas Market Basket; Fine Feline Cat, Shep Dog; Food Lion; Foodtown; Giant 
Companion; Good n Meaty; Hannaford; Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Key Food; Laura 
Lynn; Li'l Red; Loving Meals; Main Choice; Nutriplan; Nutro Max Gourmet Classics; 
Nutro Natural Choice; Paws; Presidents Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; Save-A-Lot; 
Schnucks; Sophistacat; Special Kitty; Springfield Pride; Sprout; Total Pet; 
My True Friend; Wegmans; Western Family; White Rose; and Winn Dixie. 

Recalled dog foods

America's Choice; Preferred Pets; Authority; Award; Best Choice; Big Bet; 
Big Red; Bloom; Bruiser; Cadillac; Companion; Demoulas Market Basket; 
Fine Feline Cat; Shep Dog; Food Lion; Giant Companion; Great Choice; Hannaford; 
Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Key Food; Laura Lynn; Loving Meals; Main Choice; 
Mixables; Nutriplan; Nutro Max; Nutro Natural Choice; Nutro; Ol'Roy; 
Paws; Pet Essentials; Pet Pride; President's Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; 
Publix; Roche Bros; Save-A-Lot; Schnucks; Springsfield Pride; Sprout; 
Stater Bros; Total Pet; My True Friend; Western Family; White Rose; 
Winn Dixie and Your Pet.

Also, apparently, this involves some Iams and Eukanuba.

Nutro Max and Nutro Natural Choice is the brand of dry food I usually feedmy dogs, though it seems like it's only the wet food that's a problem (?). I've got a couple of cans of the Nutro Natural Choice wet food left but it's unopened as I've switched over to Merrick lately, which doesn't appear to be on the list.

Anyway, sounds like they don't have the full info yet on what's happening, so if you have cats or dogs I'd keep a close eye on this. Certainly, my dogs are going to miss their usual wet food tonight and have to suffer with just the dry.

(My apologies to my non-North American friends for the bandwidth...)