I’ve spent a lot of time recently trawling through directories of agents and publishers, and I’ve learned some things. Some of these no-nos are golden oldies, but others are newer.

Tech avoidance

They receive a lot of stories set in the near past – say 20 or 30 years ago – which they put down to avoiding dealing with tech.
Technology like the internet and smartphones and satnav have made many traditional plot points harder to pull off or even obsolete. It’s not so easy now for a character to be ignorant of a particular piece of information, or to go completely under the radar, or for all sorts of the misunderstandings to take place that have traditionally driven so many stories. But the world is changing, and we can’t run away from that.

No idea about genre

You might think your book is special and unique, too unique to fit into any genre, but genre classifications – which are now incredibly granular – are the basic currency of book marketing. If you can’t think of a genre for your book, you’re in trouble.

To decide on a genre, look for similar books on Amazon and see where they sit. Likewise, you could download a free tool like Publisher Rocket: use it to look for books similar to yours and see the categories and keywords that have been chosen for those, then apply the same to yours.

Of course, many books could fit into more than one genre, but you have to bite the bullet and fit yours somewhere. When pitching, it wouldn’t hurt to pitch with the genre the agent or publisher most prefers to represent.

Stories that begin with the character waking up

This is a cliche and dull. As one agent put it, ‘I challenge you to find a more interesting place to start the story. And if you can’t, well…’ Other cliches to avoid include stories that turn out to be one long dream sequence, and query letters that begin, ‘What would you do if…?’ (‘What would do if you turned up at your gran’s and she looked suspiciously like a wolf in fancy dress?’)

Not what the agent/publisher asked for

You might think your memoir or short story collection or illustrated kids’ book is not like any other, but if your recipient has specifically stated that they are not interested in your genre, don’t bother. They’d be perfectly justified in just deleting your message unread.

Likewise, agents and publishers hate it when people don’t follow instructions, too. If you insist on sending a full manuscript when they only want three sample chapters, or you ignore their formatting requirements, don’t expect a response.

Claims to utter originality

At this late stage in the history of storytelling, there is no such thing. In fact, agents and editors often like to know what tropes you’re using (enemies to lovers, odd-couple road trip, etc.). They also like ‘comps’ – some suggestions of comparable authors and titles whose readers might like your work. As with genre, comps help to develop a sense of potential market for your title. Of course this means you are well read in your genre, just saying.

Gratuitous nasty stuff

Most editors will run a mile from issues like racism, child abuse, misogyny and sexual assault. While these elements in your story can be justified – it can be argued that the best way to combat racism is to depict it in its full horror, for instance – but it’s a tough sell. If it’s truly essential to the story then it’s not gratuitous, but even then the question may arise as to whether you’re the appropriate person to tell that story.

Violence against animals

This publisher no-no is shared by many, many readers. I discovered this myself when someone messaged me on Facebook and said they’d be happy to buy my book – which has a young cockapoo on the cover – so long as I could promise that nothing bad happens to the puppy. It’s especially true in crime fiction, where they say you can kill anyone but the dog.

Yes, your story might be wonderful, but if you cannot avoid giving agents and publishers what they don’t want, or cannot give them what they do, your story never has a chance. And sometimes, these asks are not even that difficult to provide.

AUTHOR: Dan Brotzel’s latest novel is Thank You For The Days.