One of our authors, the writer of a darling children’s book about a hedgehog and his special larch tree, is just beginning the process of trying to sell her book TANNI. In the meantime, she has already become famous in a way as one of the 238.

Sandra Assmann, our author, submitted some of her work to Writers House literary agency. In due time, she received a rejection letter from Writers House. Then she began to get e mails from other writers who had been similarly rejected, more than 200 of them. Writing is a famously lonely business so the opportunity to commiserate with other rejected authors was irresistible.

It turns out that someone at Writer’s House pushed the cc (carbon copy) button instead of the bcc (blind copy) button so instead of sending out 238 rejections to various anonymous people, 238 rejections were sent a visible group. Later, this person sent out another rejection letter to the 238:

“Thank you for your submission to Writers House and for your patience as we considered your query on its individual merits. I regret to inform you that we will not pursue representation. While your work certainly has merit, it simply isn’t right for our list, nor are any of the 237 other queries we are responding to…

“I wish you success in finding representation as I know you will wish me success in learning how to use the bcc function in my e-mail.”

Too late for damage control. As Sandra writes in an e mail to us:

“The few. The proud. The Noble 238 was born. We have now a Facebook account. We`re trying to help one another and two already signed a contract. It is really funny.”

Go 238!