Not-So-Old Mail

Hello Anonymous reject, I am a University drop out. I suck at everything I do. In the year 2000 I rejected a publisher that offered me a $10 advance on a short story I wrote. It was a science fiction story. After fourteen years later, I finally picked up the courage to rebuild the story I wrote back in the year 2000 to turn it into an adult fantasy with mild sexual context. I must admit I have not had any luck with any publishers. A few have called my stories fascinating but not really what they are looking for. I feel that my style of writing contains too much strong language and I need advice on writing a better query letter and finding an agent or publisher with a stronger backbone. 

Awww. I don't have any context for this, but I'm sure you don't suck at everything you do.

"Not what we are looking for" is a generic rejection phrase. There's not much to read into there, but it's honest. There was something they didn't like about the book, so they didn't take you on as a client because they didn't feel they could sell it to a publisher. Agents don't tell people why because we're not in the business of kicking people when they're down. (Trust me, you don't want to know our reasons)

I don't think strong language and mild sexual content was the issue, considering sales of erotica on Amazon topping all of the charts, but if you think it was, just write another book that doesn't use strong language or contain sexual content. But definitely write something new; if your old book has been rejected everywhere that's a good sign that you should move on.