by Alycia W. Morales     @AlyciaMorales

One thing we all look forward to as we attend writers conferences is meeting with agents and editors. We can’t wait to tell them our pitch, and we pray they’ll offer us a contract.

WARNING: There are quite a few things you can do that will turn off agents and editors, and doing them may kill your writing career. Just. Like. That.

I’ve talked with a few professionals, and here is a list of 25 things they’ve mentioned conferees have done that make them run the other direction:

1. Conferee acted like their life depended on getting a contract at the conference.
2. Conferee groveled.
3. Conferee told the editor God said that publishing house would publish their manuscript.
4. Conferee asked for a manuscript endorsement.
5. Conferee asked editor to mentor them.
6. Conferee was overly friendly just to get something for him/herself.
7. Conferee stood up at meal table and volunteered to do anything agent/editor needed.
8. Conferee told everyone the editor was her best friend.
9. Conferee clung to the faculty member after conference like they were BFFs.
10. Conferee asked the editor to take their manuscript back to their room and critique it for them.
11. Conferee knocked on faculty member’s hotel room door after hours.
12. Conferee called editor’s cell phone rather than being professional and emailing first.
13. Conferee interrupted agent’s Facebook chat to ask a question.
14. Conferee interrupted agent’s conversation with someone else.
15. Conferee stopped the faculty member when they were running to get to their next class just to ask when they could get together to discuss something important.
16. Conferee chased the agent down the hallway.
17. Conferee followed agent/editor into the bathroom.
18. Conferee bawled on the agent’s shoulder, crying about how her writing career was destined by God.
19. Conferee interrupted the faculty member during their keynote.
20. Conferee continually gave their unsolicited “professional” input during editor’s class.
21. Conferee argued with editor who was giving them constructive suggestions to improve their writing.
22. Conferee defended every critique detail.
23. Conferee continually talked while editor was trying to give advice.
24. Conferee verbally threw up on editor when the editor asked the conferee a question about their writing.
25. Conferee told editor they couldn’t change anything because God told them to write it that way.

Do you have a 26th suggestion to add? We’d love if you would share it in the comments below!

Alycia Morales has been attending or teaching at writers conferences for seven years. She has paid close attention to the etiquette “rules” and has ended up with articles in Splickety Love, Thriving Family magazine, and other print and online publications. Her short stories and devotions can be found in several nonfiction compilation books. She’s the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference assistant.