Therefore spare him all such data. The less you add to what he has to read daily, the better. An accompanying letter is really unnecessary—only it is useful to affix the stamps to, for the return of the MS. if rejected.
Profuse explanations are all beside the mark, and give an amateurish, unbusiness-like look to a communication. Whatever you may write about yourself on your MS., in praise thereof, or in extenuation, everything resolves itself down—in the publisher's mind—to the one simple question: Is this what the public wants?
We think we can Judge the Value of our Work better than a Publisher can
Many a beginner is convinced his MS. would sell, if only it were printed. It is natural that we have a certain amount of belief in our own work, more especially if we have given much time and thought to it. Moreover, we possibly see points in it that no one else can; we see what a we meant to put down, without in any way realising how far our actual writing falls short of the ideas that were in our brain. The outcome of this partiality for our own writing, is a certainty that people are not able to do us justice if they do not think as highly of it as we do.
But the publisher is better able to judge of the selling possibilities of a work than the author; it is his business; he is at it all day long. He has no personal feelings involved, his main concern being to make a book a profitable concern; and his experience teaches him pretty accurately what the public will buy and what it will leave on his hands. He may occasionally make a mistake (though it is surprising how seldom an expert publisher does make a wrong estimate, considering how various are the MSS. that pass through his office); but when he does, he more often errs on the side of being over-sanguine, and giving the author the benefit of the doubt, than in the direction of turning down anything that might have made his, and the author's, fortune.
A Consoling Thought—no doubt
Some writers are convinced that the style of their MS. was too good for the editor who rejected it, and altogether above his intelligence. This is a consoling thought, no doubt; but unfortunately it does not take one any further.
I know that instances are occasionally quoted (always the same instances, by the way), where books that ultimately achieved some success were declined by several publishers before they were finally landed. But in some of these cases the books in question were so very much off the beaten track as to be verging on freakishness—and no one living can guarantee a forecast of how the public will receive a freak! Here and there one finds a publisher who enjoys a gamble, and will risk a little on such uncertainties; (sometimes he gets his reward, more often he doesn't); but the majority prefer a safer, even though less exciting, course!
One other matter may have contributed to the refusals these MSS. met with—possibly they were offered to publishers who did not handle that particular type of work. Publishers usually specialise in fixed directions, just as magazine editors do. No one attempts to cover the whole range of reading; a glance at any publisher's catalogue will show this. A MS. turned down by one, as being useless to the section of the public in which he is interested, may be taken by another, who reaches a totally different class of reader.
Therefore do not despair, if your story does not get accepted the first time of asking. There may be a variety of reasons why that particular publisher or editor did not want that particular MS.