So how many rejections is enough?

Hi, can I jump into the discussion: what if there is no feedback? I had four agents look at my initial chapters and reject them, all saying well-written, good plot, good characters, but no thank you. I figure they are all form rejections, but at the same time, if I caught their attention, then my idea is worth re-working, but how? I keep getting these beautiful rejections that do NOTHING for me....

In answer to the OP, it depends.

If you have an agent, and your agent submits your book to a dozen publishers and they all reject it for the same reason, then you and your agent will have to consider that reason and think about whether rewrites are in order or, if the problem is too difficult for rewrites to resolve, if it's best to put that book aside and concentrate on your next.

If you're submitting your book yourself and you're not getting any feedback, then that implies to me that your submission is weak and needs some work. Because if your submission were nearly there, some of those agents and publishers would be likely to give you a pointer or two about why it was rejected.

If you get a bit of feedback, and your work is seen as "good but not for us", then you have two things to do: improve it so that it's so good they can't reject it (and it must be pretty good to get to this standard); and consider who you're submitting to, because perhaps that's what's going wrong here.

Hope that's a help.

Too many agents are concerned more with the size of the advance than with the writer's future, and this limits the number of rejections they'll take. It's nonsense. There should be no limit, except for the fact that there's not a single publisher left to send it to.

Some extremely good and famous novels were rejected numerous times before being accepted. The Good Earth, for example, was rejected something like seventy-nine times.

Too many agents today only want to submit to the top dozen or so publishers, and while this may help their bank accounts, it does nothing for most writers.

I can't say that I have a lot of experience with this because I'm on sub now, but if your agent has good feedback from the rejections, you may want to revise. If you feel the books will find a home as it is, keep submitting to other publishers and other imprints. And discuss strategy with your agent -- he or she may only be considering large and mid-size publishers. Maybe you want to consider smaller presses too -- it's worth a discussion about your career goals. Or, at a certain point, you and you agent may decide to sub the next novel.

Never surrender
Greg Gutierrez
Author of Zen and the Art of Surfing
www.greggutierrez.com

Jamesaritchie said:

Too many agents are concerned more with the size of the advance than with the writer's future, and this limits the number of rejections they'll take. It's nonsense. There should be no limit, except for the fact that there's not a single publisher left to send it to.

Some extremely good and famous novels were rejected numerous times before being accepted. The Good Earth, for example, was rejected something like seventy-nine times.

Too many agents today only want to submit to the top dozen or so publishers, and while this may help their bank accounts, it does nothing for most writers.

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I'm assuming this is just your opinion rather than anything based on actual facts and figures.

It really depends. You often hear agents talk about that book they never gave up on that took three years to sell. I think most agents worth their salt take on a book because they love it, and they'll do everything they can to sell it. They'll stop submitting when they run out of places to send it. And then sometimes, they'll just wait until there are new people to send it to later, and give the market time to change.

Others might give up sooner, but you didn't want those agents anyway, right?

firedrake said:

I'm assuming this is just your opinion rather than anything based on actual facts and figures.

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I doubt that; James knows what he speaks about.

johnnysannie said:

I doubt that; James knows what he speaks about.

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Wait. If a top-ten will offer a 5k advance, but a second tier pub offers a 1k advance (of course, numbers just for the sake of numbers), then it's either a $750 cut or a $150 cut for the agent.

Why wouldn't an agent be hitting those second tier pubs hard with the forty or so MS's from their clients? It just seems like accepting failure rather than being aggressive for later sales.

But what do I know?

Not sure if this list is 100% accurate but it has some interesting points:

http://users.erols.com/veritas/CR.HTM

I say there are other points to consider, too. I am approaching each ms I sub differently, but ultimately what they all have in common is, I want a long-term career for my client. I am looking for my clients to be not just published, but published WELL. I am not just looking for the highest advance (though obviously those are nice) but also at publishers that have good distribution and marketing and who will be just the right fit for my client's temperment and work style, and who have a track record for selling the kind of books my client writes. I don't think that is the case with every publisher in the world, and I make my submission decisions accordingly. There is strategy here, folks. And that doesn't mean sending to "every publisher until there is not a single publisher left to send to".

And REALLY? You want to send to LOUSY publishers? You want to send to publishers that will screw you over with a terrible contract, or who will take five years to publish your book, or who can't get the book in stores? REALLY?? If I send your book to a publisher who I know has terrible distribution and you only sell 100 copies, it is going to be a lot harder to sell your future books to a bigger publisher. Things in publishing are difficult enough without borrowing trouble.

I would personally prefer to hold off for a bit if my first and second choices come up snake-eyes -- to consider the possibilities, to perhaps work with the client to revise, and/or to tweak my pitch then find different publishers later down the line or wait till the market changes somewhat, and meanwhile, hopefully, be sending out the next project. I'll give you some examples:

Client A had a novel manuscript that I tried to sell. I felt strongly that it should be at a smallish or mid-sized publisher, or a boutique imprint of a larger house, to have the best chance of success. We went a round of submissions, and everyone turned it down. She took a few months to revise the book. Meanwhile, I sent out her next project, a picture book, and sold it immediately. I sent the novel out again -- nothing. No bites. Client tweaked the book some more, and meanwhile, gave me a chapter book project, which I sold immediately. Then I sent the NEWLY revised manuscript out to some more new editors, based on new research, and with a new pitch, and sold it, finally, over a year after I started, to a wonderful editor at a great house who hadn't even been acquiring when we first started. She got a modest advance but an extremely enthusiastic editor and lots of in-house support. I am very happy that I kept my ears open for new editors, and that she didn't sit around freaking out about the first book, but rather, kept working on new stuff, and kept an open mind about revision possibilities.

Client B had a historical fiction book that I felt very strongly was highly literary and special, and that this author should be at a "literary" imprint of a top-tier house. This limited the number of people that we could send it to -- but that was OK with me, and the author. It was turned down by our top choices, who said it was too quiet for a debut. Meanwhile, she wrote an equally beautiful (but perhaps more commercially viable) second book. I sold the second book in a two-book deal to one of those top choice publishers who didn't want the first book. The first book is resting in a drawer -- maybe it will never see the light of day again... but I don't think so. Because I still believe that the book is terrific, it is just harder to "break out" with quiet and literary historical fiction. We haven't abandoned that book -- we just want what is best for it. So, when the time comes, if we still feel the book is strong, we'll tweak it and send it after her first book(s) debut and she has a name for herself.

I don't consider this giving up, or me being a lazy or lousy agent.

johnnysannie said:

I doubt that; James knows what he speaks about.

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I'm still waiting for facts and figures.

*shrugs*

I have a book thats been on sub since July. In this market, its good, but not great. We've gotten lukewarm excitement. Its still out there with 4 or 5 pubs, but I'm not holding my breath right now. So agent and I talked, and the plan: Write more! So book 2 and 3 have been written and are being edited for subbing.

We haven't given up on book 1, BUT you can't put all your eggs in one basket, wait for years and hope that someone picks it up. There's the chance that if you sell a subsequent novel, that editor may ask what else you have and book 1 suddenly has a new lease on life.

It may just be a bad time for that particular type of book (My first was a fun, light paranormal read) Maybe one of these days thats what will pubs will want again!

Now, I don't have an agent yet, so take this with multiple grains of salt.

I'm trying to anticipate the fact that if I do get an agent, it may take a while to sell my novel. So, I'm working on multiple manuscripts in various genre. I'm doing a Sword and Sorcery type fantasy (sort of an Indiana Jones meets Call of Chuthlu), I'm doing a more epic fantasy focusing on privateers (LotR meets Errol Flynn), a YA urban fantasy and a Military SF.

So, if the market is soft for one, I have a different story to try and sell later.

.

firedrake said:

I'm still waiting for facts and figures.

*shrugs*

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Okay, here you go:

Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis (15)
Carrie, Stephen Kng (30)
Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfeld and Mark Victor Hansen (140)
Diary of Anne Frank (16)
Dr. Seuss books (15)
Dubliners, James Joyce (22)
Dune, Frank Herbert (23)
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38)
Harry Potter book one, J. K. Rowling (9)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (18)
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl (20)
M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (17)
The Peter Principle, Laurence Peter (16)
The Prncess Diaries, Meg Cabot (17)
Watership Down, Richard Adams (26)
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, (26

johnnysannie said:

Okay, here you go:

Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis (15)
Carrie, Stephen Kng (30)
Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfeld and Mark Victor Hansen (140)
Diary of Anne Frank (16)
Dr. Seuss books (15)
Dubliners, James Joyce (22)
Dune, Frank Herbert (23)
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38)
Harry Potter book one, J. K. Rowling (9)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (18)
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl (20)
M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (17)
The Peter Principle, Laurence Peter (16)
The Prncess Diaries, Meg Cabot (17)
Watership Down, Richard Adams (26)
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, (26

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This was the bit I wanted facts and figures on.

"Too many agents today only want to submit to the top dozen or so publishers, and while this may help their bank accounts, it does nothing for most writers."

!

.

'Lord Foul's Bane' the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant got turned down a huge number of times, I think it was over 80. I was told this by Mr Donaldson himself.

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38) She died pretty soon after, so surely she sent all 38 queries out at the same time?

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Ummm not by my definition. Gone With the Wind was published in 1936 and she died in 1949.

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38)

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That one I know to be false. Margaret Mitchell didn't query any publishers at all.

She was a columnist for an Atlanta newspaper and met Harold Latham, an editor for Macmillan and Company, through an introduction from a mutual friend when he visited Atlanta. She told him about the book and he requested a look at it; she brought the typewritten manuscript over to his hotel in a cardboard box and he made an offer on it the day after he got back to New York.

Given that that one "fact" is so far off, I question whether all the others are accurate. The J.K. Rowling one sounds right, though.

The only post i'm leaving up here!!

johnnysannie said:

Okay, here you go:


Watership Down, Richard Adams (26)

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Thats another "fact" thats wrong.