Why do manuscripts get rejected?

[nicegrrl]

I am just wondering about common reasons that novel manuscripts get rejected.

I googled this one and I didnt really find a clear answer. What are your opinions on this?

[Marlys]

Many, if not most, just aren't good enough. They don't necessarily suck, but they aren't sufficiently strong to stand out from the tons of other submissions an agent or editor looks at. And some might be terrific reads, but they're in a genre that isn't selling, or the publisher bought something similar too recently, or they aren't sure what the market is.

[stormie]

My thoughts:

Poor grammar, spelling. Even just a few mistakes can send it to the recycle bin.

No plot.

Characters that are like cardboard. The story lacks feeling.

Not "commercial" enough. Won't sell.

Doesn't hook the reader within the first page.

Too many adverbs.

All tell, no show.

And I could go on, and on.... :)

[nicegrrl]

What's "good enough"? Well written? Original? Arguably marketable? Probably all those things, but I just wonder why some stories make it and others dont. Looking at our crit forums, I cant really pick the ones that stand head and shoulders about the rest when it comes to novel drafts.

[Mayor of Moronia]

All of the above.

But there are legions of stories of how editors chase the big fish away. A few editors have a gift for recognizing talent and a few fail to see it even when the super-writer is already under contract and making millions for the publisher. Editors have their own tastes, and what they like gets printed. So take it all with a grain of salt. It dont mean nothing.

[triceretops]

I'll give you two from my personal inventory:

Incomprehensible world-building.

Not ground-breaking enough. (Didn't reach for new ideas)

Tri

[Siddow]

Try looking up how many times JK Rowling was rejected for Harry Potter (I don't recall, but I know it was many) and then figure that it all comes down to personal preference. One man's trash is another man's treasure. It's not always the manuscript, sometimes it's just bad judgement. Telling the difference between the two? Ummm...

[kilamangiro]

What's "good enough"? Well written? Original? Arguably marketable? Probably all those things, but I just wonder why some stories make it and others dont. Looking at our crit forums, I cant really pick the ones that stand head and shoulders about the rest when it comes to novel drafts.

Maybe it's because none of them are "good enough" or stand out head and shoulders above the rest. I have posted on those forums but personally if I had something I believed even remotely publishable I wouldn't post them there.
I don't want to offend people who post there (as I say, I've done it myself) but you couldn't imagine JK Rowling or Stephen King asking us to critique their work. I recall someone (could be uncle Jim) remarking that the work on the critique forums is fairly indicative of rejected slush. That's probably why it doesn't stand out

[Mayor of Moronia]

Siddow

You got it. Editors do not crap marble or pass perfume. Theyre more like loan officers.

[blacbird]

In my case, the words on the manuscripts appear to suck. Or maybe it's just the letters. Maybe if I rearrange the letters into different words . . .

caw.

[Peggy]

Slushkiller (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html)

[aadams73]

What's "good enough"? Well written? Original? Arguably marketable? Probably all those things, but I just wonder why some stories make it and others dont. Looking at our crit forums, I cant really pick the ones that stand head and shoulders about the rest when it comes to novel drafts.


No one else has popped in with the slushkiller link yet, so I'll do it:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

Teresa Nielsen Hayden(an editor at Tor) has compiled a really great list of why most mss. get rejected.

Also if you can't differentiate between the decent and the awful at the crit forums, you need to do some more reading. Some of it you'll find has real potential, while others still have a little way to go.

I've seen a couple of really interesting things at the crit forums recently and popped off a rep point to let the writers know.

[aadams73]

Peggy, looks like you and I were firing off our posts at the same time :D

[Linda Adams]

Here's a couple more reasons:

Lack of genre focus. Agents get queries all the time saying that a book might be this genre or that genre because the writer has utterly no clue what it is. Um, if you wrote the book, shouldn't you know what it is?

Too long/too short. One agent says that if he sees a book that's 150K, his first thought is that the writer isn't finished writing it because they didn't edit it.

Rehash of existing ideas. One editor said he would like to find another "Harry Potter" and had to quickly add that he wanted a book with the same kind of magic for readers--not books about brooksticks and magic schools.

Nothing happening. It's very common to see a book where the writer spends fifty pages just trying to settle into the story--all the while, no story is happening.

Don't know what the story is about: You'd be surprised how many don't really know. This one is actually pretty obvious in the query letter. The writers will start talking about events and backstory but never get into what the story is about.

Pitching the wrong kind of story: If the agent takes sci-fi, don't send him a romance. If he only takes non-fition, don't send him fiction. Yet, people do it all the time.

Not paying attention to the rules: This was from an article on POD. The writer packaged her entire manuscript up, sent it to a publisher, and got it back unopened three days later (at which point she gave up and went POD). If she'd done her research, she would have known that she shouldn't have sent the entire manuscript to a publisher.

Gimmicky: Sending a shoe for "foot in the door," black paper with red ink for horror, etc.

[Gillhoughly]

(Editor hat on)

Most common for me:

Not reading the publisher's guidelines.

Ignoring proper manuscript formating. (C'mon, how hard can it BE?)

Spelling/grammar goofs. (Tell me again why you not only slept through 5th grade English but can't find the spellcheck button?)

Stinky writing. (Still vital.)

A writer convinced that his story is so wonderful that I'll forgive the above gaffs to buy it. (Where's that recycle bin?)

Any writer making threats as humor. "Publish this or my serial killer will come after YOU next!" (Hm, wonder if that FBI guy I know would like to check on this moron.)

:tongue

[veinglory]

IMHO there are not reasons why manuscripts get rejected so much as reasons why they get *accepted* and the residual. Any press has limited slots and they pick those that meet their requirements and then grab them in some way. There may be nothing specifically wrong with those not selected.

[maestrowork]

It doesn't fit their current need.

[Jamesaritchie]

What's "good enough"? Well written? Original? Arguably marketable? Probably all those things, but I just wonder why some stories make it and others dont. Looking at our crit forums, I cant really pick the ones that stand head and shoulders about the rest when it comes to novel drafts.

The vast majority are rejected because they're lousy in every possible way. Most of the rest are rejected because they're the same thing an agent or editor has seen a hundred times since last Sunday.

You can usually tell a bad novel in the first page or five, but you often have to read the complete novel to find a good one. Depending on genre, anywhere from 1-3% are good enough to publish, and maybe one in five or six hundred really stands head and shoulders above everything else that comes in.

Sometimes a novel gets rejected because the genre is frozen stiff, and a novel must be spectacular to break through the ice.

Sometimes a novel gets rejected because no one has a clue how to market it.

Sometimes a novel gets rejected because it's simply wrong for that agent or publisher. This is more common than some might think. It isn't always a mistake when a publisher rejects a novel that goes on to be a bestseller for someone else.

Sometimes a novel is rejected that may be good, but just not quite good enough, and the editor doesn't know what should be done to make that particular novel better, or doesn't believe that particular writers has teh skill to do whatever needs to be done.

But the large majority of novels are rejected because they're bad in every way it's possible to be bad.

[willietheshakes]

It took 11 posts before someone linked to Slushkiller?

What is this board coming to?

[Mayor of Moronia]

Jamesaritchie

How do you explain all of the crap that gets published and becomes remainders? Even the local newspapers are filled with hacks and mediocre writing.

[James D. Macdonald]

How do you explain all of the crap that gets published and becomes remainders?

I'm not James Ritchie, but I'll try to answer that:

Those were the best books that had crossed those editors' desks. The rest were worse.

[UrsulaV]

Jamesaritchie

How do you explain all of the crap that gets published and becomes remainders? Even the local newspapers are filled with hacks and mediocre writing.

Yeah, and if that gets published, imagine the crap that's getting slushed!

Seriously, that's kind of a false dichotomy. Just because most stuff is rejected for being out and out terrible, doesn't mean that mediocre work will never get published. Mediocre work is indeed published all the time--but I'd lay you good odds that that mediocre work is STILL better than 99% of what's in the slush pile.

[Popeyesays]

Jamesaritchie

How do you explain all of the crap that gets published and becomes remainders? Even the local newspapers are filled with hacks and mediocre writing.

These days marketing has the final word, and marketers are usually morons without a clue. That's where the books that get rejected by the readers come from. Those readers don't understand what they should buy, say the marketers.

As to hacks and mediocre writing in the papers. Some of those hacks are there because they are dependable hacks who always turn in their copy and make no waves for the overworked editors. If everything in the newspaper were of stellar quality and with pure shazam, then we would just adjust our definition of mediocrity, wouldn't we?

Regards,
Scott

[Mayor of Moronia]

James

I wish editors wouldnt give the marginal stuff a pass. In fairness, though, I was reading some Hemingway stories the other night, and was bored out of my mind.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Scott

I read Kenneth Roberts biography, WHY I WRITE, and was amused to learn he made his newspaper column up when he worked in Boston. But the readers loved his blarney...and so did the publisher (the managing editor hated him).

[Jamesaritchie]

These days marketing has the final word, and marketers are usually morons without a clue. That's where the books that get rejected by the readers come from. Those readers don't understand what they should buy, say the marketers.

As to hacks and mediocre writing in the papers. Some of those hacks are there because they are dependable hacks who always turn in their copy and make no waves for the overworked editors. If everything in the newspaper were of stellar quality and with pure shazam, then we would just adjust our definition of mediocrity, wouldn't we?

Regards,
Scott

To be honest, I think marketing and quality are almost always the same thng. It isn't marketers who tell readers what they should buy, it's readers who tell marketers what they want to buy.

It's true that to an extent, bean counters run big publishing, but what many overlook is when bea cunters and marketers get their ideas as to what readers want. They get it from research, polls, letters written to the publisher by readers, and by keeping a close eye on what readers actually buy.

Marketers are not morons without a clue, they're usually very astute people whose jobs depend on putting out books that the largest possible number of readers will love. You'd be amazed how closely publishers, and marketers, read letters from readers, and how much weight they give such letters.

By and large, I think they do a spectacular job of finding and publishing quality.

Not that they have a heck of a lot to choose from. Anyone who thinks maketers pass on quality and buy crap has never waded through a slush pile. No publisher can pubish anything better that what writers offer, and it;s amazing how little quality there is in the average slush pile.

I don;t think much bad fiction does get published, but most of the bad stuiff that does get published, the stuff that readers reject, is published because it's the best fiction available to the publisher.

A publishers first buys the best, and he buys what he knows without doubt that many readers want, and then he fills the rest of the slots with the best that's left, which sometimes isn't very good.

But as one editor said, "If you think what I publish is bad, you should see what I reject."

It's true. Whatever you think of teh quality of some published novels, the worst of them is usually ten times better than anyting else in the slush pile.

[Jamesaritchie]

James

I wish editors wouldnt give the marginal stuff a pass. In fairness, though, I was reading some Hemingway stories the other night, and was bored out of my mind.

Well, passing on the marginal stuff is largely a matter of numbers. There are only so many open slots. And sometimes what's marginal for one publisher is pure gold for another, simply because the fit is better.

But I think this is also where small press publishers shine. With less money on teh line, they can take more of a chance on a marginal novel, and give the writer a chance to hone his skills with a few more novels.

As for Hemingway, well, a matter of taste, I suppose. I think he's one of the best short story writers who ever lived, and I think his short story "Big Two-hearted River" is one of the four or five best American short stories ever written.

[Mayor of Moronia]

James

Yes. I admired Hemingway greatly 40 years ago. As luck would have it I was stationed at Zaragoza, Spain and very near Udine, Italy, where two of his novels were set. So the front row seats made the books very enjoyable. But I didnt care for the stories I read. Spain also brought Michener's IBERIA to life.

[Linda Adams]

James

I wish editors wouldnt give the marginal stuff a pass. In fairness, though, I was reading some Hemingway stories the other night, and was bored out of my mind.

There's a huge difference between good and bad writing, and what we, as an individual reader dislike and like because of personal taste. There are people who turned Tom Clancy into a best selling author; I still can't get myself into his books. People told me I should read a classic novel; I tried and was so bored I had trouble picking the book up again and again. Yet, I saw plenty of people eagerly talking about reading these books and how much they enjoyed them, but I couldn't get into them.

None of means the book itself was marginal or badly written; it just means I personally didn't care for it.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Linda Adams

OK I agree. But I never see Tom Clancy or Ernest Hemingway at remainder sales. Even the classics are a small section at remainder sales.

I read David Morrell's FIRST BLOOD Tuesday. I couldnt put it down. It will never be a classic because there arent any minerals & vitamins in it. The story is implausible. And it's filled with errors. But it is an excellent example of excellent writing. It's 100 Proof drama....like Thomas Harris' thrillers.

[Jamesaritchie]

Linda Adams

OK I agree. But I never see Tom Clancy or Ernest Hemingway at remainder sales. Even the classics are a small section at remainder sales.

I read David Morrell's FIRST BLOOD Tuesday. I couldnt put it down. It will never be a classic because there arent any minerals & vitamins in it. The story is implausible. And it's filled with errors. But it is an excellent example of excellent writing. It's 100 Proof drama....like Thomas Harris' thrillers.

I think it's more an example of writing you really like. Not the same thing as excellent writing.

But you never know what will become a classic. I mean, really, how many vitamins and minerals are there in Kidnapped, or Treasure Island, or The Count of Monte Cristo, or Tom Sawyer, or Robinson Crusoe?

Now, I'm not at all fond of First Blood. I think the movie was a good deal better than the book, but who knows? It could be the most popular book from this time period. And there's no way to say whether Silence of the Lambs will or won't become a classic.

This is a question only time can answer, and I'm pretty sure we'd all be surprised if we could jump a hundred years into the future and see what was still being read.

[UrsulaV]

Linda Adams

OK I agree. But I never see Tom Clancy or Ernest Hemingway at remainder sales. Even the classics are a small section at remainder sales.


I've seen plenty of Clancy at remainder sales. Usually right around the time the paperback versions come out, if I had to venture a guess.

Seriously, quite good books get remaindered all the time. It isn't neccessarily the sign of bad writing--I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure remaindering happens for all kinds of reasons, many of which are probably more intimately tied to the mechanics of distribution and shelf space and what's being released than to the quality of the writing.

[Jamesaritchie]

I've seen plenty of Clancy at remainder sales. Usually right around the time the paperback versions come out, if I had to venture a guess.

Seriously, quite good books get remaindered all the time. It isn't neccessarily the sign of bad writing--I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure remaindering happens for all kinds of reasons, many of which are probably more intimately tied to the mechanics of distribution and shelf space and what's being released than to the quality of the writing.

Most remainders are books the publisher has allowed to go out of print, so you shouldn't see a Clancy novel in this type of sale. All his novels are still in print.

But on occasion a book is "remaindered" because of a big overstock, and cost of inventory is just too high to keep all the books. These are not true remainders, and the publisher is just selling off the excess at a bargain price. But the price is never as low as true remainders.

A remainder should have a black line drawn across the pages at the bottom of the book, or should have the original price actually cut out.

Being remaindered is not a sign of a bad book, it's just the sign of a book that has turned all the profit, in that form, that a publisher believes it can make. Darned few writers avoid the remainder table, especially since publishers now have to pay taxes on inventory.

[PennStater]

I'm afraid the truth is more simple than you think.

A lot of books suck. Period.

[Mayor of Moronia]

James

My opinion only. I think great literature responds to fundamental human problems with plausible solutions. Many years ago I had a client, a boy with cerebral palsy. He was referred to me because he was trying to kill himself and had a sleep disorder. I solved the sleep problem with WAR & PEACE (he had to read it if he wasnt asleep by 10pm...ordeal therapy). I used MY LEFT FOOT to work on the suicidal ideation....to plant the idea in his mind that he wasnt a circus freak....a negative sort of narcisscism.

FIRST BLOOD certainly isnt literature but it brilliantly illustrates what you can do with pot-luck when you use all the writing tools correctly. Morrell employed every recommended technique, so far as I can see.

My own ferrel writing style is like Bradford Torrey, the 19th Century naturalist. But Torrey couldnt walk a block without filling a chapter with every natural wonder he observed along the way, in obsessive detail. It's fascinating description and narrative, but not story. So I struggle to make my writing telegraphic.

Who you fooling? KIDNAPPED is great literature. Davy Balfour is a boy after my heart! Boys today flee to the mental health centers at the first signs of trouble. Matron haystacks there transform them into sissies.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Ursula

The better books at remainder sales are price changes or old editions of non-fiction.

[nicegrrl]

yeah, I can tell work that is really bad pretty quick, but Its tough for me to see how only 1-3% of books make it. I wonder where 99% of books go wrong. How can they be *that* bad?

Some say its not about bad writing, some say its bad writing first and foremost.

How big of a problem is unoriginality and copy cat books? Anyone have real experience with that one?

[nicegrrl]

Hey, apparently JK Rowling got rejected from 5 publishers, which is about the closest you can come to never getting a rejection. On the other hand, stephen King's first 5 novels were rejected dozens of times.

[Summonere]

nicegrrl:

Just about everyone else has beaten me to the answers, so I’ll enumerate them anyway. (Redundancy is my hobby.)

The vast majority of manuscripts get rejected for two reasons:

1. They stink.
2. They don’t meet the needs of the publisher.*
3. They both stink and don’t meet the needs of the publisher.

Almost without exception, a good reader can spot these reasons on page one, and more often than not they can spot them in the first paragraph, if not the first line.

Sounds unfair, sure, but if you’re looking at, say, a giant room filled floor-to-ceiling with manuscripts, and you’re the designated go-in-there-and-find-gold guy, there’s little chance that you’re going to waste your time digging through a manuscript if something on that first page doesn’t kick your teeth down your throat and make you go Zowie!

JK Rowlings’ work was rejected numerous times for reason #2: it was considered too long for the market. (Seem to have read that somewhere, once.)

----------
* Note: some of these are actually pretty good, but if the guidelines ask for science fiction and someone sends you a western, or horror, or romance…

[NeuroFizz]

I wish editors wouldnt give the marginal stuff a pass. In fairness, though, I was reading some Hemingway stories the other night, and was bored out of my mind.
There you go. For every novel you and your friends may consider to be marginal, there may be another group of readers who think it's a quality story. Some published books may be mediocre in terms of written prose, but wonderful in terms of storytelling. This whole business is so subjective, many books we think are mediocre or worse get into print because someone believes in the potential merits of some aspect of the story--enough so to risk money on it. Falling back on the "so much crap gets published these days" feel-better complaint is looking at the wrong end of the organism, in my opinion. Don't get all wrapped up in what comes out of that organism--work hard on what goes into it.

What is marginal to some is beyond marginal to others, and I doubt there is any editor out there (who is still empolyed) who says to his/her company, "this is marginally adequate, let's publish it."

This business is in bad need of crystal balls. Until they are available outside of fictional stories, however, competence is a bare minimum to be considered beyond the first page or two, but it is no guarantee of getting any further consideration. Something has to impress the readers, and it has to be more than clever prose in most cases. What is left? Get on with a story that knocks the socks off the readers. It's necessary to say "readers" instead of "reader" because of the various quirks of individual agents and editors (genre-related, personal preference-related, present client load-related, etc.). Sometimes it comes down to just plain luck, but this is not something to rely upon.

[Mayor of Moronia]

NeuroFizz

Much of what gets published is crap. And my original point was: Editors and publishers pick & choose what they like. Readers pick & choose what they like. When both groups are on the same page publisher and writer make a ton of money. But popularity is no guarantee of quality. And rejection is no badge of failure.

I have here on my desk books by various Supreme Court Justices. A few of them are classics. And not one of them is good writing. Not one.

[blacbird]

This business is in bad need of crystal balls.

The writer is in bad need of more durable ones.

caw.

[UrsulaV]

And my original point was: Editors and publishers pick & choose what they like. Readers pick & choose what they like. When both groups are on the same page publisher and writer make a ton of money. But popularity is no guarantee of quality. And rejection is no badge of failure.

Whoa, nellie! But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Nobody is saying that rejection automatically means a manuscript sucks--what they're saying is that the reason that the vast majority are rejected is because they suck.

This really is two different things. There are a hundred reasons why a book is rejected. The overwhelming majority is because of, as has been said, suckitude. There's still a dozen reasons, once you filter those out, why the remaining books get rejected, most of which are detailed over on the Slushkiller list. Heck, I've personally gotten "We thought this was very readable, but unfortunately we just bought something like it." That's rejection for a reason other than quality, and hey, que sera, sera.

Socrates is a man, but all men are not Socrates. I don't think anybody in this thread has said "Rejection is a badge of failure!"

But none of these change the fact that the vast majority of rejections of manuscripts arise because, not to put too fine a point upon it, the manuscript is unpublishable tripe.

[Berry]

What is marginal to some is beyond marginal to others, and I doubt there is any editor out there (who is still empolyed) who says to his/her company, "this is marginally adequate, let's publish it."


Actually, that CAN happen. Imagine that Bloodred Press has a line of lesbian vampire pirate novels, and have committed to publish six a year. They have nine in the pipeline, and need to pick one for the #10 slot THIS WEEK. The editor rejects the straight vampire pirate novels, the lesbian werewolf pirate novels, the lesbian vampire detective novels, and all the ones that really suck hard (so to speak), and is left with one lesbian vampire pirate novel that's, well, marginally adequate.

The editor could wait and hope a better one comes in, but the honchos have been screaming to get #10 into production and it's already late. The editor could go to known authors and ask for LVP novels, but most of them are either busy with another project or already in slots #1-#9.

What to do but pick the marginally adequate book for slot #10 and hope that the next batch of slush has something better for #11? That's how crappy books get published.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Ursula
I read your post and do not see where I disagree with you. So where's all your steam coming from?

[UrsulaV]

Ursula
I read your post and do not see where I disagree with you. So where's all your steam coming from?

Tiny clockwork gnomes run a boiler in my spleen.

Seriously, though, we seem to be going around in circles. Somebody says "Most manuscripts get rejected because they're crap," and then you say "But how do you explain bad stuff still getting published?" and then somebody says "Yeah, but most manuscripts are still rejected because they're crap," and then you say "But rejection is no badge of failure," and then I say "Yeah, but STILL most manuscripts are rejected because they're crap."

Well, it's nice that we all agree, anyway...

[expatbrat]

Are you SURE it isn't PMS?

[aric77]

so is it safe to assume that while even a book that's been fully edited with all the 'i's dotted and 't's crossed and is a great read, still might not get published because:

A. it's been done already(or to death and beyond):e2thud:
B. doesn't meet the publisher's needs(however that works):e2shrug:
C. doesn't get unanimous vote(from editor, marketing+research):e2seesaw:
D. might not be marketable/profitable

is that about the size it?

[icerose]

Don't forget to add snoozefest, bland characters, and plotless to your list.

[expatbrat]

Don't forget to add snoozefest, bland characters, and plotless to your list.

Or maybe the agent has PMS... or crazy pregnancy hormones - don't forget them. Or maybe their dog died. Or someone's cat got in and killed their gold fish - that can happen.

Or maybe it sux. Doubt it but. Why would you send in a suxy MS? Nar - PMS has to explain it.

[icerose]

Or maybe the agent has PMS... or crazy pregnancy hormones - don't forget them. Or maybe their dog died. Or someone's cat got in and killed their gold fish - that can happen.

Or maybe it sux. Doubt it but. Why would you send in a suxy MS? Nar - PMS has to explain it.

Because people are terrible judges of their own work and if you talk to a lot of writers long enough, read their work, offer a critique, then have your head snapped off when you so much as hint there is something even remotely wrong with their "baby" it's not hard to see it. They can't take criticizm, they can't take suggestions, thus their work continues to suck just as bad as when they first picked up a pen. They refuse to hone their craft and improve, they don't edit their work because they believe it came out perfect, and that winds back around to the top.

I look back at my first scribblings and they were horrid, far from being publishable. My writing has improved leaps and bounds since then and I have no doubt that it will continue to improve each and every time I pick up that pen.

[nicegrrl]

I actually think my writing gets better and worse in equal proportions. I hope my writing gets more and more publishable, but I dont really believe its getting better. One day, when I am free to do as I please, I am going to write flowery omnicient narratives filled with adverbs and long sentences. It's what I prefer to read and how I naturally write.

My quill of springy keys designs my world of verbal monuments, Baroque in linguistic archetecture and elevated as Cathedral steeples.

I wish they published chick lit with such sentences.

[Kharisma]

1-3% only gets pulished? That is a hard reality for a newbie writer to shallow!

Thanks

[Bufty]

I recall reading somewhere - can't recall where - that the odds of getting one's manuscript published are around 30,000 to 1 against.

1-3% only gets pulished? That is a hard reality for a newbie writer to shallow!

Thanks

[Mayor of Moronia]

ursula

Let me tackle this from another direction.

I worked for a large state agency for several years. My job required me to write 1000s of reports. I mean 1000s. My customers were judges and lawyers. Judges and lawyers prefer virginally tight prose. They do not enjoy searching reports for the salient information they require. I can do this well. I invented pithy. So my customers were happy.

But not my superiors. Bureaucrats loathe anything that show your fingerprints and draw conclusions. Bureaucrats want WAR & PEACE in word-salad. Like James Taylor sang "Dont say yes, and please dont say no." Robert Gunning pulls his hair out over this in TECHNIQUE OF CLEAR WRITING.

This sort of thing happens in every venue of writing, including here. You should read some of the email I get admonishing me to get my mind right with respect to whichever clicque runs a thread. Editors dont like content, publishers dont like content, thread-barons dont like content.

[aric77]

yeah it is hard to swallow. i'm not going to lie and say that doesn't almost make me want to give up writing. i said ALMOST!! it's taken too long for me to give up on this now.

or maybe i'm just to stubborn to admit that i've wasted years of my life.:e2bummed:

eh, :Shrug: who can tell.

[UrsulaV]

ursula

Let me tackle this from another direction.

Wait...I thought we had been agreeing...?

I appreciate your attempt to tackle it from another direction, but I think you went a little far to left feld for the tackle, because I don't actually understand what you're trying to say. Lots of people don't like content?

What content? "Content" is a pretty broad word, and covers a lot of territory. The content of a book and the content of a cereal box and the content of a chicken's intestines are three totally different things, but it's all content!

What content are you talking about? Can you give me a specific example of this content that people don't like?

[nicegrrl]

I recall reading somewhere - can't recall where - that the odds of getting one's manuscript published are around 30,000 to 1 against.

Ive read similar figures, but I really wonder how that can be possible. When I look at publisher's websites, they say they take a couple out of a hundred.

I know some agents take less than 1% of submitted manuscripts, so assuming publishers take about 1% of manuscripts and some only look at agented submissions, that could get you to 1 in 10,000. Still, that figure seems a bit off since I thought about 50% of manuscripts that find an agent find a publisher and I dont think most agents are so selective that they only take on 1% of manuscripts.

[blacbird]

The agents I've queried take 0% of my submissions. God knows what percentage of that 0% the publishers take.

caw.

[Bleak House Books]

Another thing that has only been touched upon so far, but is another HUGE reason for authors getting rejected is that sometimes authors are complete jackasses. If we get a submission from an author and he/she makes bold statements about "guaranteed New York Times bestseller" or "I'm better than writer XYZ," the book automatically goes into the recycling bin.

There are other times that a manuscript will be read and we'll think that it has potential, but subsequent conversations with the author lead us to believe that we would go crazy working with him/her. Manuscript is rejected.

But most of the time--as has already been pointed out plenty--the writing is just plain terrible.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Ursula

I'll go into "content" later in the day. I'm on my way out the door.

[Mayor of Moronia]

Ursula

I do believe that most of us have moments when we're clueless about the other guy. And that's because each of us has a fund of unique learnings and experiences and knowledge and aptitudes. Each of us likes to believe we're the standard for human excellenece, but that's not quite accurate.

[MacAllister]

I cannot recommend highly enough that you read Slushkiller (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html)

Really. Run, don't walk, to the site and read the essay. It clears up soooooo much.

Manuscripts are unwieldy, but the real reason for that time ratio is that most of them are a fast reject. Herewith, the rough breakdown of manuscript characteristics, from most to least obvious rejections:

1. Author is functionally illiterate.

2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don't publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.

3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.

4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare's breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.

5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.

6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can't tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.

7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.

(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)

8. It's nice that the author is working on his/her problems, but the process would be better served by seeing a shrink than by writing novels.

9. Nobody but the author is ever going to care about this dull, flaccid, underperforming book.

10. The book has an engaging plot. Trouble is, it's not the author's, and everybody's already seen that movie/read that book/collected that comic.

(You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions.)

11. Someone could publish this book, but we don't see why it should be us.

12. Author is talented, but has written the wrong book.

13. It's a good book, but the house isn't going to get behind it, so if you buy it, it'll just get lost in the shuffle.

14. Buy this book.

Aspiring writers are forever asking what the odds are that they'll wind up in category #14. That's the wrong question. If you've written a book that surprises, amuses, and delights the readers, and gives them a strong incentive to read all the pages in order, your chances are very good indeed. If not, your chances are poor.

[triceretops]

I think another point should be raised and I learned this one 20-years ago. Supply grossly exceeds demand in this industry. There is an unending glut of manuscripts and so little time to get through them. Today it's worse, with the proliferation of PCS, nearly anyone can feel inspired, or dog-determined to enter the writing arena. Several editors/agents that I've spoken too said that they are so overwhelmed that they look for imediate ways (excuses) to reject manuscripts, instead of ways to accept them. Nearly all your agent's are tapped out with full stables, except for the newer ones, or those that are branching out on their own from other agencies. Or, when agencies expand and take on subs or partners, do they add to their list. As far as publishers--so many of them are back-logged with material that is slated to appear in the next 1-3 years down the pipe.

This is not the entire reason for rejection, granted. Finding that gold needle in the haystack is always on the mind of agents and editors. To put mildly, the competition is a beotch to fill those available spots.

We also have hope that the number of small independent publishers is on the rise--so timing here is very important. Watch for new imprints blossoming out of larger houses, and jump those puppies fast.

I'm not saying it's a numbers game or that timing is crucial. But I will say it plays a very large part on the very large stage, which is publishing.

Tri

[James D. Macdonald]

I recall reading somewhere - can't recall where - that the odds of getting one's manuscript published are around 30,000 to 1 against.

"Odds" is the wrong way to think about this. It isn't a lottery. This is a game of skill, not chance.

If you've told a compelling story in compelling language, the odds are excellent that it will be published. If you haven't, the odds are effectively zero.

[Bufty]

Point taken - I didn't mean to imply anything other than that for someone who starts from scratch, it's a long road requiring hard work - not simply a case of tossing words on paper.

[Lolly]

My husband had a manuscript of his rejected because the publisher said they had just bought a book very similar to his. So, yes, market glut is a real factor. If 100 people submit the same type of book, but the publisher can only afford to publish 10, then somebody's got to be rejected.


I like what somebody said here earlier. What constitutes good writing? I read this blog a while ago that was written by a professional linguist. In it, he really tore apart The Da Vinci Code, said it was the worst novel he'd ever read, etc. He gave lots of examples of Dan Brown's lousy writing, several of which came from the first page! As I read the examples, I realized the blogger was right. It was terrible. And yet...yet...I'm one of those millions of people who read the book and loved it. Somehow, I got so hooked into the plot that I didn't notice the bad writing. Does that make sense?


And of course there are the classic stories of publishers overlooking a goldmine. I read somewhere that the writer of M*A*S*H the novel got rejected by 20+ publishers before one finally accepted him.

[Quiller]

These days marketing has the final word, and marketers are usually morons without a clue. That's where the books that get rejected by the readers come from. Those readers don't understand what they should buy, say the marketers.


Feet on the street salespeople, in any business, generally are FAR more conversant with current customer wants and needs than anyone else in the company. Marketing types are a distant second. Everyone else is everyone else.

The reason is simple enough. Salespeople spend 40 to 60 hours a week dealing book buyers, and by extension book buying customers. That's their job, and their pay depends on how well they do it. They get 2,000 to 3,000 hours practice a year, 20,000 to 30,000 hours in a decade. Those who last, and are productive, get to be pretty good at listening. Same same marketing people, except marketing is one step removed from the end buyer. But marketing does indeed listen to the feet on the street. Their job, their pay, depends on it.

Fine writing is fine writing, but a story is a story. Remember, anyone can sell any ice cream of whatever quality on the beach on the 4th of July, but no one can sell even Hagen Daz on the beach on the 4th of February, even at half price.

[Lolly]

I found that blog entry. Try not to think about how Brown has made gazillions of dollars of this novel. Just imagine it as an unknown story. Would you have accepted it?




A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move."

On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly.

Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.

Just count the infelicities here. A voice doesn't speak —a person speaks; a voice is what a person speaks with. "Chillingly close" would be right in your ear, whereas this voice is fifteen feet away behind the thundering gate. The curator (do we really need to be told his profession a third time?) cannot slowly turn his head if he has frozen; freezing (as a voluntary human action) means temporarily ceasing all muscular movements. And crucially, a silhouette does not stare! A silhouette is a shadow. If Saunière can see the man's pale skin, thinning hair, iris color, and red pupils (all at fifteen feet), the man cannot possibly be in silhouette.

Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad. In some passages scarcely a word or phrase seems to have been carefully selected or compared with alternatives. I slogged through 454 pages of this syntactic swill, and it never gets much better....

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000844.html


And that's just scratching the surface. You should have seen what he wrote about the opening paragraph...

[UrsulaV]

Ursula

I do believe that most of us have moments when we're clueless about the other guy. And that's because each of us has a fund of unique learnings and experiences and knowledge and aptitudes. Each of us likes to believe we're the standard for human excellenece, but that's not quite accurate.


Ooooo...kaaay....

Chalk it up as a moment of cluelessness on my part, then, but you've completely lost me now. What does this have to do with why manuscripts get rejected?

Are you trying to offer an example of content?

[Mayor of Moronia]

ursula

"Content" is what gets your manuscript accepted or rejected based on the editor's bias. Every editor has personal preferences and values, etc. that influence her decisions. Let's say you write a story about Cleveland. You hate Cleveland. Your editor loves Cleveland. Let's say you submit a cook-book that specializes in recipes using sugarcane syrup. But your editor is allergic to cane sugar and almost died on one occasion from a severe allergic reaction. Or your book is a condemnation of Pee Wee Herman Daycares, and your editor sends her kid to a Pee Wee Herman facility and loves it. These kinds of things should be irrelevant, and they arent. If your query letter mentions you graduated from St.Pia Zadora Commuter College, and your editor was expelled from the same school, youre in trouble.

[Old Hack]

If you've told a compelling story in compelling language, the odds are excellent that it will be published. If you haven't, the odds are effectively zero.

You also have to submit it to the best publisher or agent for your work, and that's another thing people have trouble with.

When I worked as an editor, I didn't work for a publisher: I worked for a book packager. Consequently we rarely took books from the slushpile and got them published. Most of the time we would work on titles that the publishers had commissioned from us, finding the best writers to write those specifically-commissioned books.

We produced esoteric non-fiction: books about meditation, spirituality, colour-therapy, yoga, that sort of thing. Nothing else. And yet most of the submissions I received were children's books, fiction, books about engineering, motorsports. Nothing close to that which we worked with. Consequently, it was all rejected without further consideration.

When I had my first novel rejected, it was very much liked by five of the ten editors who read it. They all contacted my agent and were very excited by it. They then took the book to their weekly editorial meetings, where they had to pitch it. Three of them fell at that hurdle, as they could not convince the other editors that it was the right book for them to publish. The two editors remaining, who DID manage to persuade the other editors that it was a publishable book, then had to take my book to the monthly editorial meeting, which the salespeople also attended. And the salespeople said that my book was too bleak, and that was the end of that. My next one is far less sad. I'm hoping.

My point is that it is the editors who drive the acceptance process, not the sales and marketing people. They decide which books go forward for consideration, and if they believe passionately in a book they'll get it through. Sales people only get in on the act once that first round or two of rejections have been made. It's always an editorially-driven decision, even if the sales people have the final say.

[janetbellinger]

I think books are rejected because they author has not discovered what (s)he is trying to say, also because it was sent out before it was ready

[aadams73]

I think books are rejected because they author has not discovered what (s)he is trying to say, also because it was sent out before it was ready

That's an excellent point, Janet. I think a lot of people zip off their manuscript and think if it's marginal a decent agent/editor will be able to fix all the little mistakes and inconsistencies. An agent/editor shouldn't be expected to fix all your mistakes for you. You have to put in the work and make it shine before submitting it.

[Mayor of Moronia]

After I got over poems and moved on to novels I sent my very first proposal to Charles Scribner's Sons. I knew they had a history with Hemingway, and as my novel was set in Spain, I assumed they'd be interested. They were.

So I think writers need to research publishers before mailing manuscripts everywhere.

[Novelist in Paradise]

It is possible to be agented, and to be published, and still have an ms. rejected at agent level, because she doesn't think she can sell it. She might love another ms. and push it on, but then the publishers pass on it because they don't think it will sell. Has nothing to do with quality.

(This is just a fraction of the answer--most mss. don't get past the slushpile because the writer simply hasn't taken the trouble to learn how to write, which is good news for those of us who do take the trouble, because good writing will get noticed, except there is a signal-to-noise ratio problem.)

[Mayor of Moronia]

I started David Morrell's CREEPERS tonight and made it to page 3 or 4 before I shut the covers. Many writers dont get better with experience.

[Mayor of Moronia]

I think Dwight Swain is correct when he concludes writing is a matter of guessing and hoping.

[nicegrrl]

70% of people just cannot write?!

Gosh, I find that so hard to believe. I would think most people with the interest in writing an entire manuscript would be able to write.

How do you know if you cannot write?

[ChaosTitan]

70% of people just cannot write?!

Gosh, I find that so hard to believe. I would think most people with the interest in writing an entire manuscript would be able to write.

How do you know if you cannot write?

Cannot write, or cannot write well? Anyone can write, unless they are illiterate.

My sister can write. She writes all day long. While obtaining her Master's degree in Counseling, she wrote abstracts and research papers. But she cannot write well, so she always sent the papers to me for a little spit and polish before she turned them in for grading.

[merper]

I started David Morrell's CREEPERS tonight and made it to page 3 or 4 before I shut the covers. Many writers dont get better with experience.

Haha. I read that book just a few days ago. Had a great time laughing at how ridiculous it was. So much dialogue- all of it god awful and unbelievable. The guy tried so hard to make the characters seem more than 1 dimensional, yet failed so horribly. And the symbolic metal siding going "Clang, clang, clang." It was the equivalent of Hester Pryne(how do I remember this name) from Scarlet letter wearing a tube top that said "Slut."

I finished in an hour - skipping 5-10 pages at a time, just to see what/who was killing people, and even that turned out to be a drag. If I ever write a bestseller, my next book will be written in 2nd person omniscient about four soccer moms who go spelunking in a haunted cave, just to see if it'll get published.