The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

lauram6123:

Haiiiiiyahhh!

I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment on ficiton vs. non-fiction!

It makes sense, and I believe you are correct.

I guess I saw that (accepting a Work In Project) while looking for a publisher for my programming and math books.

You just made a lot of things very clear for me.

Thanks!

Now I can sleep better tonight.

Polished off a shiny new query and sent it out five agents, and within three days got three rejections back... Possibly this query isn't a winner lol!

A RevPit editor just got back to me with feedback on my query: " A plot that keeps giving, an MC with infinite potential for growth, and heavy themes. Your premise immediately got my attention, and I was intrigued by the potential for exploring complex themes related to memory and reality." She said the opening pages were a tad too slow for her which is something I've suspected for a while now.

Well, at least I know the blurb's getting my points across and hopefully, with some work on the opening pages, I'll finally be able to claw my way out of the querying trenches.

RLGreenleaf, if it's non-fiction, yeah, you don't need to have a complete work to pitch it. For fiction works, I think agents only accept works by already well-known authors or celebrities.

Lianna, congrats on the partial request!

Belle and liritha, congrats on the personal feedback. They're go great to get--really help when you start doubting everything.

megan_d, sorry about the Rs. They suck, no doubt about it.

And I'm really tired of the whole seeking-publication thing at the moment. I wish I could lose myself in my writing but it's just been hard to find a groove these days. *glum*

Thanks for the good wishes on the partial. Of course, now I've had three rejections (two on the new project, one on the old) in two days to bring me back to earth.

RaggedEdge, I hear you on struggling to find the writing groove. Just a few days ago I was all fired up to begin my new novel, and now I'm all spun around from the querying hamster wheel and have lost my momentum.

I have a hypothetical question to ask, and am wondering how most writers would approach this.

I had two publishers request a full ms, and they both asked for a R&R. I completed the rewrite and sent it to both publishers. They are both currently looking at it, and both seem to be quite interested.

And now the question -- and I hope I do not jinx things by asking! -- what if a miracle happens and both publishers decide to accept it? What then?

How would YOU decide which publisher to go with?

I am curious what criteria others would use.

And thanks for replying!

RLGreenleaf - maybe NFUT's MIL has good advice? I mean, she's been spot-on so far. Congratulations! This is a great (if still hypothetical) problem to have! I wish I had solid advice, but I don't, really. It seems like weighing both the full implications of the financial offer along with the editor/house you have felt better about working with are important, but you've likely thought of it.

NFUT, your MIL is hilarious. unintentionally, but still.

sorry for everyone with Rs. Feedback is great, but getting a YES would be sooooo much nicer than feedback + R.

I'm hitting refresh on email way more often than usual and getting moving on my next novel, and annoying myself with how nervous I am. I didn't think to ask the agent when I should expect to hear back. I could ping her and ask, but... there's not actually a pressing need for an answer.

fitzdiaz:

Thank you for your reply.

Ummm...my ignorance is vast and it shows quite often, in the most humbling of ways. So I am not ashamed to show it yet again, and display it brazenly on this very spot: what is NFUT's MIL?

Is this something that has a link to it? If so, please share it.

Thanks again!

no, sorry. I was being facetious - NotForUsThanks (NFUT) shared this gem from their Mother-in-Law (MIL) a little while ago, which was a parody (unintentional, I assume) of Terrible Advice People Give Writers:

"You hear about these people who take four years or whatever to get a book published and you think, well, you can't have been very pro-active."

So it might not be USEFUL to hear what advice she would have for you, but it would probably be entertaining.

Got three form rejections yesterday, including one from the one agent who had requested pages so far *sigh*. It's hard to pinpoint the problem, isn't it...Is it the sample pages? Concept? Maybe my query just has a giant secret watermark saying "BAD" across it...

Loving this thread though . Nice to meet some people with similar struggles

In this day and age, is it more likely to never get any reply than an actual rejection?

Sigma said:

In this day and age, is it more likely to never get any reply than an actual rejection?

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In my admittedly limited experience, it completely depends on who you're querying. A lot of big agencies have a "no response means no," policy, so in that case you'll probably get a lot of silence (I know I did). But there are many agents who respond to queries (they should specify on their website - querytracker is another great way of seeing if / how fast agents actually respond).

Lauram6123 said:

*Delurks*

OMG, pro-active! What didn't I think of that?

Here's a thread you might find amusing. Your MIL anecdote would make a fine addition.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?47668-Stupid-things-non-writers-say

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Lauram6123 - that thread is fabulous and cheered me up no end lol! Thank you for sharing!

I just came back off a week's holiday where there was supposed to be wifi but wasn't, and found sitting in my inbox my first R to my first ever full request. She said some nice things, but ultimately it echoes the responses I see posted above... I liked the concept but it just didn't hold my interest, more specifically the story "lagged" as it went on. Oh, ok

So I have one other agent who has the full, the one I met in person, but he already seemed unsure and mentioned a few things he didn't like about it, so I've pretty much written him off too.

It's made my mind up to save up and pay for a full professional critique on the whole thing before I send out any more queries. I feel p@ssed at having to do that because you hear how much editing is requested by the agent before they send it off to publishers, and then how much editing the publishers want, so I could pay all that money, spend months on edits, and then an agent/publisher might want it re-written anyway. Need something to get my confidence back though.

Hoping someone on here has some good news soon.

Linnet_Crawford said:

Got three form rejections yesterday, including one from the one agent who had requested pages so far *sigh*. It's hard to pinpoint the problem, isn't it...Is it the sample pages? Concept? Maybe my query just has a giant secret watermark saying "BAD" across it...

Loving this thread though . Nice to meet some people with similar struggles

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Hi Linnet_Crawford! Rejections suck. And I'm with you on the "hard to pinpoint the problem" bit. Nothing to be done but keep sending it out there

NotForUsThanks said:

It's made my mind up to save up and pay for a full professional critique on the whole thing before I send out any more queries. I feel p@ssed at having to do that because you hear how much editing is requested by the agent before they send it off to publishers, and then how much editing the publishers want, so I could pay all that money, spend months on edits, and then an agent/publisher might want it re-written anyway. Need something to get my confidence back though.

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I highly recommend that you do NOT do that. It's possible that it will improve your work, assuming you get a good editor who is also a good match for your work. It will not make you a better writer.

You can get more involved in the Share Your Work area here on AW for free, right now. Critting other people's work will help you improve faster than just about anything else. You'll have to think harder about what works and what doesn't, and you'll see other people's feedback, too. If you do it for long enough, you'll also get the advantage of starting to see things more the way an agent or editor does, in a way that reading only polished, published works will not.

You can also post your own work for review once you reach 50 posts, but you'll really learn more from critting.

NotForUsThanks said:

so I could pay all that money, spend months on edits, and then an agent/publisher might want it re-written anyway.

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What do you mean by re-written?

Sigma said:

What do you mean by re-written?

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I have met enough debut writers this last year to know that the book they submitted was different to the one that actually got published. It drives me nuts that on the one hand we are advised to produce our best work, even have it beta read and professionally edited, in order to stand a chance of getting an agent rep, then on the other hand we are told that once we get an agent and a publishing deal, expect to do lots of editing including structural.

JJ Litke said:

I highly recommend that you do NOT do that. It's possible that it will improve your work, assuming you get a good editor who is also a good match for your work. It will not make you a better writer.

You can get more involved in the Share Your Work area here on AW for free, right now. Critting other people's work will help you improve faster than just about anything else. You'll have to think harder about what works and what doesn't, and you'll see other people's feedback, too. If you do it for long enough, you'll also get the advantage of starting to see things more the way an agent or editor does, in a way that reading only polished, published works will not.

You can also post your own work for review once you reach 50 posts, but you'll really learn more from critting.

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Thank you JJ Litke, I do mean to take a look at the Share Your Work area, but for ten years I've been a member of this or that writing group, in real life and online, and I've critiqued and been critiqued so much already, I just don't know how much more I can learn doing that.

NotForUsThanks said:

I have met enough debut writers this last year to know that the book they submitted was different to the one that actually got published. It drives me nuts that on the one hand we are advised to produce our best work, even have it beta read and professionally edited, in order to stand a chance of getting an agent rep, then on the other hand we are told that once we get an agent and a publishing deal, expect to do lots of editing including structural.

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Except for the beta readers part, I don't recall hearing these kinds of things from any legit sources.

You absolutely don't need to get it professionally edited. I agree with JJ that finding more critique partners, as well as critiquing others' work, will definitely help you grow as a writer more than spending the money on a professional edit. That's something I might do if I were self-publishing, so I can have a round of edits that's completely removed from my beta read/CP circle. But otherwise I wouldn't spend the money on a professional edit to polish my MS for querying.

I get what you're saying about the edits being frustrating, and feeling like they never end. But the great thing is that it makes the work SO MUCH BETTER. In the two years I spent querying the book that's out on sub now, I did three significant rewrites, based on R&R notes from agents and from doing Pitch Wars. I then did another round of relatively light edits with the agent before she sent it out.

My CP's first book recently came out, and as I started reading it, I realized I hadn't actually read it all the way through since she got her agent, so there had been a few edits since then. And I was blown away with how much deeper, richer, and just all around BETTER the book was, and I thought it was great before. You know like when you take a really good picture with your phone, and then you put a filter on it and WHOA IT LOOKS AMAZING. Like that.

No, I agree about the professional editing, but I have seen the suggestion out there - from writers and agents! If think it comes from the growing industry of professional editing services that have become big business since self-pub took off. Some agents, and probably not the good ones, do like the idea of taking on a ms that has already been professionally edited. And you can understand why, less work for them, more chance of the work selling quicker and earning them money. Don't agree with it, in fact as I said up-thread I'm p@ssed about it, but it is definitely out there.

The critiquing is something else. I had my whole submission package professionally critiqued for around fifty quid, and BOOM, two agents out of three requesting the full within a week of sending it off (when I've NEVER had fulls requested before). That's looking like a sound investment.

And the critique I have now submitted the whole ms for is through the crime writers assoc. I really need to know right now that this is not a pile of dung I am querying, but also being able to put on the query letter that the ms has been through a cwa critique - that's worth the investment.

NotForUsThanks said:

I have met enough debut writers this last year to know that the book they submitted was different to the one that actually got published. It drives me nuts that on the one hand we are advised to produce our best work, even have it beta read and professionally edited, in order to stand a chance of getting an agent rep, then on the other hand we are told that once we get an agent and a publishing deal, expect to do lots of editing including structural.

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Hey again. First off, I adore your screen name-I just noted it!I am new to the querying/agent/publishing scene. If it's not uncommon for a novel to be edited and restructured heavily, once you get the publishing deal, then is it fair to say that the query in some ways is actually the most important part of the novel?

Sigma said:

Hey again. First off, I adore your screen name-I just noted it!I am new to the querying/agent/publishing scene. If it's not uncommon for a novel to be edited and restructured heavily, once you get the publishing deal, then is it fair to say that the query in some ways is actually the most important part of the novel?

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Hi Sigma No, sadly, a jaw-smackingly good query seems to be merely a minimum requirement for getting an agent's interest. There are clearly agents/publishers who are willing to do substantial work on a book, but as this is time consuming they tend to be the ones who take on less clients - so that makes the odds tougher. And it is all about beating the odds, in my opinion.

Sorry to fall off the face of the forum, folk. I am a bad social media-er. On the plus side, I spent three straight days at the coffee shop and wrote the equivalent of half a chapter (which is a lot for me); on the minus side, I then couldn't get back to it for a week, and all that getting back in the saddle is going to have to be gotten back in again.

IOW, major sympathies to all having momentum problems. 'Cause yeah, right there with you.

But at least the cat got fed. ;-)

I'm not up to an epic catch-up post, possibly because I haven't had breakfast yet. So I'm just gonna bake a big ol' pile of R cookes (with a few good-luck pastries for those with partials or fulls out), and have those for breakfast. Come and join me; they're warm and still gooey from the oven....


Got another R on a story, sent another story out. Must be a writer or something.

I got a rejection on a full. Oh well...Onward and upward. She said I had an intriguing concept, but it just wasn't for her. (I can't decide if this is a form or not. Everyone who has received a rejection from her said she gives personal feedback, so I don't think she would just give one random person a form. At least, I hope not).

Liz-sorry about the R.

I saw y'all were discussing SYW form and critique partners. Just wanted to say I've received some AMAZING help here at AW because of those two things. I have met some really great people who have helped me improve my manuscript. I definitely encourage people to check out the SYW form and also the Willing Beta Readers. Also, try beta-reading other people's stuff. I think that has helped me, too.

I have a question about brand, spankin' new agents. I've got two that I am eyeing, but they have only become an agent within the last year. Neither one of them have made any sales, but again, they are newbies to the game. Thoughts on that? On the one hand, they work for two nice literary agencies that have sold to the big 5 publishers, just by other agents. One of them worked at one of the big 5. On the other hand...they haven't actually made any sales. But they are new. If anyone wants to weigh in I would appreciate it. Thanks again.