The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

goddessofgliese said:

Do you need to reply to a email that rejects your full ms but invites you to submit future work?

I'm starting to get really tired of this long process. Normally I send ten queries every other week, then wait and decide if I need to tweak my query letter and beginning chapter (again!), depending on the response I get. But now I'm thinking of querying all the remaining agents in the next couple days. If anyone takes interest, great. If no one does, then it is what it is. At least I'll be done with this process!

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I had a small A list of agents who I thought would match perfectly, but I queried in stages to the larger B list of agents (so I could tweak), then when I finally had the confidence and thought I had the query about where it should be, I did the A list. Then after that I did the same as Noranne and finished off my list in one splurge so I could be done with it.

So far I've got fulls out with 2 agents who picked me up from Twitter contests, a full out with an A list agent and a full out with a splurge agent. As most agents give a reply after six to eight weeks, I'm either looking at a shed load of rejections in about two weeks or some nice surprises! Either way, by the end of the summer, I'll know.

noranne said:

goddessofgliese - that's what I always do when I get towards the end of my list. There's only so many times I can tweak, so at some point I just want to finish my list and be done with it. I think this past time I did about ~25 at once at the end.

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It's the first time I try to sell a book and I have to say this process is really dragging me down! I think the sooner I get it done, the less I suffer.

NotForUSThanks -- I really like your username. Haha. Exactly the kind of words in all the rejection letters I've received.

Liz- Thank you! It's not exactly what I want, but I'm happy with it so far.

Noranne- I did the same thing with my last MS. Towards the end I was exhausted with querying so I sent out the rest. I think at one point it just feels good to kind of toss it out there and if it crashes, it crashes. At least you have the freedom to move onto the next one.

I got a rejection today (nice personal one) and I was thinking, man, this was a long response time since I haven't queried for any novels in a year. I looked at my send date and my query was from 2/22/15. That has to be a record.

I'm not sure why she took that long or why she bothered to respond at this point, but at least it was too weird to hurt and I really didn't care because I'm not looking for agents right now (not ready with anything yet - everything I've ever written needs to be completely rewritten).

goddessofgliese said:

NotForUSThanks -- I really like your username. Haha. Exactly the kind of words in all the rejection letters I've received.

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Me too! It was the first ever email rejection I got from an agent (had a few paper ones before that). Just the line:

"not for us thank you"

Had variations of it ever since, but that's been the most succinct!

CJSimone said:

I got a rejection today (nice personal one) and I was thinking, man, this was a long response time since I haven't queried for any novels in a year. I looked at my send date and my query was from 2/22/15. That has to be a record.

I'm not sure why she took that long or why she bothered to respond at this point, but at least it was too weird to hurt and I really didn't care because I'm not looking for agents right now (not ready with anything yet - everything I've ever written needs to be completely rewritten).

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That is bizarre!

Not sure I'd want an agent who thought that would be appreciated tbh

NotForUsThanks said:

That is bizarre!

Not sure I'd want an agent who thought that would be appreciated tbh

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Agreed.

NotForUsThanks said:

Me too! It was the first ever email rejection I got from an agent (had a few paper ones before that). Just the line:

"not for us thank you"

Had variations of it ever since, but that's been the most succinct!

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Hahahaha, that takes me back to when when I queried for the first time four years ago and I was a wee little 18 year old that expected even rejections would come with a critique (haha) and one of my first rejections was just

"we'll pass

-bill

Sent from my Ipad"

sockycat said:

Hahahaha, that takes me back to when when I queried for the first time four years ago and I was a wee little 18 year old that expected even rejections would come with a critique (haha) and one of my first rejections was just

"we'll pass

-bill

Sent from my Ipad"

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That literally made me lol!

Do you think you'd ever work with an agent/agency who'd rejected you previously?

Hypothetical question to one and all, of no specific relevance to me (not querying at present).

Harlequin said:

Do you think you'd ever work with an agent/agency who'd rejected you previously?

Hypothetical question to one and all, of no specific relevance to me (not querying at present).

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Yes, as long as they had previously acted professionally. I've really learnt not to take rejection personally. They reject my book, a thing, a product, not me. If I have a different product I think they might like, then I'd approach again.

Harlequin said:

Do you think you'd ever work with an agent/agency who'd rejected you previously?

Hypothetical question to one and all, of no specific relevance to me (not querying at present).

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If I didn't, I would never be able to work with an agent...

I've gotten ~300 rejections from agents so far (spread out over ~100 different agents), so I just have to hope that it's just a matter of finding the right ms at the right time!

Alright peeps, I need some advice--I submitted a story awhile ago to a pro-market magazine I'm a huge fan of expecting little more than a form rejection. Last night the editor emailed me and they just wanted to give me an update because the story was in the final round of consideration (?!?!?!??!).

While I know that this doesn't mean it'll be be published, I'm wondering if I should respond with something along the lines of "Thank you for the update" or something? aaaaah?!?! So far my work has only been accepted by token and non-paying markets so I'm honestly just through the moon it made it to the final round wtf

sockycat said:

Alright peeps, I need some advice--I submitted a story awhile ago to a pro-market magazine I'm a huge fan of expecting little more than a form rejection. Last night the editor emailed me and they just wanted to give me an update because the story was in the final round of consideration (?!?!?!??!).

While I know that this doesn't mean it'll be be published, I'm wondering if I should respond with something along the lines of "Thank you for the update" or something? aaaaah?!?! So far my work has only been accepted by token and non-paying markets so I'm honestly just through the moon it made it to the final round wtf

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If it were me I'd send a short reply like, "Thanks, I really appreciate the update and your consideration of my work." Others who've submitted short work might be able to give you more meaningful advice.

Harlequin said:

Do you think you'd ever work with an agent/agency who'd rejected you previously?

Hypothetical question to one and all, of no specific relevance to me (not querying at present).

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Definitely. I've sent out a couple of novels in the past and had rejections. Lots of positive personal comments and encouragement to send future work. The thing is I think the agents were right not to accept my work at that time. It wasn't ready / I wasn't ready. To me, those rejections were blessings in disguise; I'm better off not having published anything yet and now hopefully publishing something that will be better. I wouldn't hesitate to approach the same agents.

I'm planning to slam through all the remaining agents on my list just to be done with it, too. Mind you, I've been saying that for longer than I care to admit to; at this point, getting even one query sent would be a win.

CJSimone - Nice to get a personal rejection, at least. Have an R cookie, not nearly as stale as the R.

Harlequin - Sure, as long as the previous rejection was polite, and didn't imply that I'd have to completely change my style to be of interest to them. If they're someone I wanted to work with on Book A, they'd be someone I'd want to work with on Book B -- and Book A can always be revisited, somewhere down the road.

sockycat - I don't think there's any harm in a brief reply, but it's certainly not necessary. The first story I ever sold, I got an update like that, didn't reply, and they went ahead and bought it anyway. (Mind you, since then I've made a few second rounds, not replied, and not gotten a sale out of it; maybe I should start sending replies! Or whiskey and cupcakes. )

CJSimone said:

Definitely. I've sent out a couple of novels in the past and had rejections. Lots of positive personal comments and encouragement to send future work. The thing is I think the agents were right not to accept my work at that time. It wasn't ready / I wasn't ready. To me, those rejections were blessings in disguise; I'm better off not having published anything yet and now hopefully publishing something that will be better. I wouldn't hesitate to approach the same agents.

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Several of my favorite authors were rejected by their current editor or agent on an earlier MS. Rejections aren't personal with agents the same way they aren't with magazines. In all the submissions I've done I think I've only struck one place off of my list--the rest of fair game.

Sometimes 'moved on to the next round' type emails are automatically sent. Probably depends on the phrasing. I wouldn't respond, but I probably err on the side of not response too much, so take that as you will

Liz_V said:

CJSimone - Nice to get a personal rejection, at least. Have an R cookie, not nearly as stale as the R.

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Lol, thanks for the not stale cookie, Liz_V.

sockycat said:

Several of my favorite authors were rejected by their current editor or agent on an earlier MS. Rejections aren't personal with agents the same way they aren't with magazines. In all the submissions I've done I think I've only struck one place off of my list--the rest of fair game.

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That's encouraging, sockycat, and true it's not personal (though hard not to take it that way, at least at the time).

sockycat said:

Alright peeps, I need some advice--I submitted a story awhile ago to a pro-market magazine I'm a huge fan of expecting little more than a form rejection. Last night the editor emailed me and they just wanted to give me an update because the story was in the final round of consideration (?!?!?!??!).

While I know that this doesn't mean it'll be be published, I'm wondering if I should respond with something along the lines of "Thank you for the update" or something? aaaaah?!?! So far my work has only been accepted by token and non-paying markets so I'm honestly just through the moon it made it to the final round wtf

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All right, final round!

You can respond or not, either way. It won't hurt your chances one way or the other. I'd just keep it brief.

JJ Litke said:

All right, final round!

You can respond or not, either way. It won't hurt your chances one way or the other. I'd just keep it brief.

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I understand the anxiety. I've got two stories currently on hold after being passed up the chain and it's been several months since receiving word.

CJ, I think I queried the same agent as you. I just got a response from her regarding a query I sent in April 2015 for MS5. Uh, yeah, thanks for the rejection?

noranne said:

CJ, I think I queried the same agent as you. I just got a response from her regarding a query I sent in April 2015 for MS5. Uh, yeah, thanks for the rejection?

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Too funny, noranne! Guess she finally got around to them over two years later.

Ooh, I got an email today that one of my stories is with the editor-in-chief for consideration! I've never gotten that before, it's rather exciting. This story has already been rejected 10 times, but those were all pro markets. I think I set my sights too high, but hey, you never know if you never try.