Also, let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with it. We flying creatures have to stick together ya know!
Contemplating submitting and querying again.
- Thread starter blacbird
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Blacbird, how about trying self-publishing?
Just a thought.
I appreciate the thought, and thank you. But, seriously, why would I want to self-publish stuff that doesn't even get a response from submissions? If I got some rejections, at this point, I could at least think I was acknowledged. You know, Descartes-lite: I get rejected, therefore I am. What I get is just plain ignored, which leaves me with, obviously. as a writer, I am not.
caw
The reason I would do it is because being stuck is depressing and getting to participate is fun.
One SP book, SP bundle of stories, or even one free SP story is just that, not a career. And it is much more fun than nothing. It is a start, if nothing else.
I think your writing is definitely good enough to be published but your problem is you won't go after publication aggressively because the rejections get to you too much. I haven't checked duotrope lately but I believe I have about 600 rejections- I also have over a hundred acceptances. I don't care, so I send things out aggressively. I'm also not snooty about which publications I'll accept. While of course I would accept fame and/or fortune, my main goal by far is just that I want to be in the game in any capacity, I want to play. Perfectionism or impossible standards kills the fun for me. It's more like, catching the brass ring now and then is an extra kick for me, not the only kick.
I like the philosophy, "Do what you love and the money will follow." But I'd add, "Or else it won't follow but who cares because I am getting to do what I want to do."
The point, imo, would be to get unstuck right now. Then worry about next time when next time comes around. Right now, I have been paid for some stories and articles, not paid for many more, and I make about $100 a month combined from my four short SP books. See, all that motivates me to keep going, and keeping going is how to improve and how to enjoy. Maybe I'll end up being a career writer (meaning making enough to fully support myself) and maybe I won't. But I have everything I need from other sources and it sounds like you do too, so just getting to do what you want to do is a giant privilege in itself, imo.
Just my opinion, naturally, but I am a very happy writer and apparently you are not (?). That would be my reason to suggest you try it my way. However, maybe just jumping into the game anywhere and going from there doesn't appeal to you, in which case of course it doesn't help. That's all I got. Good luck!
P.S. Husband and I plan to start keyboard (him) and guitar(me) lessons for the New Year, again to play and have fun, not as a job. But hey, if we ever ended up getting a paying gig in the far off future, we might take that, too. Bonus money is fun too but if I needed to make money and that was my main goal, I would go back to work. I'd rather have less money and get to write.
I would buy your book, so there's one sale anyway.
Publishers do seem to be doing that "no answer if they don't want it" thing more and more lately.
How about this (if you feel like answering), what is the easiest thing you could get that you would consider a win? Like what type of publications, what type of pay. I just feel like you put too much on yourself when there are so many variables about what stories are chosen.
When we have all seen very many trade published things that were not good, why do you feel like they are the final arbiters of what is actually good or not? McDonald's sells more hamburgers than... well, tons of them. So is McDonald's the judge of what food is the best?
One SP book, SP bundle of stories, or even one free SP story is just that, not a career. And it is much more fun than nothing. It is a start, if nothing else.
I think your writing is definitely good enough to be published but your problem is you won't go after publication aggressively because the rejections get to you too much. I haven't checked duotrope lately but I believe I have about 600 rejections- I also have over a hundred acceptances. I don't care, so I send things out aggressively. I'm also not snooty about which publications I'll accept. While of course I would accept fame and/or fortune, my main goal by far is just that I want to be in the game in any capacity, I want to play. Perfectionism or impossible standards kills the fun for me. It's more like, catching the brass ring now and then is an extra kick for me, not the only kick.
I like the philosophy, "Do what you love and the money will follow." But I'd add, "Or else it won't follow but who cares because I am getting to do what I want to do."
The point, imo, would be to get unstuck right now. Then worry about next time when next time comes around. Right now, I have been paid for some stories and articles, not paid for many more, and I make about $100 a month combined from my four short SP books. See, all that motivates me to keep going, and keeping going is how to improve and how to enjoy. Maybe I'll end up being a career writer (meaning making enough to fully support myself) and maybe I won't. But I have everything I need from other sources and it sounds like you do too, so just getting to do what you want to do is a giant privilege in itself, imo.
Just my opinion, naturally, but I am a very happy writer and apparently you are not (?). That would be my reason to suggest you try it my way. However, maybe just jumping into the game anywhere and going from there doesn't appeal to you, in which case of course it doesn't help. That's all I got. Good luck!
P.S. Husband and I plan to start keyboard (him) and guitar(me) lessons for the New Year, again to play and have fun, not as a job. But hey, if we ever ended up getting a paying gig in the far off future, we might take that, too. Bonus money is fun too but if I needed to make money and that was my main goal, I would go back to work. I'd rather have less money and get to write.
I would buy your book, so there's one sale anyway.
Publishers do seem to be doing that "no answer if they don't want it" thing more and more lately.
How about this (if you feel like answering), what is the easiest thing you could get that you would consider a win? Like what type of publications, what type of pay. I just feel like you put too much on yourself when there are so many variables about what stories are chosen.
When we have all seen very many trade published things that were not good, why do you feel like they are the final arbiters of what is actually good or not? McDonald's sells more hamburgers than... well, tons of them. So is McDonald's the judge of what food is the best?
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Querying is an awful, soul-destroying experience. I queried my third novel in 2012 and I've never queried again. I'm halfway through my eleventh novel right now, so my trunk is full of manuscripts that will never see the light of day.
Which trade published things? Even the worst I've seen is better than the best self-published fiction I've found.
As for McDonald's, no, they don't get to decide, customers who buy their burgers do. Publishing works the same way. No one wants it, it's bad. Millions want it, and at least something about it is extremely good.
No one buys McDonald's burgers because they think they're bad, and no one rejects Dirty Joe's burgers because they think they're wonderful.
Self-publishing might be fun, but it's most often a death trap for new writers, and sales aren't poor because the books are self-published, they're poor because the great majority see them as Dirty Joe's burgers.
Pretty much explains why I won't self-publish. I could self-publish my grocery list, which would be about as satisfying in terms of meeting a goal.
caw
caw
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How's the querying going? It's a tough road, but you're putting your work out there, and that's the first step to a potential contract! Sending best wishes.
blackbird, sending you prayers. I'm in awe of anybody with a polished ms, a finished query, and knowledge of who to even query. I myself am sitting around waiting for 2 betas to get back to me, and I just started to research what to do next.
If you don't mind me asking, what genre do you write in?
If you don't mind me asking, what genre do you write in?
At this point, I don't believe that any amount of hard work and effort on my part will ever make that happen. So hoping for it is counterproductive.
Best of luck with those beta reads.
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Bah! It is only soul-destroying if you have a soul to begin with. The clear answer is to destroy your soul *first*.
Then you haven't been looking. That's not a fault of the fiction; that's a fault of your ignorance.
This is grossly oversimplistic at best.
People buy McDonald's because they have the widest reach of any fast food chain in the world, the cheapest prices of most fast food chains in the world, advertise on every available surface throughout the world, and they've got branded tie-ins with mega-properties.
Kind of like Amazon.
Kind of like Amazon.
No, no. You don't understand. As the quality of the work is defined by whether it sells, the unpublished manuscript exists in a Schrodinger-esque state of uncertainty. If the writer receives the phone call to let them know they have a book deal, the book is by definition good. If they don't, the exact same book is by definition bad. (Nobody knows why this phenomenon occurs - perhaps some mystic force rearranges all the words.)
Well put. I envy those authors who conclude their book is objectively good because it sold and they banked an advance check. For some of us, our books will eternally be in a Schrödinger-esque state of uncertainty, with each bad review tipping them toward the state of badness, because certainty about such things is not our natural state. Some of us are even motivated by that uncertainty to make the next book better.That said, the uncertainty of querying is objectively more soul crushing than the uncertainty of being on the midlist. There are no words for it, really, especially as NRs grow more common, except "it sucks" and "bon courage."
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I'm trying to think of when the Rs and NRs stopped crushing my soul. Maybe it is now destroyed and that is why they were just filed and then, "Next!" at the end. I think around 250 R/NRs (over several projects). So it does get better.
Perhaps I didn't submit . . . Maybe I just dreamed I did . . .
In any case, the result confirms my favorite piece of writing advice, the final parting words of John Wilkes Booth:
"Useless, useless."
caw
In any case, the result confirms my favorite piece of writing advice, the final parting words of John Wilkes Booth:
"Useless, useless."
caw