I feel like my dream is dead

How long since you sent it to the agents? Have you waited long enough? Was your query letter vetted?

Have you been published before? Do you have other publishing credits, such as short stories, magazines, and the like? Honestly, it's hard to get published or to get an agent if you haven't been published before.

There are things you can still try. If you have exhausted the agent route, you could send to some publishers that accept unagented submissions. Some of the mid-sized presses might be a good thing to try. Keep in mind, once you start submitting to publishers, you must stop sending queries to agents. No agent wants a work that has a list of publishers who have already said no.

Speaking of self publishing, you shouldn't do it. I have a couple of friends who are making a good living self-publishing. No day job; they make a living doing what they love. But it's not easy. It requires savvy and dedication. With your attitude about self-publishing, you would not be likely to do it well.

If you get to a point when you can ditch the paperback in the bookstore dream, (a great dream, but harder to achieve if one has not been published before.) then you can look at respectable digital publishers. There is also the Kindle Scout program.

If you want to be quite brave, post the first chapter in the share your work section of this forum. I know you have had it vetted, however there are many experienced authors here. They might be able to give you some advice. While my own writing has improved leaps and bounds over the years, I still learn new things here. It's awesome.

rosepetal720 said:

I wrote a book that everyone I knew was excited about. Everyone in my critique group loved reading chapters from it. My beta readers raved about it and didn't have much negative feedback. I went to a few readings and posted a chapter or two on my blog, and people I didn't even know approached me asking how the book was going. I had two agent requests before I was even finished with it.

Then I sent it to agents and... nothing. No one is interested. I've sent it to 50 people so far, and while some of them haven't had a chance to look at it, I'm shocked at the lack of interest. Normally I'd rewrite it, but so many people think it's great the way it is. I don't know what to fix.

This isn't the first book I couldn't find anyone to represent, but my last book had issues that dozens of people pointed out to me, so I wasn't surprised by it's failure. This, on the other hand, has caught me completely off guard. It's a historical fiction, and I can't keep spending years of my life doing research for a book that will never be published. I just can't.

Self-publishing is an option, but that isn't what I wanted. I've always looked down my nose at self-published authors (don't judge me: I know I'm a snob and I'm feeling down enough as it is). I want to be in bookstores. Another problem is this book was supposed to be the first in a trilogy. If it fails, writing a sequel doesn't make sense.

I have some ideas for contemporary books that will probably sell better, but I want to publish this book. I put my whole soul into it.

I don't know what to do.

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This is what stood out to me about your post: you keep telling us what other people thought about your draft, and then conclude that you won't rewrite it--as you normally would--because these people liked it already. Even when you talk about your earlier manuscript, you mention that you aren't surprised it didn't sell because other people recognized flaws in it. I'm getting that you don't have a ton of confidence in your own opinion. Can you, yourself, judge if your work is professional quality or not? It's great to have other people help you find things to improve, but ultimately it's your work, so you need to develop a self-critical eye.

The best way to do that, I think, is to do a few metric tons of critiquing others. Once you see the same issues come up in a number of other people's work, it's easier to identify them in your own.

Something to think about, anyway.

The agents that requested material before it was finished, did they offer any feedback?

Have any of the queries you sent generated any requests?

Well, that might be the issue then. Agents are looking for writing that is polished. It doesn't matter if the idea is original and engaging if the writing isn't as polished as the idea. The dream isn't dead, it needs some work. I recommend going on to the next book, and the one after that to improve your writing and then coming back to this one and doing a re-write with what you've learned.

Don't give up.

That's all I got. Plus what everyone else said.

rosepetal you mentioned that you can't see yourself spending years of your life researching a book that won't be published, which suggests that you haven't yet finished your research, and this threw me a bit. Does this mean you haven't completed your research? If you haven't it's hard to see how the book could be ready to send to agents? I feel for you, I really do, but I think a writer must be their own toughest critic. I asked a published writer once when she knew her book was ready to sub. She said it was a hard call, but she would only send it out when she could not think of a single thing left that she could do to improve it - not that that meant it was perfect in her eyes, but just that she could not do more to better it. In her eyes that was the difference between a professional and an amateur. Now I'm sure there will be people who disagree with this (and I sent mine out before it was the best I could make it - impatience and a medical scare got the better of me) but I think this is how beginner writers need to think if we are to get anywhere.

A book isn't a dream...it's a stepping stone to a dream. I just had a manuscript rejected by every single major and mid publisher known to man. My agent was so excited about the book she predicted it would get picked up in a couple of weeks after a bidding war. What happened? Every single publisher requested the full. Every publisher gave glowing feedback...some worthy of being framed...and I'm not kidding. It was beautiful. And each and every one of them rejected it. The big six...and the next seven or eight or nine in the list as well. I had missed a trend, even though they absolutely loved the book.

My dream isn't dead. I just have to find a new avenue to the dream.

Pick yourself up, wipe away the dirt, and start a new book...if, that is, you think there's no way of saving this one.

I would try more agents. I would also try new betas. I would do whatever. Except declare my dream to be dead...


Good luck!

Have you actually heard back from any of the agents? It can take months and months.

Regardless of that, what KTC said. It's not the end of the dream. Rejection is part of the process. If the book is good but not saleable at the moment, shelve it for a while and work on something else. Trends come and go and, inevitably, come back around again. If it's not saleable now it might be saleable in a couple of years.

I'd also encourage you (you personally and general you) not to think of your work as your baby. Passion for your work is great. But you need some distance on it otherwise every rejection, every negative comment, will be crushing.

rosepetal720 said:

I wrote a book that everyone I knew was excited about. Everyone in my critique group loved reading chapters from it. My beta readers raved about it and didn't have much negative feedback. I went to a few readings and posted a chapter or two on my blog, and people I didn't even know approached me asking how the book was going. I had two agent requests before I was even finished with it.

Then I sent it to agents and... nothing. No one is interested. I've sent it to 50 people so far, and while some of them haven't had a chance to look at it, I'm shocked at the lack of interest. Normally I'd rewrite it, but so many people think it's great the way it is. I don't know what to fix.

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Rosepetal, is this the book which goes with the query you were working on in QLH recently? If so, you announced you had a final draft of that query on 26 October, which is less than two months ago. First up, that's not enough time for many agents to get back to you; and second, I think that query still needs some work. If I were you I'd stop sending that query out, and I'd rewrite it so it's much snappier and tighter.

rosepetal720 said:

I only got feedback from three people, and it was all completely unhelpful:

1. "This is a great premise and I'm obsessed with the time period, but I don't think I'm the right agent for it."

2. "I just didn't connect with it."

3. "While we like the premise, your storytelling is a little more "telling" than we would prefer."

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I don't know. I think number three is actually very helpful. As someone who has written and critiqued historical fiction, there is a tendency to want to tell, tell, tell. Why? We've done all this great research and we want it in the book. We love accuracy and we love minutia. And that comes off very often as telling about our character's life, situation and world instead of showing it. If you've got sections of telling, ask yourself if it has to be in the book. With the story unravel without it? If it doesn't, then I seriously consider axing it.

Do you think there might be too much telling in your MS?

Why give up before you've done everything you can? If the problem is that there's too much tell in your book and not enough showing, why not do a re-write to reflect that advice? What's more important to you? Being done with the project or working to make it the best it can be?

rosepetal720 said:

Laurem: I only got feedback from three people, and it was all completely unhelpful:

1. "This is a great premise and I'm obsessed with the time period, but I don't think I'm the right agent for it."

2. "I just didn't connect with it."

3. "While we like the premise, your storytelling is a little more "telling" than we would prefer."

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Those first two are pretty much form rejections, but that last point is very useful, as Lauram has said. It suggests to me that your work needs work. And that's something you can do.

Have you had any of your work critiqued in SYW? I know you've had your query looked at, but it would be very useful to have a section of the book critiqued, I bet.

JulianneQJohnson said:

Why give up before you've done everything you can? If the problem is that there's too much tell in your book and not enough showing, why not do a re-write to reflect that advice? What's more important to you? Being done with the project or working to make it the best it can be?

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Yes! Good advice, Julianne.

I understand your concerns: but if your writing does need work, giving critiques to others is the quickest, most efficient way there is of learning how to make your own work better. If you don't give critiques to others, your work is not likely to be the best that it can be.

rosepetal720 said:

Marlys: Since you asked, I think the book is brilliant. That's why I'm so stunned that agents don't love it. I didn't say how great I thought it was in my original post because 1. I don't want to come across as even more of a snob, and 2. the book is my baby, so of course I think it's great. Authors aren't always the best judges of their work! Seriously, though, I think the book is marketable, meaningful, engrossing, and original. The writing itself could use work -- I'm not as skilled in that aspect as I'd like to be -- but I certainly don't think it's bad.

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Agents reject plenty of good books. Here's the 2012 query stats from one agent (just because they were the first I found). Out of 6,000 queries received, I would not assume that all but the seven who were accepted as new clients were bad. Some of them may be great, and some may get picked up by another agent. You can't take agent rejections as a declaration that your work is bad.

ETA: Marlys's suggestion about critting other works is great advice.

Feel is the key word here. We all feel like our dreams are dead as a brass monkey from time to time. The thing is, you know it isn't, or you would not be posting about it. Pick up your dream and revive it. Apply the paddles. Maybe you'll spot errors when you read it again without the euphoria. If not, time to start up another dream while you query on this one. --s6

Historical fiction is a hard sell. That doesn't mean your book is bad; it doesn't mean your book is good; it means historical fiction is a finicky creature that doesn't always fit well or easily into the market at hand.

I think the dream can be resurrected with a little work. Like Old Hack said, the query isn't there yet (IMO), but I see the squirrels are busy chomping on it, so that's all good. I also think your opening needs work, but I think it's a fairly easy fix (noted in crit). All JMHO. Salt and all that.

rosepetal720 said:

Marlys: Since you asked, I think the book is brilliant. That's why I'm so stunned that agents don't love it. I didn't say how great I thought it was in my original post because 1. I don't want to come across as even more of a snob, and 2. the book is my baby, so of course I think it's great. Authors aren't always the best judges of their work! Seriously, though, I think the book is marketable, meaningful, engrossing, and original.

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We all think this about our own work, because we write exactly what we want to read. We're on our own wavelength, and we've all written the perfect novel . . . for ourselves.

rosepetal720 said:

The writing itself could use work -- I'm not as skilled in that aspect as I'd like to be -- but I certainly don't think it's bad.

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This gave me pause. If you can recognize that the writing needs work, then surely it needs work? Why not do the work? To me, you're blasting through agents with work you know isn't your best. Agents pass on wonderful, fully-polished novels every day. I've read such novels by AW members myself, who have yet to land representation. So if you're presenting work you think merely isn't bad, then, well, that's a problem (IMO).

rosepetal720 said:

Marlys: Since you asked, I think the book is brilliant. That's why I'm so stunned that agents don't love it. I didn't say how great I thought it was in my original post because 1. I don't want to come across as even more of a snob, and 2. the book is my baby, so of course I think it's great. Authors aren't always the best judges of their work! Seriously, though, I think the book is marketable, meaningful, engrossing, and original. The writing itself could use work -- I'm not as skilled in that aspect as I'd like to be -- but I certainly don't think it's bad.

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You admit to yourself the writing is lacking. It may not be bad, but when you send to an agent, it's got to be spectacular, not something just good enough.

Fix.

rosepetal, first off, PLEASE do not give up! Girl I queried well over 100 agents before I signed with one. I got fulls and partials, but only one turned into an offer. It took me eight months to land an agent, and in that time, I rewrote my book about three times. After I signed, we revised it TWICE, including a massive rewrite.

Here's the thing: I knew my book was good from the beginning. That's why I queried it. But I was also like, hey, this probably needs a ton of work, including editorial revisions that I may not be aware of since I've read it sooo many times and am likely not seeing certain problematic areas. So I got a team of betas and CPs and took all of the critique, good and bad. I sat with the story and really thought about it. When I got an agent, we discussed at length what would strengthen the manuscript.

It took me over three years to finish writing and revising this book, and I'm going to have to do more revisions if I land a deal. Revisions are the bulk of writing. You could have an amazing story, beyond stellar, but if the words on the page are inconsistent, or problematic, you must be willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make is as "perfect" as you can.

Would you like me to beta read your first few chapters? I have a lot of experience doing critique/beta reading and workshopping YA and contemporary fiction. I'd be happy to give you some honest pointers and tell you what I think is working and what needs work.

This is a biggie:

"While we like the premise, your storytelling is a little more "telling" than we would prefer."

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chompers said:

rosepetal720 said:

Marlys: Since you asked, I think the book is brilliant. That's why I'm so stunned that agents don't love it. I didn't say how great I thought it was in my original post because 1. I don't want to come across as even more of a snob, and 2. the book is my baby, so of course I think it's great. Authors aren't always the best judges of their work! Seriously, though, I think the book is marketable, meaningful, engrossing, and original. The writing itself could use work -- I'm not as skilled in that aspect as I'd like to be -- but I certainly don't think it's bad.

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You admit to yourself the writing is lacking. It may not be bad, but when you send to an agent, it's got to be spectacular, not something just good enough.

Fix.

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I missed that.

Chompers, you're absolutely right. Rosepetal, if the writing needs work you have to DO that work before submitting. Get revising!