What to do if your query is not the problem...

If you publish another novel and it's successful, agents and publishers will consider other works by you in a different light. There are lots of novels which may not have made good first novels, but did well for the author later in their career.

There's also the matter of trends and market saturation. It's possible the story which is unpublishable now would be in demand 3 or 5 years from now.

Best of all, if you land an agent and publisher with another MS, you'll be able to show them this one and get an answer about whether it's publishable and if not, why not.

katci13 said:

...and your novel isn't either.

I may be getting ahead of myself. After all, I'm in the middle of this whole process (though it's not going particularly well.) But I want to be prepared for the worst case scenario: what if I just have a story that no one wants to represent?

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Well, it's possible. I stand to face that possibility as well, but I am pretty good about not worrying about such things until I am absolutely forced to face them. My advice would be to relax until you really know, but then, that's probably totally unhelpful and dumb.

I can move on and write a different story and submit that. (And I am.) But if another story gets me an agent, one that rejected my previous story, does that mean my previous story goes on the shelf to die a permanent death?

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Not necessarily. Getting one book sold, in general (and particularly if the book sells well), significantly increases your chances of getting another represented (or at least looked at)--whether by the same agent or a different one.

I'm tempted to try and stop writing, but I know that's not going to happen. I'm worried because everyone I query next time will be someone I've pitched this story to before. I'm assuming that if they didn't want it before, they're not going to want it ever.

To the people who have been faced with this before, what did you do?

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Mmm. Well I'm about where you are, so I can only write from that perspective. But I have a lot of other crap to worry about and even more to distract me...so...mostly I just don't think about it. There are times when anxiety shoots me down and ties me to the hood of its car and drives me around at night, but you can't eliminate all worry and stress, so you let it happen and move on. When the time comes to worry and obsess, I will.

If you get there and you really cannot move your manuscript, you can always let it sit for a while, then go back to it, take another look at it. If you have any comments from agents or publishers or betas, take those into account. Play around with the manuscript, if you want. You can give it a new incarnation, rather than give up on it. Then revamp the query and start the joyous process again...

Or maybe by that time you'll be in love with a new idea. Who knows.

Or you could consider the possibility that self-publishing might be a better fit? Not always the case, but possible.

You only have to give up when you want to...

What to do if your query is not the problem...
...and your novel isn't either.

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And who judges that the novel is not the problem? Problems such as the agent is already representing 2 or 3 other authors who have similar storylines in the same genre?

There are all kinds of reasons agents and editors reject, but rarely is it for a good novel that is well written.

But as others have said, just because the first, second, or third novel don't get picked up, does not mean they are terrible. More than likely the agent was just was not overly impressed compared to another novel or two sitting on his/her desk.

Keep plugging away on the new book, make it better than the last ones you queried and if you manage to sell that one, or the next, or the next one after that, well, doors will open a crack wider for the others...