The Daily Rejection

That's me, spreading Christmas cheer everywhere I go!

I got a double rejection from an agent, twice in the same month, for the same project. I figured she'd forgotten. Mostly, it's been crickets.

And a rejection from Daily Science Fiction, 13 days after I submitted the story. Trying to decide if I should trunk the story or try to find a new market for it.

Submit that story till hell won't have it. It's all subjective.

Tri

Thanks, Tri.

Now I have to go back through my list to find who has already rejected it, and who's open to submissions right now. I mean, the first version won an HM in the Writers of the Future contest, and I've tightened it since then. I don't think it's crap. It just hasn't hit the right market yet.

I was a finalist in the WTFC, and that story went on to sell. You have a geat chance.

Tri

I have strong hopes that my story for the Q1 2012 WTFC will hit at least an HM, if not the Silver HM I got for the novel excerpt. Finalist or winner would be a dream come true, even if I hate traveling, speeches, and evening gowns.

Another rejection on the novel query, from one of the last agents I tried before trunking the book. Semi-personalized, at least.

Yes, it always suggests that there is another human being on the other end when it's slightly personalized ...
Nice to know we aren't alone in some-one else's universe

My one query I sent out timed out yesterday. One more pass through the MS, and I start the big query campaign. *shivers*

Carleree, I'll be right there with you in the next few weeks. Ditto on the *shivers.*

Fingers crossed for you.

No rejections today--yet. Only deafening silence. Except that it's Friday. And Friday afternoons are when they clear out a few queries before heading to the Hamptons (or wherever) for the weekend, so there's time yet for more dings!

Quickbread said:

Carleree, I'll be right there with you in the next few weeks. Ditto on the *shivers.*

Fingers crossed for you.

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Thanks. I keep good company. Ha!!

Good luck, Carleree! *waves*

And to you Quickbread. Go! Go!

rosiecotton said:

Good luck, Carleree! *waves*

And to you Quickbread. Go! Go!

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**waves back** Thank you! See you in the next circle soon

My real life always gets in the way of me querying. My husband has been transferred to a different town, and I'm moving into my dream house on the 15th of January. I guess you all will have to query without me until the end of January

amergina said:

Got an agent rejection after 58 days waiting. Kind of a bummer on an otherwise nice day.

I really need to query more. :-/

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I probably would have written them off already. But still...

Ha, happy to get a query reject that actualizes mentions a character of the novel sounding great. Not getting a form reject: that's a reject holiday gift that brought me a smile.

rosiecotton said:

Good luck, Carleree! *waves*

And to you Quickbread. Go! Go!

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Thanks, Rosiecotton!

Another form reject for the trunked novel, le sigh. This one had been out since October.

Good luck to all of you, and good luck to you with the move, Carleree! Just checking in with you folks to wish y'all a Merry Christmas!

Form rejection yesterday. Whoo hoo!

Also a tentative acceptance, though the editor seems busy... so hasn't responded yet.

Then there is a story that looks like it passed the first round of rejections... Since the average is around 180 days to acceptance, but 140 days to rejections that's 30 more days! =P Must have passed round 1.

I've decided January 9 is the day I'm going to start querying. But it's been so long since I actually queried anything I can't decide how many to send out in the first batch. Any suggestions?

Caralee - not to suggest that I'm a master at this (ha, ha), but my approach, starting back in September was to send out an average of 1 query a day. Some days I did 4 or 5. Some days I took a break and did none. I threw a very wide net, ending up querying about 100 agents. Half passed on the query. About 15 percent requested fulls or partials (5 are still out there being considered). The rest haven't responded yet, or passed via silence.

So, some have called my results encouraging. I don't really know what to call it at this point. But maybe it's a decent approach.

Another interesting, debatable topic is who you should query first. It seems intuitive to cull your dream list of agents and send to them first, since - hey - maybe one of them will love it and you'll be done querying in 24 hours.

But someone brought up above that your query/pitch tends to get sharper and more effective with practice. So after a few weeks or a month, you may have honed your best letter but already got turned down by your A list of agents.

This kind of happened with me. At least, I feel my later query letter was stronger. But I can't say there was a huge difference in the number of requests I got from either letter. And, even after two months of research, I was surprised to discover some new agents that really looked like a great fit for my book. Hence,

I don't know that it matters who you send to first.