Nathan Bransford: The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence

I'm with you. I think the market could easily become oversaturated and lead to many authors (because there will be more that really aren't as good) who get in the hundreds for books, rather than some authors who do well.

Also, I didn't query people who said they didn't respond--if I can take the time to personalize a query, they can take the time to copy/paste/send a form response.

I'm with what ArcticFox said, although it would be nice to get an e-mail saying they at least received my query.

Eddyz Aquila said:

I'm with what ArcticFox said, although it would be nice to get an e-mail saying they at least received my query.

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I see submission forms in the future, so there's a confirmation and they get exactly what they want.

ArcticFox said:

What's up, Chaos? Was I too confusing?

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No, I'm not sure if I understand the point Nathan's making in his article. Or if it's being misinterpreted here.

I'm just confuzzled. Don't mind me.

I completely disagree with Nathan's assessment, and if it ever gets like that, I guess I'll go back to being a programmer and re-read the books that were published for real. And completely forget about this whole publishing industry shtick. I don't want to spend my reading life wading through the slushpile just to find the 2% that's actually good enough to read.

He named off two books that were discovered in unusual ways: Shit My Dad Says (Twitter) and The Shack (vanity published, I think). We know about them because they're exceptions. For every one of those, there are thousands of books put out by Author Solutions, PublishAmerica, Lulu, and CreateSpace that aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I would quickly start to loathe the writing world if I found myself inadvertently buying books that would never make it past even the most dim-witted slushpile reader in an agency or publishing house.

I disagree with Bransford's assessment as well. There will always be exceptions and there will always be a certain number of would-be authors who query who will probably never get published. But there are also those who will.

I personally took exception to this portion of the article, Bransford's own words:

never forget that on the other end of the letter there's a person out there whose day I'm probably ruining and whose dreams I'm chipping away at. What makes these books unworthy, other than the fact that it simply wouldn't be profitable to publish them in print?


A bit drunk with power, don't you think? It doesn't "ruin my day" when an agent says "no" because I know that just as I go to the bookstore or library and reject many of the books I pick up because they do not appeal to me, every book doesn't appeal to every agent. Nor does a "rejection" whether it's from an agent or an editor "chip away at my dreams".

I've been in the writing game for more than twenty years and I still get rejections. But I also gain more acceptances. My skin is thicker than that - maybe very young or new writers don't deal well with rejection but it's not going to make me crawl away into a corner to cry or give up my dreams.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if I were that thin-skinned, I would have folded up my writer's tent and sold the typewriter the first time that a teacher or editor in my early years offered constructive criticism or negative commentary or (gasp) rejected my work.

And just because a certain book doesn't seem to be worthy to Mr. Bransford is no indication that it may not be worthy to someone else. There are many examples of now famous works that were rejected multiple times.

Now if I were an agent instead of a writer and Nathan Bransford submitted his middle grade novel due out next year (Jacob Wonderbar And The Cosmic Space Kapow) to me, I would have summarily said no, it wasn't anything I wanted to represent. That doesn't mean his book is bad (or good), just that it isn't something that would enthrall me to the point that I could work hard to sell it.

johnnysannie said:

I disagree with Bransford's assessment as well. There will always be exceptions and there will always be a certain number of would-be authors who query who will probably never get published. But there are also those who will.

I personally took exception to this portion of the article, Bransford's own words:

never forget that on the other end of the letter there's a person out there whose day I'm probably ruining and whose dreams I'm chipping away at. What makes these books unworthy, other than the fact that it simply wouldn't be profitable to publish them in print?


A bit drunk with power, don't you think? It doesn't "ruin my day" when an agent says "no" because I know that just as I go to the bookstore or library and reject many of the books I pick up because they do not appeal to me, every book doesn't appeal to every agent. Nor does a "rejection" whether it's from an agent or an editor "chip away at my dreams".

I've been in the writing game for more than twenty years and I still get rejections. But I also gain more acceptances. My skin is thicker than that - maybe very young or new writers don't deal well with rejection but it's not going to make me crawl away into a corner to cry or give up my dreams.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if I were that thin-skinned, I would have folded up my writer's tent and sold the typewriter the first time that a teacher or editor in my early years offered constructive criticism or negative commentary or (gasp) rejected my work.

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Wow, Johnny, I feel like that's a little harsh. It's awesome that you've developed a rational response to the query process, but I would argue that most people still feel the sting of rejection even when they know it's the way it works. I wish there were more people like you, but heck, I've gone through the process myself and I wasn't as rational as you are.

More broadly, I appreciate the thoughtful response! I guess I'm curious about what specifically people are disagreeing with. Just reading some of the comments, I think maybe I wasn't clear enough that I don't think the traditional publishing process is going to go away. I just think more and more people will go about the process by e-publishing and seeing what happens. But certainly anyone who wants to go about it by the traditional route will have that option.

Also, I think people sometimes miss the extent to which we already have a jumble. There are millions of books out there already. Some are great, some are bad, everything else is in between. Last year alone there were several hundred thousand published. We already have a jumble.

If you buy your books in bookstores, it's not like they're suddenly going to be filled to the brim with books of terrible quality. And if you buy online you're probably not even going to know a lot of these books are even there. But this will allow everyone to have a shot rather than having what's available be based on the collective taste of one profession.

If you don't like self-published books you don't have to read them! If you only want to buy books by traditional publishers they will be more than happy to help you do that.

To be sure there was a lot that was positive about the gatekeeping system, but I think there's a lot to like about the new era.

And I thought I was the only one who found Nathan's vision of the future a bad thing.

I would hate it if publishing became so saturated. Sure, some authors would feel good about themselves, and we wouldn't have broken dreams and people crying into pillows at night, but can you imagine what that would do to publishing on a whole? People who don't read all the time, who pick up a book once every couple of months aren't going to want to wade through the slush. They'll pick put down books, and if every book they pick up is crapy, they'll just not bother.

Maybe a few gems would get published. So? If they're so good, they would've been published anyway if the author has the persistance to make it. If they don't, then they clearly don't have the strength of will to make it in the publishing world.

We are artists, and as artists, we must recieve criticism, and we must learn to take it well. If we can't deal with some form rejections, how are we going to take criticism from editors, or criticism from readers?

The people who get angry at agents because they're "obviously so naive because they didn't see the brilliance of my book" are not going to change just because readers have their book instead of agents. When the readers decide the book is trash, they will just stick up their noses and go, "Well, the readers don't know true talent when it's staring them in the face."

Writing is art, but publishing is a business. Nathan's a sweet guy, but in business, not everybody gets a participation trophy.

DeadlyAccurate said:

I don't want to spend my reading life wading through the slushpile just to find the 2% that's actually good enough to read.

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Exactly. What would happen to agents, then? I mean - rooting through the slushpiles is an agents job, not mine!

It's already saturated!

Nathan Bransford said:

It's already saturated!

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I'm not diagreeing that it's saturated, sorry if that was unclear. But all I think think about is every query, every bad query that's attached to an unpolished manuscript making it through the publishing door. All the people who write a book, don't edit and don't follow guidelines, who usually give up after about five or six rejections. Are they really committed to the business?

PoppysInARow said:

And I thought I was the only one who found Nathan's vision of the future a bad thing.

I would hate it if publishing became so saturated. Sure, some authors would feel good about themselves, and we wouldn't have broken dreams and people crying into pillows at night, but can you imagine what that would do to publishing on a whole? People who don't read all the time, who pick up a book once every couple of months aren't going to want to wade through the slush. They'll pick put down books, and if every book they pick up is crapy, they'll just not bother.

Maybe a few gems would get published. So? If they're so good, they would've been published anyway if the author has the persistance to make it. If they don't, then they clearly don't have the strength of will to make it in the publishing world.

We are artists, and as artists, we must recieve criticism, and we must learn to take it well. If we can't deal with some form rejections, how are we going to take criticism from editors, or criticism from readers?

The people who get angry at agents because they're "obviously so naive because they didn't see the brilliance of my book" are not going to change just because readers have their book instead of agents. When the readers decide the book is trash, they will just stick up their noses and go, "Well, the readers don't know true talent when it's staring them in the face."

Writing is art, but publishing is a business. Nathan's a sweet guy, but in business, not everybody gets a participation trophy.

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It terrifies me. I left a comment on the original earlier, and it's far too late to explain here, but you definitely aren't the only one. If I've got some time tomorrow I might actually explain why, but it's 12:30 and I've got to get some sleep. I agree with a lot of what you've said, though.

PoppysInARow said:

I'm not diagreeing that it's saturated, sorry if that was unclear. But all I think think about is every query, every bad query that's attached to an unpolished manuscript making it through the publishing door. All the people who write a book, don't edit and don't follow guidelines, who usually give up after about five or six rejections. Are they really committed to the business?

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If they're not committed to the business they'll put up their work on iBooks or in the Kindle store and no one will hear from them again. You won't even know they're there.

If they are committed to the business they'll attract readers, and if it's a book that people like and recommend to their friends, word will spread.

I think people are imagining bookstores full of bad books, but that's not what's going to happen. Bookstores are still going to sell books published in the traditional fashion. What will change is that there will be more and more self-published books on Amazon and on iBooks - but a ton of these are already there, I don't see how more are going to change the experience as a reader. Most people will still probably gravitate to traditionally published books, but people who publish outside of that system will have more of a shot.

Nathan - while I agree with what you hope for the future, I can't help but worry it won't necessarily be that rosy. We have already seen how good authors who have insane internet savvy have managed to make quite a profit uploading their own books and selling them. But a good author does not necessarily equal someone with good business savvy. There can be terrible authors who have great savvy, and wonderful authors with no savvy.

I think my fear with this brave new world of everyone uploading books is that it won't be good books that rise to the top, but good enterpreneurs. People who are good at selling themselves. And I fear for the quality authors who spent more energy and time learning how to write than how to promote. I worry that the books that will rise to the top will be only those that are written by authors capable of self promotion. Now some of those would still be good books as there are great authors out there who are great promoters.

But I see a whole community of authors vanishing because they simply can't sell themselves.

Now I know you are saying traditional publishing will stay in place, and I do hope that I'm wrong and you are right. But as I see this brave new world take shape, I'm getting more and more concerned that if I as an author can't sell myself, I don't "deserve" to be read. I've seen so much of the attitude out there already, that really if an author can't sell books well tough. And that's a huge burden to bear.

You are a business man as an agent. You also have a huge platform. When your book comes out (when is that, btw?) you will have the means to sell it, and the knowledge. But not everyone shares your abilities. And authors didn't realise that they were also meant to go to business school. Maybe the role of an author will change in the future. Maybe the idea of an author just writing books and not being his own businessman will be laughable in a few years. But right now we are in a situation where we still have a lot of authors who are "just" authors. And they are worried.

At any rate . . . I hope this explains some of the negative response to your post. It isn't that we don't think what you say in it isn't cool, it's that we are worried that your vision of the future might not come to pass. That it might be much colder and less hopeful than you hope. But darn it, I do hope you're right!

Nathan Bransford said:

If they're not committed to the business they'll put up their work on iBooks or in the Kindle store and no one will hear from them again. You won't even know they're there.

If they are committed to the business they'll attract readers, and if it's a book that people like and recommend to their friends, word will spread.

I think people are imagining bookstores full of bad books, but that's not what's going to happen. Bookstores are still going to sell books published in the traditional fashion. What will change is that there will be more and more self-published books on Amazon and on iBooks - but a ton of these are already there, I don't see how more are going to change the experience as a reader. Most people will still probably gravitate to traditionally published books, but people who publish outside of that system will have more of a shot.

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If an author has a following, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be committed to their work afterwards. Say an author publishes a book through Kindle or iBook, and becomes insanly popular. But when it comes time to write a second book, that person may not have the dicipline to get it done on time or well.

Authors learn something through the querying system. They learn perserverance, dicipline, and most authors learn through that time that they're not hot stuff. So when they finally get through that door, they have realized this is not something you just do for fun. You have a contract, you have responsibilities, and you have a job. I would hate for people to underestimate the publishing business any more than people already do.

Okay, so I really am going to bed, but I just wanted to mention this because this is part of what worries me about this sort of thing.

Two related points. This makes me think of PA. I know that's probably going to sound weird, but it's true. That is a situation where you have people who are working their asses off (the ones who can anyway) trying to do all their own marketing, getting people to carry their books, getting anyone they can to read their books.

I'm always lurking (and occasionally delurking) over in those forums and I read the heartbreaking stories of people trying to figure out how on earth to get people to buy their books and the reasons why they won't sell are always the same, and it doesn't have much to do with the author's commitment. It has to do with lack of editing, lack of distribution, and lack of marketing.

Those who are the most informed in those threads will say that even if J.K. Rowling had put Harry Potter there, the book would have died.

So how does an author who is basically self-publishing overcome these things? Do we have to pay thousands of dollars for our own editing in advance? Are we supposed to spend our own money on advertising and having bookmarks made and things like that? Maybe distribution won't mean as much in the digital age, but how would an author make his work stand out in a sea of slush?

If this is the kind of situation we're discussing, doesn't that actually put us back in a place where those with the best chance of being a success are those with money? If I can afford a great editor and some advertising and paying a cover artist, certainly I'd automatically be a few steps ahead of the poor fellow with the awesome book but who can't afford any of those things, right? Also...I'm a writer. I do tons of research and have learned as much about the industry as I can, but does that qualify me as a marketer or an advertiser or an editor or a cover artist or any of those other things that might be important? If I suck at those things it doesn't matter how great my book is. The only people who will ever know about it are my family and friends.

So I guess what makes me nervous is that it sounds an awful lot like this model is one that already kind of exists in some ways, and not necessarily in a good way. It might be a poor comparison on my part, but it's the first thing that comes to mind, and it gives me this horrible little knot in my stomach to think that this could really be the future.

I like to think that if my writing is good enough and my book is good enough and my story and plot are awesome that will be enough. This sort of thing puts so many more factors into play that lower the importance of good writing on the whole scale.

Okay, now it's one in the morning! Seriously...going to bed now haha. For realz and stuff.

Thanks, Adrienne! I'm optimistic about the future and what the book world is in the process of building. The balance/tension between a quality book that catches fire and an author who is a terrific self-promoter has always existed. There have been authors whose books were quietly dropped into the cultural pond and watched them take off (everyone from Jane Austen to JD Salinger to JK Rowling - helps if your name starts with a J), and there have always been authors like Lord Byron, Ernest Hemingway, and Neil Gaiman, who were fantastic at the promotional angle as well as the writing.

It's not all going to be about how good someone is about promoting themselves. What makes a book take off is a book that people are passionate about it and talk about it and spread the word about it. It helps your odds if you're able to get it in front of a certain number of people through marketing, but that's not everything or even the most important thing. You can't make a bestseller happen, as we know all too well. Word of mouth is still what makes a hit take off.

What's great about the new era is that there will be less friction in making a hit happen, more communication between readers, and I think it will be easier for the cream to rise to the top. Most of the bestselling books will still probably come from the traditional publishers, but they're no longer going to be the only route.

Uh...what Toothpaste said. She's more coherent than I am.