How many rejections before publication?

Are you talking books? short stories? articles? poetry? anything?

Number

Zero. Is that number encouraging? On the other side, however, William Saroyan received 4,000 rejections before selling a single short story.

I have quite a few agent rejection slips so to soeak, most are emailed queries so nothing ventured nothing gained me thinks.

I don't know but I would definitely think that it's not an average number, it varies because of the individuals involved, like had you sent out to the one that eventually signs you first, then you'd only have a few rejections assuming you sent out simleltaneous submissions to agents or some publishers.

J.A. Konrath, who appears on this board occasionally, had over 400 rejections before he was published. I think we are going to see the average rejection number increase, because of the foreign conglomerates that have taken over U.S. publishing. Their emphasis is on the bottom line, indicating a desire to go with the author's that are proven sellers.

I saw a quote recently where an editor said that the authors manuscripts were not being rejected per se, but it was the "risk" (meaning financial risk to the company) of trying to jumpstart an unknown writer. As time goes by, I believe we will see a significant increase in self-publishing.

That's too bad isn't it? But you might be right about that Arkie. I hope to find the agent who will believe in my work like I do soon so that I can break in now before it gets any harder.

I stocked up over 100 rejections on my first book which then got picked up by a fabulous agent who also happened to be the first person I ever sent it to. Go figure.

Maprilynne

I really hope I find the agent for my work sooner rather then later, I got out about five queries today since I got about three back all in the past few days.

Arkie said:

As time goes by, I believe we will see a significant increase in self-publishing.

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That's already happened, and it's hardly been a good thing for the unknown writer. The vast bulk of self/vanity/POD-produced books released into the publication ether are utter dreck of the worst possible kind. The good news is that bookstores mainly won't accept them. But for the unpublished writer, with very rare exception, self-publishing remains a step off the success trail, not a step forward on it.

As long as any ijit can "publish" anything she/he/it wants to, it will remain so. I don't see it changing. How many of these self-published books have you bought?

caw

blacbird said:

How many of these self-published books have you bought?

caw

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One. The Didymus Contingency by Jeremy Robinson.

I was published in newspapers and one magazine before I got my first rejection. There were many more to follow though, mostly from magazines and all but a handful were for fiction subs.

About 30-40 agents passed on my book before I decided to sub directly to publishers. The second publisher I tried bought it.

aka eraser said:

I was published in newspapers and one magazine before I got my first rejection. There were many more to follow though, mostly from magazines and all but a handful were for fiction subs.

About 30-40 agents passed on my book before I decided to sub directly to publishers. The second publisher I tried bought it.

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That's awesome aka eraser! How many months did you wait and work trying to get an agent? I'm curious were you a member here before this and if you sought advice here which helped lead to you're getting published?

I definitely won't forget my friends here when I get published. I am glad to have found it before I hit it so I have people here I can share my little triumh with like I've shared in everyone else's in my reading and posting here with you all.

I guess I had around 13 agent rejections. I don't know how many publisher rejections I got really because my agent didn't tell me all of them, but I guesstimate around half a dozen.

aka eraser said:

About 30-40 agents passed on my book before I decided to sub directly to publishers. The second publisher I tried bought it.

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Are you counting queries not responded to as rejections? In the last two years I've sent out 62 queries and have gotten requests for 17 fulls and 12 partials. So to me, I've only been actually rejected 25 times on this book (4 are still out there). But you could also say I've been rejected 58 times. And since I've already been published, maybe none of this qualifies.

But I'm just about ready to try the straight to publisher route again. Although, in the small press world, if you eliminate simultaneous submissions, you might be lucky to get one or two rejections a year.

On the other hand, at that pace, you can keep the dream alive forever.

As long as any ijit can "publish" anything she/he/it wants to, it will remain so. I don't see it changing. How many of these self-published books have you bought?

caw[/quote]

I buy a lot of books, usually off the regional author's shelf, and don't pay a lot of attention to the publisher; however, I do know that many regiona-author books are self-published.

There is a very good article, page 43, in the Jan/Feb 2007 Writer's Journal Magazine, by Carrie Carr. She self-published, sold 1700 books to Waldenbooks, plus she got her books into Barnes and Noble and other stores. She obtained her own ISBNs, set up her own distribution with Baker and Taylor and Ingrams. She was contacted by producers of the Tyra Banks Show, 20 agents and her novel has been considered by Sony Pictures for possible adaptation.

Of course for each success story in self-publishing, there are many unsuccessful stories that you won't hear about, and it is expensive. I believe Ms Carr's total cost to publish was around $2,000.

Pamster said:

That's awesome aka eraser! How many months did you wait and work trying to get an agent? I'm curious were you a member here before this and if you sought advice here which helped lead to you're getting published?

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I probably spent about six to eight months trying to whet an agent's appetite.

Yes, I'm a long time member of AW. I joined several years ago when there was only a few dozen members. I was already fairly well established as a freelancer but writing and publishing a book was new to me. I picked a few brains around here which definitely helped. But the biggest help along the way was having someone(s) around to whom I could bitch and moan and know they'd understand what I was going through.

Popmuze - yep, I'm counting non-responses as rejections.

Arkie said:

J As time goes by, I believe we will see a significant increase in self-publishing.

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There's barely room for the self-published novels we already have. They're nearly all pure crap, anyway. Being self-published does not make a novel good, and at least 99% of them are horrible pieces of pure garbage, and that's being kind. Yes, self-publishing will probably increase, though it's hard to se how more could do it than already are. But the only thing this will do is make the mountain of pure garbage higher than it already is, so the incredibly rare good self-published novel will be even harder to find.

Gak...I guess I gathered about 150 rejections before I got my agent. But that was for three books. I just sold two novels going direct to the publisher and brought my agent in on the deal, since he hadn't even seen those two books.

What destroyed me was that I only got three full reads (one for each book) before two were sold and one was repped. Now what does that tell you? I probably got about 20 rejected partials. I think this indicates that my stories start off slow, with minimal conflict, then take off like gang busters somewhere after chapter four. Learning to hook the reader up front (without blathering) has been one of my biggest challenges.

Tri

Avogadro's Number, far as I can tell.

caw

popmuze said:

In the last two years I've sent out 62 queries and have gotten requests for 17 fulls and 12 partials.

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Wow, popmuze, those are some great stats. All those fulls! Surely something will break in your favor. Best of luck.

I had 6 month's worth of lots of rejections before I got a short piece pubbed in a national magazine. It's worth the perserverance. Much good luck, everyone!

Pisarz said:

Wow, popmuze, those are some great stats. All those fulls! Surely something will break in your favor. Best of luck.

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I used to think so. Now I have come to the conclusion that I've got a good query letter, a good synopsis, and good credits. So there must be something wrong with the book itself. But I have no idea what it is at this point or how to fix it.

Maybe nothing is wrong and the timing just isn't right. Lately I've seen a few more books with my subject matter breaking into print. So I'm hoping the weather might be changing.

popmuze said:

But I have no idea what it is at this point or how to fix it.

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This, to me, is by far the most frustrating part of the whole process. And it's the part for which you can't prepare. Sure, we can brace ourselves for rejection. We can fight the good fight against dejection. But whether you've had 1 query rejected or 100, 1 full rejected or 10, that essence of uncertainty can remain--and even grow worse over time. There's an uncomfortable paradox about it all: It's out of our control in the sense that we don't know what (or whether) to fix, yet it's our creation and thus absolutely within our control to fix (if we only knew what or whether to fix). Uncertainty doesn't allow us to gauge whether this project has merit and it's just a matter of time or the book is not publishable/marketable and should be scrapped.

Fingers crossed for popmuze and all others swimming in uncertainty!

aka eraser said:

I probably spent about six to eight months trying to whet an agent's appetite.

Yes, I'm a long time member of AW. I joined several years ago when there was only a few dozen members. I was already fairly well established as a freelancer but writing and publishing a book was new to me. I picked a few brains around here which definitely helped. But the biggest help along the way was having someone(s) around to whom I could bitch and moan and know they'd understand what I was going through.

I definitely appreciate having the board for those same reasons aka eraser.

Popmuze - yep, I'm counting non-responses as rejections.

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I count non-responses as negative too, because it just means they are too busy to get back to you...and no word usually means the answer is no...It's like an answer of silence.