Started writing novels from 1978 to 1981. Wrote ten of those dinks. Did not submit them, cause all I had was a typewriter and didn't feel like I was good enough with spelling and grammar. Seven of them were typed first drafts--the other three were longhand. Stopped writing from 1981 to 1987
Tried to sell short fiction in 1987 (had a computer by this time). Took me 55 rejections before I started getting paid in copies from micro mags. Then I hit some big sales in the slick magazines and landed in the SFWA. Placed as a finalist in the L. Ron. Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. Sold about 15 shorts all together. Sold two horror radio scripts for $1,000 apiece (11 pages each). I next wrote three more novels, but had a computer by this time, so I polished them up and sent them out. Richard Curtis took me on and subbed those novels. Nothing happened except a close call when one book went straight to Hollywood and fought it out with Jurassic Park. I lost. A year had gone by.
I decided to try my hand at non-fiction books because an author told me that was where the money was and non-fic outsold fiction by 3--1. I listened and wrote up my first proposal and three. It sold two days out of the gate. Got $1,500 advance--it earned out about three times that amount. Next non-fiction book was sent out completed. It sold a week later--$2,000 advance, and earned out three times that ammount. Not bad for a little guy, and it was quick cash, since it only took me a couple months for each book.
I waited another year for those three novels to sell via Richard Curtis, and then blitzed the market one last time with dozens of novel queries and chapters. No hits. It was now 1991 and I was fresh out of platform for any more non-fiction books, so I couldn't tap that again. But I was really, really disgusted after having no luck in the novel market. That is where my love resided--SF and Fantasy. I quit writing for good in December of 1991, sold my computer and broke my pencils.
Had a house fire in 1993 that burned all of my hardcopy manuscripts and floppys. I lost 13 novels. I didn't care then.
I care now. I started writing again December 2004. I had no idea what the internet was and how much publishing had changed from my days. I was determined to get started and show the agent/editing world that my shat didn't stink, and I had all of these previous, wonderful credits. How hard could it be? What a bitch. I've written six books in a little over two years, got an agent, and sold two novels. I swear I went through 18 months of sheer hell. I must have made close to 250 submissions, with only about 125 of them actually rejecting me through the written word. I guess it was worth it, but I'm still numb from the experience.
If you met with early success, were you prepared for rejection later on?
No, I wasn't prepared for anything like this. I did not realize how tougher it is right now and how glutted the market it is. I had no idea that most of the advance-paying/offset small and medium publishers were gone or had been absorbed by the big five. Didn't EVEN know there was a big five. Did not know what POD was, either.
I had the painful realization that all of my credits (including 350 newspaper interviews, stories, and profiles) did not have any bearing on my being accepted. None. That was a real shocker. I had to start exactly where I began--at the bottom of the list just like everybody else. Why? Because I had a cart-full of crap and no novels. Even if I had had novels under my belt, I know they wouldn't have given me any pull. So if someone tells you that story trumps all--believe it. I think writers who have little or next to nothing in credits are just as likely to get picked up by a publisher. This was my experience, anyway.
I've written about 18 novels and three non-fiction books. I've sold four books out of that stack. What have I learned? Never do this without being organzied and with a definite goal in mind. Go straight after that goal without stalling or skipping all over the place. My writing life has been a shotgun blast when it should have been single bullet aimed dead at the target. Never quit. You will regret it for the rest of your life, and spend feverish hours trying to catch up for the lost years.
The science fiction writers that I started out with so long ago are finally going to welcome me to the fold (I hope) in a few years, but they'll be saying "Gee, Chris, you sure took the long way around the mountain to get here!"
Tri