The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

Treehouseman said:

There are sealed roads now for the most part, which wasn’t huge back in the day (every time I did a rental, the windshield would come back broken, north and south.) And there are huge tourist centres which were not fully developed when I was a kid backpacker in ‘92, Queenstown especially. I went back after 20 years to find all these little tiny towns to be major adventure tour centres with equivalent infrastructure. The early 80s was a terrible recession in NZ, and I grew up there, so I remember how it was.

I went back back a second time in the 00s after The Rings films came out, and there was money in the region, and it appeared the whole place was being dug up. Vietnam reminded me a lot of that.

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Got ya! The comparison with Singapore threw me off. Yeah, the roads in NZ are pretty arse, even when sealed

I'm at 45 rejections and my request rate has recently dropped from about 25% to crap. I'm slowly coming to the realization that my novel just isn't going to cut it which is really hard to accept since it took me four years to write--family, work, usual crap. Feeling pretty horrible at this point. I started something new, but the fear of putting so much work into another book just to be rejected again is making me second guess everything. This really sucks!
Just needed to vent.
Thanks!

Girlsgottawrite-I saw your post. I wouldn't give up hope just yet. It sounds like you initially got A LOT of requests. That has to mean something. I think perhaps your WIP needs a little bit more fine-tuning. Have you tried posting excerpts on the SYW form? That's helped me out a lot. Also finding a good beta reader--not a friend or family member--has been very beneficial. If I were you, I would not give up hope just yet.

Girlsgottawrite said:

I'm at 45 rejections and my request rate has recently dropped from about 25% to crap. I'm slowly coming to the realization that my novel just isn't going to cut it which is really hard to accept since it took me four years to write--family, work, usual crap. Feeling pretty horrible at this point. I started something new, but the fear of putting so much work into another book just to be rejected again is making me second guess everything. This really sucks!
Just needed to vent.
Thanks!

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Sorry to hear this. However you did get requests, so clearly your manuscript had something. Were the agents who requested it perhaps the best fit agents, and the agents you are now querying just aren't as suited? It might be of benefit to sit on your MS for a little while. Waiting is never what we want to do, but getting some distance on your MS is often a really good thing for being able to better assess it. There's no need to give up hope yet - just pause and take stock.

Woohoo! I got a rejection today! Totally impersonal, and totally form. I don't know why I'm actually quite happy about this - I guess I wasn't hopeful for this agency from stuff I'd read after I submitted and it's been well over a month since I had the last R so I've got quite a hard heart at present. Sometimes, you get to the stage where you just want SOMETHING to happen, even if it's negative. Or maybe I'm just feeling masochistic today. And also a bit over-caffeinated.

Ok, I need to vent about something: Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had this article on the front page: My Beloved Octopus: Animal Memoirs Move Way Beyond Cats and Dogs, And I read that, and I'm thinking, that sounds like something Lynn Price would be interested in. And then in the fourth paragraph, there she is, quoted as saying:

“There are already so many great books on ‘the dog who saved me’ or ‘the cat who made my life better,’ blah, blah, blah,” says Lynn Price, editorial director of Behler Publications . Last year, Behler released Kristin Jarvis Adams’s “The Chicken Who Saved Us,” about an autistic boy and his pet hen.

When Ms. Price first heard about the book, she flipped. “I thought, ‘Holy cow, a chicken? I’ve got to read this.’ ”

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The reason this is in "The Daily Rejection" is that Lynn specializes in memoirs, and I had a five-minute pitch session with her at a writers' conference three years ago, and she has rejected me three times, all for "inadequate platform." And I'm reading this now I'm like, oh, now all I need is an octopus.

[/rant] Thank you for reading.

Girlsgottawrite said:

I'm at 45 rejections and my request rate has recently dropped from about 25% to crap. I'm slowly coming to the realization that my novel just isn't going to cut it which is really hard to accept since it took me four years to write--family, work, usual crap. Feeling pretty horrible at this point. I started something new, but the fear of putting so much work into another book just to be rejected again is making me second guess everything. This really sucks!
Just needed to vent.
Thanks!

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The fact that your request rate was at 25% earlier was really good! My own experience querying agents for my memoir is that I went for something like a year without a request for additional pages, and then I got two within a month. Something that helped was that I read in this thread, or maybe one of its neighbors about the Twitter hashtag #MSWL, or "Manuscript Wishlist" and I found a few agents' assistants who were actually interested in my genre this month, not just "having it on the list" the way they do on Writers Market. And the parts about the assistants is part of my strategy now, too -- that is that they're getting paid a low hourly wage to work for the established boss agent and if they could build a portfolio, they'd have money from royalties, and thus might be willing to try something else that's riskier than the established agent.

No guarantees any of this is going to work! It hasn't for me, yet, but I thought I'd say something to try being supportive!

This request rate stuff..I have this problem where I'm too good at moving onto the next thing. My last MS got a good response, but no offers. I know I'm supposed to keep querying but usually by then I'm onto something else. First MS was less positive, but still okay. I think for my first I got half partials, one full. For my second, I got half full requests. All rejections, though--and I never queried more than 10 people.

As I said, I know that's what you're supposed to do. Is this some secret fear of rejection I'm in denial about? Does anyone else have this problem, where once the first batch of queries is done the MS is abandoned? Is this a common step in the querying process? I challenged myself to submit to 50 agents with this one, but that's been the plan all along and I failed both times lol

Completely serious follow up question is there a page on Craigslist somewhere where I can hire for no money someone to query for me?

S. Eli said:

Completely serious follow up question is there a page on Craigslist somewhere where I can hire for no money someone to query for me?

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You're kidding right? I doubt anyone for query for someone else for free... Unless it's your Mom or some family member you completely trust. It's a very personal thing, querying. I wouldn't outsource it!

I hear you though, querying is slog. Awful soul-destroying slog. But if you want an agent, you unfortunately have to play that horrible game. Sending out 10 queries isn't a lot at all. 50 is OK, but these days because of the digital way that querying has gone, I'm hearing people querying lots more than 50 before they toss in the towel.

S.Eli, do you find yourself falling out of love with a book once you've begun querying, and is that why you stop rather than persevering? Or is there a fear you have of success as much as failiure? I'm just curious as it sounds like you'd do well to persevere, with partial and even full requests - that's much better than many people. I understand when people stop querying because they can't take the rejection any longer but it sounds like you've had a lot of success querying (OK, an agent hasn't taken you on, but you've almost been as successful as you can be without reaching the end goal).

And yeah. Querying is a slog. Sadly, there aren't really any shortcuts if you want to do it well. Also, agree with Qwest. 50 agents really isn't a lot in this day and age (though I'd never advise someone to do 50 all at once!).

Yeah, despite the fact that I said "completely serious" I was 100% joking lol

I think it's a stamina thing, less than a fear of success (or failure). I finish my first batch of queries and don't feel like re-revising or something, and I've already moved onto something new

It's more like I've taken a good thing (being able to move forward and not dwell on agent responses) and kind of maxed it out into a bad thing (never taking the time to revisit an MS after its been rejected). I thought it was normal but as a lurker, I've seen people don't really do this

RaggyCat said:

Were the agents who requested it perhaps the best fit agents, and the agents you are now querying just aren't as suited?

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This definitely has something to do with it. I was very carefully going for the ones I thought the best fit first.

Thanks for the support. I'm just getting discouraged, I guess. It doesn't help that I'm applying for jobs at the same time so it's kind of a double whammy rejection-wise.

I am just worried, at this point, that my book just ins't good enough and that's hard.

Thanks again!

Had one form rejection today, but got a request for a partial a week ago, so kind of works out, I guess.

RaggyCat said:

I normally don't find opening lines difficult - it's keeping the interest up over chapter one while still getting all the necessary information across that gives me a hurty head! And I can't pull ye olde "pick exciting scene from later in the novel and ram it in the start" trick with every book.

The elevator pitch line is really important. I used to think it was just a marketing tool but now it seems to me that if you can't boil down the essence of your novel into one hooky line, you don't really have a novel that you can sell. The book I wrote before the one I'm pitching is a lovely story but sounds poor and not too interesting when boiled down to one line, which is why it's sitting back for now.

Yes, you did comment on my query in QLH! Thank you. I just need the time to rework it now - everyone's comments have really helped, probably more so than I expected, actually.

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Sorry for taking so long to reply (life things have been tricky recently).
That's true that keeping the same level of interest throughout a whole chapter can be difficult, especially if you do longer chapters. But then there are books with slower first chapters that are still very gripping and interesting to read, like Lirael or Redwall.

Ergh, I'm really bad at those. It's difficult to make one without feeling like I'm being misleading with it to an extent, because of significant things happening in the story other than what's there - but then I have a similar problem with synopses and I'm finally getting over that. It's really good you can tell that with your story!

I saw you closed your thread for the time being, but I do think it was looking a lot better

Girlsgottawrite said:

Thanks for the support. I'm just getting discouraged, I guess. It doesn't help that I'm applying for jobs at the same time so it's kind of a double whammy rejection-wise.

I am just worried, at this point, that my book just ins't good enough and that's hard.

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I'm sorry to hear that I can understand it though - especially with applying for jobs alongside it. I'm in a similar position of applying to (and getting rejected by) jobs at the moment and it really sucks, so I hope things pick up soon. I do think it's worth it to either keep on going with querying, or step back while you have some agents left to go and check over your query and first chapters.

Rejection sucks! NO DOUBT about it. But! I agree that you cannot be rejected without realizing it is a sign you are in the game, and the game CAN be good. I had another rejection today, but I am going to keep writing even though it FEELS hard to write when one is getting rejected. Thanks for this thread, it HELPS a lot. Feelings are good, they mean we are writers from the HEART! I am sad. Ok. That is good, I hope.

S. Eli said:

Completely serious follow up question is there a page on Craigslist somewhere where I can hire for no money someone to query for me?

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I don't know. I tried using Fiverr, but didn't have any luck there.

More and more, I think I might remain a remember of the barefoot rank, to borrow from Emily Dickinson. I completely lack the interpersonal skills to either go with traditional publishing or self, so I'm kind of stuck. Unless there's some version of querying where you carry around your manuscript, find a stranger, then beat him/her over the head with your manuscript while saying, "Read my manuscript!" After which, you skedaddle, because for some reason, they call this strategy unpleasant names like "assault and battery."

I don't know how it all works: how I'm a writer, who hates people, yet nevertheless, wants people to pay to read her stuff. I think I'm good and thoroughly screwed.

S. Eli said:

Yeah, despite the fact that I said "completely serious" I was 100% joking lol

I think it's a stamina thing, less than a fear of success (or failure). I finish my first batch of queries and don't feel like re-revising or something, and I've already moved onto something new

It's more like I've taken a good thing (being able to move forward and not dwell on agent responses) and kind of maxed it out into a bad thing (never taking the time to revisit an MS after its been rejected). I thought it was normal but as a lurker, I've seen people don't really do this

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I think a lot of people keep going until the bloody end, as it were - I know I'll be one of these! But that's probably not everyone as I'm guessing those who do stop at 10-20 queries maybe aren't posting on here as much? No idea. The good thing is, though, if you put a MS aside then move onto the next thing, you get distance on that MS and can always come back to it and requery. That might actually prove to be a good tactic! Hope this makes sense.

Girlsgottawrite said:

This definitely has something to do with it. I was very carefully going for the ones I thought the best fit first.

Thanks for the support. I'm just getting discouraged, I guess. It doesn't help that I'm applying for jobs at the same time so it's kind of a double whammy rejection-wise.

I am just worried, at this point, that my book just ins't good enough and that's hard.

Thanks again!

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Oh, man, sympathy on applying to jobs (which is agonising!) at the same time as this!
I think a good tactic in future is for a first round of agents to include some "best fit" agents and some more speculative ones, to test the waters. I say this as it's what I wish I'd done with current MS! I was confident when I started querying for a new agent in January that I would find one, so busted many of the best agents in my first 15 queries, which was not smart as I've since worked on my MS and made it better... Sigh. That being said, when I signed with my former agent, she was just a name on the page when I was querying, and I wouldn't have said she was a best fit agent. What works, works.
Have you tried putting your book aside for a fortnight or so, then coming back to it fresh? That usually helps me when I'm trying to assess how well it's working etc.

laurie17 said:

Had one form rejection today, but got a request for a partial a week ago, so kind of works out, I guess.

Sorry for taking so long to reply (life things have been tricky recently).
That's true that keeping the same level of interest throughout a whole chapter can be difficult, especially if you do longer chapters. But then there are books with slower first chapters that are still very gripping and interesting to read, like Lirael or Redwall.

Ergh, I'm really bad at those. It's difficult to make one without feeling like I'm being misleading with it to an extent, because of significant things happening in the story other than what's there - but then I have a similar problem with synopses and I'm finally getting over that. It's really good you can tell that with your story!

I saw you closed your thread for the time being, but I do think it was looking a lot better

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Sorry about the R, but you're right, a partial does balance things out somewhat! Fingers crossed.

I think readers probably have more patience with slower first chapters than writers and publishers may think - if I'm in any way typical, I hate to give up on a book, so will give it beyond the first chapter before I put it down providing the writing is OK. However certainly in YA I do think publishing professionals have the view that teenagers have a very short attention span and need to be gripped from line one, which may or may not be true. At the very least, there needs to be a hook.

Synopses I don't mind so much but queries are killers! Thanks for checking mine out a second time, that's kind - yep, I've closed it for now as (despite being almost done!) I had a big new idea for my MS which means I'm not going to be querying again as soon as I thought. It's all good, though!

50 is OK, but these days because of the digital way that querying has gone, I'm hearing people querying lots more than 50 before they toss in the towel.

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Really? 50 or more! I had decided to stop at 30 but will now revise this number. I keep reminding myself that my query is going to a human being that might feel good on the day they read my query or not. They may have fought with a spouse or child. They may have had a publisher reject a book they represent. They might have a cold or flu, and any other combination of factors. On top of that, I presume many of them skim through query letters and synopses and automatically reject anything that does not grab them. I think of the many books I do not like but that are bestsellers and how I would have dismissed them from the first paragraph because they do not suit my tastes. Anyway, I am going to keep sending queries in batches of 10 all the way up to a total of 50. Thanks!

If it’s worth the thought, David R, the agent I got agent before my last ex-agent was one I got on query #61

Anyway, time to groan, for another pitch contest is upon us. Agents will be busy reading Twitter Pitch fulls for the next two months. Fortunately none of my partial/full agents participated this year, but the speed in which agents must reply causes them to drop everything in the meanwhile. It is a PITA for both queriers AND clients. Such a time suck.

Just out of interest, raggycat, was it the exercise of assembling the Query letter that made you get this new idea.

I'm certainly finding that in the course of tightening the Query Letter I'm becoming aware of issues (emotional and situational - not necessarily major issues) where I should go back and double-check they're adequately and effectively covered in the manuscript.

As you say, it's all good though.

RaggyCat said:

Sorry about the R, but you're right, a partial does balance things out somewhat! Fingers crossed.

I think readers probably have more patience with slower first chapters than writers and publishers may think - if I'm in any way typical, I hate to give up on a book, so will give it beyond the first chapter before I put it down providing the writing is OK. However certainly in YA I do think publishing professionals have the view that teenagers have a very short attention span and need to be gripped from line one, which may or may not be true. At the very least, there needs to be a hook.

Synopses I don't mind so much but queries are killers! Thanks for checking mine out a second time, that's kind - yep, I've closed it for now as (despite being almost done!) I had a big new idea for my MS which means I'm not going to be querying again as soon as I thought. It's all good, though!

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RaggyCat said:

Oh, man, sympathy on applying to jobs (which is agonising!) at the same time as this!
I think a good tactic in future is for a first round of agents to include some "best fit" agents and some more speculative ones, to test the waters. I say this as it's what I wish I'd done with current MS! I was confident when I started querying for a new agent in January that I would find one, so busted many of the best agents in my first 15 queries, which was not smart as I've since worked on my MS and made it better... Sigh. That being said, when I signed with my former agent, she was just a name on the page when I was querying, and I wouldn't have said she was a best fit agent. What works, works.
Have you tried putting your book aside for a fortnight or so, then coming back to it fresh? That usually helps me when I'm trying to assess how well it's working etc.

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This is really good advice. I have definitely made some major revisions since I first started. Thanks, RaggyCat!

David R - definitely go above 30. It's really not that many! As you say, there may be loads of reasons why an agent might dismiss you immediately - they've taken on a similar book, they're overwhelmed, they had a recent bad experience selling your genre - so not all of those 30 queries will be real possibilities.

Bufty said:

Just out of interest, raggycat, was it the exercise of assembling the Query letter that made you get this new idea.

I'm certainly finding that in the course of tightening the Query Letter I'm becoming aware of issues (emotional and situational - not necessarily major issues) where I should go back and double-check they're adequately and effectively covered in the manuscript.

As you say, it's all good though.

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Hey Bufty, it wasn't actually the Query Letter that gave me this idea - it came left field after a discussion I had about one element that was niggling me with my mum - but I've absolutely found that the query letter has helped me focus on what I'm trying to achieve - what my MC's emotional journey is, what the core of the plot is, what the book is actually about. Funnily enough, the answers to those three questions aren't what I originally thought they were! The query letter has also helped me focus on what the book isn't. I wrote it to have a strong love story running through it between the MC and LI but writing the query, the LI doesn't actually figure in the core plot at all - the thread with him happens as a result of the story but doesn't actually drive anything. I did not realise this!

I actually think I've now recommend to people to quite a query early on when writing a book and refer back to it every so often, to keep on track.

37 rejections so far, I don't think any read what I sent. Most are obvious form replies.

I have no idea why some say sorry for the delay in getting back to me. As if I know how long they usually take.

Frenzy3 said:

37 rejections so far, I don't think any read what I sent. Most are obvious form replies.

I have no idea why some say sorry for the delay in getting back to me. As if I know how long they usually take.

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Yeah. It sucks. You've put your heart and soul into something and it feels like it's just being blown off. I'm really feeling your pain. Have you gotten any requests? If not, then I would stop and take another look at your query. Go into Query Letter Hell, do critiques, get your posts to 50 and then submit your query. Just critiquing other's work was super helpful for me. From the first query I wrote, to the one I finally submitted after QLH, it was a dramatic difference. You could have an amazing book, but if your query isn't cutting it, no one may be taking the time to read it.

Good luck!!!

David R said:

Really? 50 or more! I had decided to stop at 30 but will now revise this number. I keep reminding myself that my query is going to a human being that might feel good on the day they read my query or not. They may have fought with a spouse or child. They may have had a publisher reject a book they represent. They might have a cold or flu, and any other combination of factors. On top of that, I presume many of them skim through query letters and synopses and automatically reject anything that does not grab them. I think of the many books I do not like but that are bestsellers and how I would have dismissed them from the first paragraph because they do not suit my tastes. Anyway, I am going to keep sending queries in batches of 10 all the way up to a total of 50. Thanks!

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Exactly, the human factor plays a huge role! Good luck.

Here are two articles where the writers queried a lot more than 50:

This writer queried 261 before he struck agent gold:

https://querytracker.net/success/kosoko_jackson.php


This writer is not from the USA or UK, so that might have played a role in making it harder for him to find an agent as certain foreign authors are a harder sell in the UK and USA, and agents can be a bit wary of signing foreign clients (particularly if their country isn't in vogue at the moment). He queried 250 agents:

https://thisiswriting.com/author-interview-roger-smith/


I feel that if you have a book that you've had good beta feedback on, and is in really good shape - as well as a strong query letter - you might still have to keep trying. Make sure though that your book is good (get feedback from betas), your query is strong, and that your synopsis is good too.

The reality: agents are drowning in queries. So much amazing stuff gets passed over in the haze of exhaustion...

My advice: give up only when you're so sick of doing it (or have run out of agents who represent your genre). By that time, hopefully, you'll have a fresh new book to query. Remember, an "old" book can always be returned to and reconsidered once you have an agent - they're usually happy to look at your other books.

But, yes. It is exhausting, and rejection is never fun.