The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

Thanks Atlantic!

So is anyone else doing #PitMad and finding it very quiet? I'm pitching for my dad and there are a few retweets but not much else - and not too many of the tweets appearing on my feed seem to have gained traction either? Perhaps the December one is always quite quiet?

Saw this on the bookends blog recently – agent Jessica Faust on what an offer of representation is like from the agent's point of view. Interesting! Especially these bits (bolding mine):

While still in the middle of reading, I’m researching the author. I’m not necessarily looking for anything in particular, but I do want to see which social media accounts they have, what they are saying, and maybe even their favorite food. Obviously, what I’m really interested in is any sort of publishing history.

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(thought about you here, Raggy and the agent who followed you on twitter…) (but – favorite food? yikes)

When I get on the call with an author I’m selling myself. Since I presumably really want this book and author, it’s important I sell my best self.

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And then, once the call is made, I’ll wait. And yes, I’ll wait as impatiently as any author who is waiting to hear from an agent on a full request.

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One of my active queries is technically a CNR, to, litdawg – but I'm clinging to the fact that I queried him during Frankfurt (got an automatic reply that he wouldn't read his mail till a week later), so he might be at least a couple of weeks behind, so he might still answer me, so he might might might and, and, and :clutching at straws:
A couple of the others are approaching the CNR date, too. I should probably send out another batch of queries soon. Still hoping for the two festival fulls I have out, though – been over three months now, but probably no point in nudging yet? Six months is about the time to nudge on fulls, isn't it?

Crossing fingers for your dad Raggy! Too bad a scammer got their claws into him before – very understandable if that put him off trying again. Good for him to have a daughter like you who knows the biz and can help him out! Let's hope PitMad will work for him now!

Hi, goddessofgliese, welcome back! Good to hear your surgery went well! And too bad Peter Knapp didn't like your story – here, have a rejection cake for that: Maybe taking a little time away from the story will be good, yes, get some perspective before you start revising again. It's only one agent's opinion after all. Give it some time, and then you can check if you agree with him or not. Script sounds intriguing, and if you can't stop thinking about it, why not try getting a first draft of that done – and then you can go back to your story and see how it feels? Good luck, whatever you choose to do.

Here's your cake, too, noranne: Bummer that they didn't want your story after all – but how great that they want you to submit directly to them with your next story! Congrats Confirms what you already know right, you with well published short story and all – you're a great writer! I'm with Raggy - it's not a given that it was the ending they didn't connect with, rather that they didn't quite 'get' the characters. Could be anything your characters did/say/didn't do during the course of the story. Doesn't have to mean your story isn't good enough, either or that you need to revise it – it's only their opinion. Others may think differently…

I'm with you JeanGenie - synopsises suck about as much as queries. These tips and the template from Jericho Writers (the guys behind the Festival of Writing) helped me in my synopsis-writing struggle. I didn't follow the template slavishly in any way, but it gave me a frame of sorts to work with, and that helped. Also, don't overthink it or work too hard on it – it doesn't have to be perfect or stellar writing or anything. (I've heard that too, Atlantic, that some agents don't even bother reading it, if they find the pages enticing enough. And yet we have to write it... sigh.)

Good to hear you're back to work and making good progress on your revisions, pingle, even if you're hating it! (Don't I know that feeling – I think most of us have been there at one point or another) Go you!!
– And yes, good luck to everyone doing i #PitMad today! Here's me in the corner rooting for you all:

I totally forgot it was PitMad today until I saw the posts here. Thankfully, I did my scheduling a couple of days ago, so two Tweets went out earlier today. No likes so far, but I've had some RTs. Best to have zero expectations that an agent will ever find and like a pitch in amongst the thousands of others there!

Good luck to anyone else entering though!

Thank you Atlantic and Torill for great tips!

I think what's scaring me the most is definitely the thought that "oops, perhaps this story isn't holding together at all, because it's so hard to write a synopsis." But then again, try to write an easy synopsis to some of my favourite books, and you're f****d. I like complicated plots.

Hi Netz and Raggy--I did PitMad too. I got a few retweets and new followers, but no interest from agents.

Oddly enough, I happened to read an agent interview today for someone who is perfect for my work, partly for topical reasons but mostly because she does a lot of work with military veterans. I sent her a quick query (her guidelines state only bios + two-page synopsis). She responded quickly with a nice request that I send her the full after the holidays. She's a new agent and it seems like she invests a lot of time developing the writers she takes on. Now I'll fret and revise over the holidays. I probably would have done that anyhow, so now it can be for a purpose.

So I'm happy with my PitMad day

Pitmad has been trickling out for a couple of years now (imho). I used to get way more industry engagement--now it's only my followers and fellow writers/Pitmadders and such. All of the twitter pitch contests, really. I'd say 2014-17 was the golden age, and now I'm waiting on the rebound.

litdawg, congrats! Hope more good news will come your way.

Torill, thanks for the cake. It's delicious.

Pingle, ​I'll read your pages whenever you are ready!

Good luck to everyone who did PitMad today!

And I just got a surprise full request today! I queried the agent on 9/15 and already marked it as CNR. In her email, she asked me to also indicate whether any other agents are considering the full or pages. Well, will she think my book not so good if she knows no other agents are interested at the moment? Is it stupid to mention that I've sent only about 20 queries so far?

I'd be tempted to shade the email to indicate that you've only queried your top tier of agents to date, and are waiting to hear back from a few--but that she is the first to request a full.

But I failed at querying.

Congrats to all the positive vibes in here, and to passing any bar at all--Noranne I am thinking of you and the option to sub directly to the publisher in the future! Great!

Pitmad can have other positive outcomes besides agent likes.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the cakes and kind words

I decided to give PitMad a whirl today when I saw it pop up in my feed. I had some old twitter pitches saved somewhere (I know they were old because they employed tricks to get below 140 characters!) and just sent those along. I, too, have the feeling that the industry interest in PitMad and such has waned. I did get a couple likes from small presses, but not looking to go down that route quite yet.

goddessofgliese said:

And I just got a surprise full request today! I queried the agent on 9/15 and already marked it as CNR. In her email, she asked me to also indicate whether any other agents are considering the full or pages. Well, will she think my book not so good if she knows no other agents are interested at the moment? Is it stupid to mention that I've sent only about 20 queries so far?

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All right! I don’t think it’d be stupid at all. You could tell her that you just started querying and leave hanging the implication that she’s one of your top picks. It might even spur her to hurry a bit so she can get first dibs.

And dancing bananas for litdawg and raggycat too!
(hope I didn’t miss any other recent requests)

RaggyCat said:

!So is anyone else doing #PitMad and finding it very quiet? I'm pitching for my dad and there are a few retweets but not much else - and not too many of the tweets appearing on my feed seem to have gained traction either? Perhaps the December one is always quite quiet?

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I've never followed this before, but I followed it a bit this time. Two things that struck me: the only people who seemed to get "likes" were aspiring YA authors with a huge social media following, and that MANY aspiring authors have no idea what genre they write in.

Maybe agents and small publishers didn't look at the "latest tweet" function, and so missed those that weren't bumped up to the top of search results. As for the genre thing: maybe people wanted to get noticed badly enough they deliberately mislabelled their work, but - no matter what - a "heartwarming" story about three war wives is NOT a romance book!

Doesn't hurt to try PitMad but its probably not the ideal way forward if you want to get in the door. Even if an agent likes your tweet, they will barely treat your query any differently than any other they receive in their inbox.

Had one like mine a while ago because I used a series she liked as a comp title (I find using a couple of famous books and/or movies is what helps most), but still got rejected pretty quickly all the same.

Well that was my first pitmad and I was a little surprised that I got quite a few retweets (for me, who has next to no followers and engages with about 4 people on twitter...) so maybe that means the concept doesn't sound totally boring? or maybe it means nothing. A few likes but random: an agent from an agency with a weird website, some digital thing etc. I was too busy to engage and see what else was going on and who was getting lots of attention so all in all I'm not sure I learnt anything from it I always think twitter favours YA anyway so my expectations were low.

goddess, thanks for the offer and woohoo about the request! I would say that I had only sent out a handful of requests so far and waiting to hear back from some of them.

litdawg, congrats on your full request too

PitMad was interesting but not quite what I expected - like many of you guys, my dad's pitches got a few retweets (he hasn't used his account for 6 years and has next to no followers) and a few likes, but none were really legit. I think I expected more from it? Either way, it was easy enough to participate. Maybe it has had its heyday, as a few of you suggest, or maybe December is not the best time. I certainly feel like it was busier for DivPit and PitDark.

Thanks for linking the Jessica Faust blog, Torill - I feel like I may have seen it a long time ago as I get a weird feeling of dejavu reading it, but I'd forgotten what she said so it was a good read. Interesting to see things from the agent's point of view. Now I wonder if that's what the Twitter follow was about (I'm so vanilla on Twitter that I doubt the agent got much intel from looking at my feed, but hey).

Jean, I think synopses are weird because (depending on length) you often don't have the space to mention subplots, which, when you know the book so well, makes the synopsis look very bare. In the synopsis for my current book I don't even mention the MC's love interest, even though he gets tons of page time - his role doesn't relate to the main narrative so had no space. They're great for identifying what the core story is though.

Well done on the full request, goddess! I think you could do something similar to what JJ Litke suggests - answering the question but not in too much detail. If you say you're still waiting to hear back from several agents that's nicely vague.

And that sounds like a promising lead, too, litdawg - it's good that you've got some legit time to revise, though on the downside because you have to wait it might feel like a bigger thing than it is. At least the agent is pleasant and responsive, though!

Congratulations goddess!!! For what it's worth, I don't think it matters if you tell the agent about how many you've queried so far or that you've had no other full requests. She probably won't assume anything at all about your manuscript from this. All she wants is to be told if anyone else is reading, and then she might read you faster, that's all. She's requested the full because your query intrigued her, she won't stop being intrigued just because no one else has asked to see it yet... I wouldn't tell her anything about how many you've queried so far, it's none of her business and it doesn't matter. (Says amateur, unagented Torill...) Don't fret, be happy! You've got a request, yay!!

And congrats to you, too litdawg!! Sounds like it might be the perfect agent for you – being new and hungry for clients might be good, too, provided she has experience from the publishing industry one way or the other. Good luck with your revisions!

Congrats on the full requests goddess and litdawg!!! And goddess, so glad your surgery went well!!!!

I was going through old WIPs on my laptop last night and came across one I'd abandoned a few (maybe more than a few?) months ago. So anyway I started rereading and started thinking, not bad? Now of course I'm struggling with the decision of whether to finish that one off (it's around 35,000 words) or finish revising my Nano WIP. Ugggghhhh decisions....

Day 83,492 of captivity in the hospital with Husband.

I see there's been some great and hopeful news in here, sending celebratory and consolation cookies to all.

You would think I could get some real writing done at this point, no major crises in a week, all smaller setbacks to be expected in the scheme of complex medical crud, but my brain is mush. I have about 3 pages of New Thing. I posted a couple of bits in the favorite lines thread because I generally find that motivating, but no such luck now.

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I sent two nudges to agents who've had requested material for months. Crickets in return. I think it's time to CNR those two, but I'll wait til I'm home to do so.

Interesting to see everyone's thoughts on PitMad! I've had an entirely different experience - I didn't get much interest this time around but last time I got ~20 likes and from agencies I'd heard of. I definitely wouldn't write it off, and sometimes those agents are closed to queries or had CNR'd my previous queries, so I personally found a lot of value in it. It's all just luck as to timing and things, but I've found it very valuable in the past.

It's a hard day to make it through, and I've done about eight of them. Each 'like' feels like a possible bullseye until you see it's from your cousin who doesn't know the rules.

But, I would say that of those eight or so pit-mads and sff-mads and other-mads, I had one or two replies that helped in the end, and so I call it a win as well.

I think last december's pit-mad was also slow.

goddess and litdawg - congrats on the full requests!

goddess - glad to hear the surgery went well.

goddessofgliese said:

litdawg, congrats! Hope more good news will come your way.

Torill, thanks for the cake. It's delicious.

Pingle, ​I'll read your pages whenever you are ready!

Good luck to everyone who did PitMad today!

And I just got a surprise full request today! I queried the agent on 9/15 and already marked it as CNR. In her email, she asked me to also indicate whether any other agents are considering the full or pages. Well, will she think my book not so good if she knows no other agents are interested at the moment? Is it stupid to mention that I've sent only about 20 queries so far?

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I was in the same situation a while ago, and answered something in the lines of: "I've only just started querying, and currently have a query out with [name], but other than that the manuscript is not out with anyone at the moment." I can't remember exactly what I wrote, but something like that. I didn't think of it as tactical at the time, but perhaps it was to my benefit

Thanks everyone for your great advice. All I said was, "I've only queried my top tier of agents so far, and you are the first to request a full." She replied and told me that it usually takes her 3 months to read and asked me to inform her immediately if someone else offers representation. So that was easy!

goddessofgliese said:

Thanks everyone for your great advice. All I said was, "I've only queried my top tier of agents so far, and you are the first to request a full." She replied and told me that it usually takes her 3 months to read and asked me to inform her immediately if someone else offers representation. So that was easy!

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Hoping for a great outcome for you!

FWIW, some agents (Seth Fishman, e.g.) want to know in the query letter if your query has been requested by other agents.

I was able to query him with a 'yes, other agents have the full' but he still didn't bite.

But, it is evidently something they use to help sort the 'slush.' So, I'd definitely let her know as the requests come in, and I might be tempted to add the fact that an agent has requested the full to my ongoing queries. Three months says to me you shouldn't hold your breath for her.

yay for full requests!

I got a short story rejection the other day that was essentially "nice writing, not doing anything for the story" (not those words exactly), and I've gotten quite a few like that this past year. So I think I've got the writing part down pat! I'm just a terrible storyteller >> (It came in whilst I was playing a game and suddenly I did not feel like playing that game anymore).