Hi! I'm querying again after a 5 year break

Hello! I am getting back in the ring after a five year break from trying to get my books traditionally published.

I've got a few short-story collections and one novel self-published, which was fun for a while, but I found that all the energy needed for self-promotion and the financial investment required to really make your sales fly was just too much for me.

So I wrote a deliberately commercial Crime Thriller to try it out with the traditional publishers again. It won a place at Penguin Random House's UK "Write Now" initiative last year and so I got all excited and thought I'd cracked it and sent it off to a few agents... and three months later I'm still waiting for a reply, any reply, from any of them.

So I've had my submission package professionally critiqued, and I've entered the book in more competitions, and I'm applying for all the free mentoring programs I can find,and I'm just about ready to query more agents.

But I find my heart heavy. It's the waiting I can't stand. The checking of an email box that fills up daily with spam and nothing else.

I remember now why I stopped querying five years ago

Hoping to make friends here x

What lovely welcome messages, thank you all so much! I feel better already, this writing business can be a bit lonely, can't it.

Liritha - my book is about a frustrated artist and single mother of an autistic boy who turns to art crime to secure her families needs. I've entered it into the Crime Writer's Association Debut Dagger competition which announces its long list in May, so I'm holding off on any more submissions until then, just in case...

I'll be hanging around the Daily Rejection posts then, cheering you all on and sharing my woes and frustrations.

Thank you for the warm welcome Andov! That whole visibility thing is pertinent to self-publishing and I sucked at it. I was very active across all platforms of social media, tried to get my "brand" out there, on Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, even Linkedin etc, but so are a million other indie writers. I hardly got any followers on anything It seemed to me that indie writers needed to get the readers first, then built a platform with them, then grew that platform to increase readership. And the way to get readers was to pay for services like Netgalley and do Goodreads Giveaways and pay for adverts across Amazon and Facebook, and I just didn't have the money to risk on it all. Hence me chancing my arm again with traditional publishing.

Good luck with your current wip, I look forward to following your journey

Qwest said:

Sounds like a great premise, good luck with the competition!

And for all of us languishing in this arid desert called query land, I read such a heartening story today:

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/eleven-strong-queue-lido-507571

In short: Libby Page had been querying for a year, was disheartened with the rejections and was ready to... give up: "“After a year of sending The Lido to agents and receiving numerous rejections, I was close to giving up when I heard Robert was starting a new agency,” she said. “I decided to send him my manuscript—I’m so glad I did.”" He plucked her off the slush pile and has shot her to six-figure stardom! She's one of the stars of the London Book Fair.

It only takes one yes

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FABULOUS story, thank you for sharing

Caskie-Mushens are on my hit list for May