- Joined
- Apr 22, 2016
- Messages
- 692
- Reaction score
- 242
- Location
- California (Bay Area)
- Website
- mpepperlanglinais.com
So last June I attended a writing workshop/retreat, and the agent running the retreat was very excited about my WIP. She told me flat out, "I'd like to represent this," and that I should send her the manuscript when it was all finished and polished. She also told me she would get me on some conference panels. As you might expect, I was over the moon.
Fast forward to October. I'd finished my manuscript, run it through critique partners and beta readers, and finally sent it to the agent. Two weeks later she sent me an offer of representation. All according to plan.
But then.
She sent the manuscript to just one publisher. Yesterday that publisher passed on it. No feedback, just a generic, "Not for us" kind of thing. And the agent told me she didn't have time to send it anywhere else, that I should just self-publish it and get it out to readers that way.
Basically, she dumped me. After one rejection.
To be fair, the agent knows I've self-published in the past and done moderately well with that. But this manuscript is, I feel, suited to a publisher. I had real hopes it would be my break-out book.
So now I'm back at square one. I felt like I'd finally climbed the mountain and now an avalanche has knocked me back down to the base. I'm not sure I have the energy to try again.
Fast forward to October. I'd finished my manuscript, run it through critique partners and beta readers, and finally sent it to the agent. Two weeks later she sent me an offer of representation. All according to plan.
But then.
She sent the manuscript to just one publisher. Yesterday that publisher passed on it. No feedback, just a generic, "Not for us" kind of thing. And the agent told me she didn't have time to send it anywhere else, that I should just self-publish it and get it out to readers that way.
Basically, she dumped me. After one rejection.
To be fair, the agent knows I've self-published in the past and done moderately well with that. But this manuscript is, I feel, suited to a publisher. I had real hopes it would be my break-out book.
So now I'm back at square one. I felt like I'd finally climbed the mountain and now an avalanche has knocked me back down to the base. I'm not sure I have the energy to try again.