Okay, so it wasn’t once upon a time. It wasn’t even twice upon a time. I’ve had more like a hundred query letters that I’ve sent out either be rejected or ignored, and the thing is, that’s the unfortunate norm.
My first two books deserved it. In fact, the first one has now been rewritten so many times that the first draft will be completely unrecognizable from the one I actually publish. But the next two received enough actual, personalized responses that I can’t sit back and say that they deserved it. Maybe it’s the mama bear in me fighting for my babies, but there’s a chance I’m right.
I just read an email from a popular writing website about dealing with rejection and they made a lot of great points about how it’s useless to compare ourselves to celebrity book deals, and how as much as we all dream of “making a living” off of our books, most writers do need a day job to pay the bills. But they also said that a rejection isn’t failure, it just means that you’re “not quite there yet”. And, well, I have to disagree.
I don’t know who needs to hear it, but this was my response to that email. Chances are good that it, too, will fall into a slush pile and never see the light of day. But that’s not my only option to share it with the world.
(Perhaps I should explain that he requested responses by owl, and that I was too emotional to bother with addressing him properly at the beginning of my reply.)
Hot pause.
First, I have to apologize that I’m not responding by owl, but I’m afraid I don’t have one handy that I would trust to cross the Atlantic.Second, I appreciate what you’re trying to say here. But I think it’s incomplete.
I’m sure “in your day” the world of Planet Agent was a true meritocracy (or maybe it still is, but the competition is significantly steeper) but coming from someone who has experienced endless rejection, frequently accompanied by notes assuring me that it was an “incredibly close call”, I simply can’t sit back and agree that a rejection means “you’re not there yet”.I’ve spent years and months believing that and while yes, I do get a great amount of joy from my writing and that’s the entire reason I’m bothering to respond to this email in the first place, I know that there is someone else out there who needs to know that sometimes you get rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your work. I can’t even tell you how many agents I’ve had who have told me that my pitch was intriguing and the quality of my pages was excellent, but this “wasn’t the book for them”. And the thing is, because the world of traditional publishing is so fickle, this happens. Probably all the time. I’m sure you could argue that my book must have been missing some sort of je ne sais quas or needed one more draft or who knows what, and with some of my manuscripts I can agree with that assessment. But with others, I can’t. Not to say I’m done learning or above needing help, but at some point when I’ve produced multiple manuscripts that match the quality of existing published novels, I have to believe it’s not me.
So please, for the love of all of the souls who have been crushed one too many times, own up to the fact that luck is involved.
Agents receive thousands of submissions per year, and out of that slush pile, how many do they pick up? one? two? I can wholeheartedly believe that you need to make it into the top x% to even be considered, but beyond that there’s no way of knowing whether you’ll catch an agent after a particularly delicious cup of tea or after their mother-in-law’s barely palatable tuna salad. You don’t have almost any way of knowing whether the fact that they represent books like yours will make them say “nah, I’ve got enough of those” or “perfect! I love selling these!”
I would love to believe that Planet Agent is a true meritocracy, but at this point, I can’t. Because if it’s true, then I have enough of a sampling to say that they’re not interested in me. Sure, there are some nice stories about wildly successful authors who took decades to get published and received hundreds of rejections, but for some of us, that’s the reason self-publishing was invented. So that we can take a step back and say “I’ve learned, I’ve grown, and despite this massive, multi-year history of rejections, I can now say that it’s not me. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’ve bared my heart and soul in these pages, and the people who read it will feel something.”
Sorry this turned into a rant — I meant to say something short and sweet to pretty please be a little more encouraging about rejection does not equal failure, but here we are. It’s true that those of us who aren’t chosen by the world of traditional publishing may never make a living off of writing, and we may need to define our success differently, but I wish that someone had told me just a little earlier that self-publishing is not a sign of failure.
It’s a choice to make your own success.
Thanks for listening,
Natalie Tay