If you’re the type of person who can’t handle rejection, the Melvin Smiley kind of human, becoming a writer is probably not the best idea for you. Actually, any career in a creative industry is something you should avoid. That said, I can only speak as a writer and a DJ. These are the only crafts where I possess any experiential authority.
For a novelist, you have two paths to publishing: traditional publishing houses or do it yourself. The latter is expensive as you have to do everything on your own or pay someone else to do it. The editing, formatting, cover art, promotions, and advertising. As someone who is not great at promoting myself, this method does not sound appealing.
Which leaves the former - the method that is the dream of nearly every author, to be published through a traditional publisher and see your books on shelves in everything from Barnes and Noble, to your local independent book store, to Walmart. Writers long to see their titles on best seller lists, get film options, and be the next Brandon Sanderson or Sarah J Maas.
There’s a challenge to the traditional method though. Publishing houses do not accept submissions directly from authors. If you’ve written a novel and want that book to be considered by a company like Harper Collins or Penguin/Random House, you need an intermediary. In the publishing world, those people are called literary agents. Their job is to sell your book to publishers and negotiate the best contract possible. Because the more you get paid, the more they get paid. To follow the traditional route, you need an agent. Without an agent, getting your book published is unlikely.
How do you find a literary agent? You must query. Query good. For the uninitiated: a query is a formal request from an author to an agent for representation. It’s a process. It is arduous and daunting – possibly a little soul crushing if you’re not prepared. Once a query is submitted, there are a few different things that could happen. The first (and worst) is nothing; weeks turn into months and there’s no response as if you and your story never existed. The next possibility is what everyone hopes for - the agent requests either a full copy or partial copy of your manuscript. If they like what they see they make an offer to represent you. The third, final, and most likely possibility is rejection; you get a letter thanking you for considering them but your project isn’t a good fit.
It shouldn’t be a surprise rejections are plentiful, more abundant than any other response. The quantities of books written every year far exceed the number of projects any agent could possibly represent. If a literary agent was foolish enough to accept every author who ever submitted a query to them, they would never have the time to effectively pitch those books to publishers. This means thousands of books are completed and saved as a manuscript on a hard drive somewhere to never see the light of day only to be read by friends, family, beta readers, and critique partners. The population of unpublished authors is so vast it makes the count of published authors comparatively diminutive.
When I began querying “Kingdom of Odd,” I did the math. I searched for all agents on QueryTracker who were open to submissions and accepted queries for young adult fantasy. Then I exported that list into a spreadsheet (because I’m a nerd) and included the number of queries each agent had received with the count of how frequently they requested a partial or full manuscript. The statistics are not encouraging. These agents have received anywhere from 260 to 12,400 queries. The stingiest agent requested at least a part of a manuscript from 0.15% of work submitted to them. The most generous agent requested more from 13.53% of the authors who queried them. At best, roughly 87% of authors are going to get rejection letters. At best. Worst case scenario, some agents reject nearly 100% of the queries they receive.
If you are a writer who wants to see their book traditionally published, there will be rejections. A lot of rejections. If you’re not prepared, it will destroy every shred of self worth your ego can muster. I thought I was ready. My first few rejections came and motivated me to keep trying. According to all available stories, JK Rowling received twelve rejections for “Harry Potter” before an agent expressed interest. To be clear, I am not JK Rowling. “Kingdom of Odd” is not “Harry Potter.” And I’ve received seventeen rejections with more to come. Regardless, I believe in my book and the story and its potential. So I keep submitting. Sometimes, I would submit two queries for every one rejection letter.
As for those rejection letters, they come in a few different varieties. The most common is a form rejection. These letters are identical, with only the name of the author and book title changing from one email to the next. The other options are more personal as they both contain constructive feedback. The rarest instance includes encouragement to change something and resubmit. More probable is a letter explaining exactly why your book was rejected but leaving it open to the author to take the advice before submitting to other agents. For the first six months of querying, every rejection I got was a form letter. “Thanks for considering me but …”
July brought two new things: warmer weather in the Inland Northwest, and the first rejection letter with feedback I could actually use. This excited me. If I’m going to get shot down, I’d at least like to know why. If my book isn’t good enough for someone, I want to know what could make it better. I thought I was ready. Turns out I was only prepared for the form rejections. I was not primed for the useful criticism.
After the first few rounds of editing and revision and feedback from friends/family, I got my manuscript in front of a couple beta readers. The most useful feedback I got from the beta phase was about exposition. This is a blessing and a curse. In fantasy, you need a certain amount of exposition. Without it, readers can’t understand the world your characters inhabit. They won’t know the social structures or the magic system or the reason anyone does anything especially the main characters. Too much exposition is cumbersome and boring. No one wants to read a dull book. The evaluation suggested incorporating the necessary exposition into dialog as it would provide the background readers need while also contributing to character development and natural flow of the story. So I dove into another rewrite to incorporate this feedback.
This is where the personalized rejection letter derailed me. First (like any good manager would do when coaching an employee) it started off with compliments. She said there were great qualities in my work (yay!) and it was an intriguing concept (also yay!) but (and there’s always a but) it was too heavy on dialog and exposition.
Finally, some tangible and helpful feedback from a literary agent. I should be excited, instead I’m confused. I understand her recommendation but I don’t know how to implement it. The original version was heavier on exposition and I revised it to include more dialog based on earlier feedback. One person says more dialog, one says less dialog, and both say less exposition. While I realize I can’t please everyone I want a book worthy of pleasing an agent. I want someone who will take a chance on me.
Now I’m stuck. The one thing I always wanted in a rejection turned out to be a figurative wad of chewed gum clogging the gears of my creative cognitive functions. I’m a writer: I should be writing. I could be revising my completed manuscript taking consideration of recent recommendations. I could be working on my other works in progress. I could be formatting my wife’s children’s book. I could be blogging. Instead I’m trapped inside my head. Since I don’t know how to fix this one thing, I was paralyzed to write anything. To be honest, this is the first significant item I’ve composed since that rejection letter on July 6.
Dump this in a blender with my autistic aversion to boredom, my hyperactive imagination, my evangelical guilt, my lingering situational depression, and all the anxiety I can muster and you get blah. Blah has been my modus operandi for the month of July. And I don’t like the blahs.
