We need a rejection bell

Paul Whybrow

Coincidence

  • Paul Whybrow
  • Replies: 9
Marc Joan

Latvia, I feel for you..

  • Marc Joan
  • Replies: 7
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That's gotta hurt! Still, I'm thinking (yes I know it's quite noisy), that maybe they aren't into murder mysteries, yet I'd guess you had researched they do? Maybe they just ain't intelligent mate! ;)
 
I attribute most rejections to the wind blowing in the wrong direction the day I submitted the query (or the day they read it). Either way, it was only 1 submission. I have TONS of more agents I'm going to bomb with queries in the future lol
 
DONG, again. *sigh* This one was the deciding factor--I'm going to self-pub one of my books, just to see how it goes. It's not so much that I'm discouraged by the rejections, it's just that I need to see PROGRESS. I've got writing piling up behind me that isn't going out the door, isn't being read by anyone, simply because I'm not in control of it going out. So, I'm going to test the waters, see if I have it in me to self-publish. It's the marketing I'm going to suck at, so I'm currently banging out a marketing plan to try and help me along.
 
Robinne Weiss said:
DONG, again. *sigh* This one was the deciding factor--I'm going to self-pub one of my books, just to see how it goes. It's not so much that I'm discouraged by the rejections, it's just that I need to see PROGRESS. I've got writing piling up behind me that isn't going out the door, isn't being read by anyone, simply because I'm not in control of it going out. So, I'm going to test the waters, see if I have it in me to self-publish. It's the marketing I'm going to suck at, so I'm currently banging out a marketing plan to try and help me along.
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I wouldn't even know how to market myself effectively (because I'm terrible at social media...). I'm fairly certain that if I tried to self publish, I'd languish somewhere near the bottom of the amazon ranking list. I wish you the best in your endeavor!
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I wouldn't even know how to market myself effectively (because I'm terrible at social media...). I'm fairly certain that if I tried to self publish, I'd languish somewhere near the bottom of the amazon ranking list. I wish you the best in your endeavor!
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Yeah, that's about what I'm expecting, but it's a goal for me to learn those marketing skills. If I apply myself and pretend to be the extrovert I'm not, perhaps I can manage.
 
Robinne Weiss said:
Yeah, that's about what I'm expecting, but it's a goal for me to learn those marketing skills. If I apply myself and pretend to be the extrovert I'm not, perhaps I can manage.
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That's why I'm going to try and pick twitter back up. If nothing else, I can start to get exposure on my twitter account and my blog. Maybe if I get enough attention, I'll become popular enough to get a second look from an agent.

On that note, I got another rejection today. They gave me a day before rejecting, so they just missed out on the "Turbo Rejection" label.
 
Chase Gamwell said:
That's why I'm going to try and pick twitter back up. If nothing else, I can start to get exposure on my twitter account and my blog. Maybe if I get enough attention, I'll become popular enough to get a second look from an agent.

On that note, I got another rejection today. They gave me a day before rejecting, so they just missed out on the "Turbo Rejection" label.
Click to expand...


Chase, are you sending the same manuscipt out all the time, or the same query letter. How many times have you been rejected?

I am curious to know how much time you are putting into the submission process.

Have you had feedback on your MS from beta readers / houses regarding your MS.

I do get worried when I hear everyone saying 'you need to be on twitter', 'or this site', 'or have loads of followers'. I know we all need to be media savy in these times. But I wonder is effort being spent on that area over and above the art of writing?

Just my thoughts and concernse, please don't shoot me down if I am stepping on anyone's toes, but I am quite delicate and don't really suffer rejection quite well.


Kevin.
 
He submitted samples through the houses, and had the full novel reviewed by some of us. As far as I know he hasn't sent it out to agents apart from accidentally as he's said elsewhere, and is still rewriting it as far as I know?
 
27 as I recall actually, or at least he threw it out at that point, and his wife saved it ;)
 
I just know, personally, 1 rejection *will* totally play with my mind, it's just who I am.

I don't know if any of you have read 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' by T.E. Lawrence, but he finished the manuscript in 1920 (I think), was taking it upto a publisher in London from Surrey, and it got lost on the train, the 8:54 from somewhere in Surry, and his attitude was 'oh well, will have to write it again'. The thing is, it had taken him a few years to write it the first time.
 
KG Christopher said:
I just know, personally, 1 rejection *will* totally play with my mind, it's just who I am.
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The trick (for me at least) is to send multiple queries out, so that when you do get the one rejection in, you still have nine others out there. I heard James Rollins say that when he was querying (he ended up with 49 total rejections), he would send 10 out and when he got 1 rejection back, he'd send another 7 or 8 to keep the odds still on his side. That's what I do. I make sure to have at least 10 queries out at all times. As soon as I get a rejection I send another couple out. It makes the sting of one rejection hurt less.
 
KG Christopher said:
I just know, personally, 1 rejection *will* totally play with my mind, it's just who I am.

I don't know if any of you have read 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' by T.E. Lawrence, but he finished the manuscript in 1920 (I think), was taking it upto a publisher in London from Surrey, and it got lost on the train, the 8:54 from somewhere in Surry, and his attitude was 'oh well, will have to write it again'. The thing is, it had taken him a few years to write it the first time.
Click to expand...
:eek:
That hurts!!! Ouch!
 
Nicole Wilson said:
The trick (for me at least) is to send multiple queries out, so that when you do get the one rejection in, you still have nine others out there. I heard James Rollins say that when he was querying (he ended up with 49 total rejections), he would send 10 out and when he got 1 rejection back, he'd send another 7 or 8 to keep the odds still on his side. That's what I do. I make sure to have at least 10 queries out at all times. As soon as I get a rejection I send another couple out. It makes the sting of one rejection hurt less.
Click to expand...

Good idea.
The way I handle rejections is by believing that it wasn't the MS that was the problem but that my submission timing was wrong.

It helps. :D
Unless of course they say that my MS is the problem then it's a problem :oops:;)
 
KG Christopher said:
Chase, are you sending the same manuscipt out all the time, or the same query letter. How many times have you been rejected?

I am curious to know how much time you are putting into the submission process.

Have you had feedback on your MS from beta readers / houses regarding your MS.

I do get worried when I hear everyone saying 'you need to be on twitter', 'or this site', 'or have loads of followers'. I know we all need to be media savy in these times. But I wonder is effort being spent on that area over and above the art of writing?

Just my thoughts and concernse, please don't shoot me down if I am stepping on anyone's toes, but I am quite delicate and don't really suffer rejection quite well.


Kevin.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I just saw this!

As Alistair said, I've had my novel go through the houses and a few people have been kind enough to read it cover to cover. Their feedback prompted me to rewrite half of chapter five, all of six, all of seven, and a good bit of a later chapter that needed to be rewritten to agree with the other rewrites. On top of that, tons of extra stuff (to the tune of almost 2k words) was cut from the novel to streamline it a bit. Recently, I just finished another edit of the work, which gets it to a near finished state (I say "near finished" because more edits can always be done to tighten up the MS, but I'm at the point where I'd be happy with anyone reading it).

For the submission process, I'm very methodical in how I submit to agents. First, I'll use a site like querytracker to gather up a list of appropriate agents. I'll look at the agent and go to each site first to see what each agent wants. I'll then save their sites and info for later. THEN, I'll draw up a generic query letter that is appropriate for the novel. On top of that, I'll be sure to put together other stuff I'll need for a query like a synopsis and multiple denominations of my MS (first five pages, first ten pages, first three chapters, first fifty pages, etc.). I'll put each of these things into a separate document and save them in a folder on my google drive. When I go to submit, I'll research each agent again - read through their site, check their twitter, check their blog, look at author's they've represented before, and look at what they want. If I think they're a good fit, I'll go ahead and personalize my query letter for them and add whatever else they would like with the letter (synopsis and MS pages).

For the mystery, I've sent out about 4 queries to test the waters, but have gotten nothing but rejections so far. The most recent rejection (yesterday) was an amazingly curt "Not for us, thanks.".

When I'm seriously querying a piece, I typically do what @Nicole Wilson does and send out 10 at a time or so. I'm not to that point on the mystery novel yet, but I'm almost feeling like I want to be super careful with queries for it because I really like the work and would like someone to pick it up. I'm not sure whether crafting each query does anything, but I'm taking my time with this one.

I think I started to ramble there at the end a little bit, but I hope that is helpful. :D


A few other things I want to add:

-I've been rejected only a few times for the Mystery, but 10 or 12 for my science fiction work. I DID stop querying for the sci fi work because it needs to be rewritten, but I just started for the mystery. I'm guessing I have quite a few rejections to go before I get any bites on that one.

-I think that social media is what one makes of it. Personally, I'm TERRIBLE at creating a social media presence, but I'm going to give it the ol' college try. I think it's important to have somewhat of a presence because if you ever plan on self publishing or wind up needing the fan base, it's good to have it in place, but I'm not sure it is a requirement. I have noticed that sometimes it is possible to pitch to certain agents via twitter (because they allow that at certain times), but I doubt you're missing too much if you don't do that.

-Rejection/being overlooked is something that's going to happen a lot in any creative endeavor you undertake. That's one of the reasons I haven't often put my stuff out there in the past. A lot of times, it feels like I'm screaming into the wind, but largely that's unavoidable because of how many other people are doing the same thing. A few years back, I was a member of an open collaboration site founded by Joseph Gordon Levitt called hitrecord. The goal of the site was to have a bunch of artists (across all genres of creativity) work together to create amazing things. At first, it was a refreshing experience. Like anything else, once the masses got wind of the site, it became a popularity contest with those few individuals that created popular content rising to the top and staying there, while everyone else settled out to the bottom. I think that this is something that is largely unavoidable. We've already had plenty of conversations about this on Litopia, but the only conclusion we've been able to draw - so far - is to just try and cope. Soldier through the rejection and keep your eye on the end goal, whatever that may be for you.

Again, I hope this helped.

-Chase
 
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Chase Gamwell said:
Sorry, I just saw this!

As Alistair said, I've had my novel go through the houses and a few people have been kind enough to read it cover to cover. Their feedback prompted me to rewrite half of chapter five, all of six, all of seven, and a good bit of a later chapter that needed to be rewritten to agree with the other rewrites. On top of that, tons of extra stuff (to the tune of almost 2k words) was cut from the novel to streamline it a bit. Recently, I just finished another edit of the work, which gets it to a near finished state (I say "near finished" because more edits can always be done to tighten up the MS, but I'm at the point where I'd be happy with anyone reading it).

For the submission process, I'm very methodical in how I submit to agents. First, I'll use a site like querytracker to gather up a list of appropriate agents. I'll look at the agent and go to each site first to see what each agent wants. I'll then save their sites and info for later. THEN, I'll draw up a generic query letter that is appropriate for the novel. On top of that, I'll be sure to put together other stuff I'll need for a query like a synopsis and multiple denominations of my MS (first five pages, first ten pages, first three chapters, first fifty pages, etc.). I'll put each of these things into a separate document and save them in a folder on my google drive. When I go to submit, I'll research each agent again - read through their site, check their twitter, check their blog, look at author's they've represented before, and look at what they want. If I think they're a good fit, I'll go ahead and personalize my query letter for them and add whatever else they would like with the letter (synopsis and MS pages).

For the mystery, I've sent out about 4 queries to test the waters, but have gotten nothing but rejections so far. The most recent rejection (yesterday) was an amazingly curt "Not for us, thanks.".

When I'm seriously querying a piece, I typically do what @Nicole Wilson does and send out 10 at a time or so. I'm not to that point on the mystery novel yet, but I'm almost feeling like I want to be super careful with queries for it because I really like the work and would like someone to pick it up. I'm not sure whether crafting each query does anything, but I'm taking my time with this one.

I think I started to ramble there at the end a little bit, but I hope that is helpful. :D


A few other things I want to add:

-I've been rejected only a few times for the Mystery, but 10 or 12 for my science fiction work. I DID stop querying for the sci fi work because it needs to be rewritten, but I just started for the mystery. I'm guessing I have quite a few rejections to go before I get any bites on that one.

-I think that social media is what one makes of it. Personally, I'm TERRIBLE at creating a social media presence, but I'm going to give it the ol' college try. I think it's important to have somewhat of a presence because if you ever plan on self publishing or wind up needing the fan base, it's good to have it in place, but I'm not sure it is a requirement. I have noticed that sometimes it is possible to pitch to certain agents via twitter (because they allow that at certain times), but I doubt you're missing too much if you don't do that.

-Rejection/being overlooked is something that's going to happen a lot in any creative endeavor you undertake. That's one of the reasons I haven't often put my stuff out there in the past. A lot of times, it feels like I'm screaming into the wind, but largely that's unavoidable because of how many other people are doing the same thing. A few years back, I was a member of an open collaboration site founded by Joseph Gordon Levitt called hitrecord. The goal of the site was to have a bunch of artists (across all genres of creativity) work together to create amazing things. At first, it was a refreshing experience. Like anything else, once the masses got wind of the site, it became a popularity contest with those few individuals that created popular content rising to the top and staying there, while everyone else settled out to the bottom. I think that this is something that is largely unavoidable. We've already had plenty of conversations about this on Litopia, but the only conclusion we've been able to draw - so far - is to just try and cope. Soldier through the rejection and keep your eye on the end goal, whatever that may be for you.

Again, I hope this helped.

-Chase
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Thanks very much @Chase Gamwell and also @Nicole Wilson I do think of the process of querying and its a totaly new set of skills and procedures that I will have to undertake. It is something that I will be afraid of because I totaly expect that I am writing the best novel in me, and if no one else can see it, or believe in it, then the rejection will be hard to take.

But, saying that, I understand that what you and Nicole (and other Litopians of course), do is have a methodology that 'works' for you, allows you to park the rejection into a box marked , I dont know 'the rejection box' which you manage to have as a small part of the process, but along side that, you have these other 'out trays' that take your mind off dwelling on the rejections, so a research list of agents, a list of submission, etc...

I suppose its like selling anything. Its all about 'the pipeline'

'coffee is for closers'

 
I do what Nicole does, too--make sure a MS is out to several folks at once, so I can always say, "well, there's still hope." Though I'm nearing 50 rejections on the novel I was SURE was marketable...

I also tend to rewrite and tweak after each rejection. Most of my rejections aren't even of the MS, they're of the query letter, or maybe of the first chapter or synopsis. So the first chapter, query letter, and synopsis have been revised and rewritten a MILLION times.

And I felt better this week, after the rejection my husband got. He's a scientist--leader in his field, editor of journals, etc, etc. He's not used to being rejected. So when a paper was rejected by a journal that requires the author to pay for publication, he was crushed. Absolutely crushed. I was kind and supportive, like a good little wife, but secretly I was thinking, "Man, am I tough! I get a rejection almost every day, and I don't let it get to me. This man needs to be rejected more often--it would do him good." (Shhh! Don't tell him I said that!)
 
And, now and again, you get a very encouraging rejection--one that tells you the agent/publisher actually really liked it, but it just didn't fit in their portfolio (maybe they are really trying to take more murder mysteries, instead of the fantasy they've published tons of in the past) or their schedule, or whatever. Frame those and hang them on your wall. Read them when you get the turbo-rejections.
 
I have a belated rejection - I actually signed an agency agreement last year, but after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, I've been told although my writing is fine, there is no chemistry so I am free to seek representation elsewhere. Apparently he had never filed the agreement with the agency's lawyers, so it didn't count....:(
 
Chase Gamwell said:
index.php
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There we go. Now in stamp form. DOOMP!
 
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Paul Whybrow

Coincidence

  • Paul Whybrow
  • Replies: 9
Marc Joan

Latvia, I feel for you..

  • Marc Joan
  • Replies: 7
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