Rejection, rejection, rejection...

Every time I go onto these threads I am amazed at how horrible these agents/editors are. I personally would want to drop traditional publishing as soon as they got my name got out there. Why deal with these people who seem to be nothing but gatekeepers?

 

Back in my first writing period, in the days of the typewriter, I sent a lot of things out by mail and got them back with the usual
rejection slip. I put the slip in the bottom left drawer of my desk. When the drawer wouldn't open anymore, I figured it was time to stop. Now in the days of the PC it is relatively easy to write a novel so everybody and their brother is doing it. A print publisher is supposed to tell the good from the bad how? They select on the basis of track records. You can't get published until you've been published and sold a hundred thousand copies. As for me, I trying audio books. It might work, it might not.

 

Well, a print publisher is supposed to tell the good from the bad by working with reputable agents and then reading the MS. It's a myth that there are no new authors being published. I'm not saying it's easy, but it certainly isn't impossible.

 

I tend to agree with psychotick on the first page, write because you love to write, polish that thing until it`s like a mirror, until you can see your face in it. Only then think about publishing.
Actually instead of trying to find a publisher I`ve put one my short stories on my website then linked it on my facebook page: for free. Anyone can read it if they want to, and a few people seem to have. Even for free I only did it after I worked on that story until I really couldn`t do any more to it. I liked what I wrote, read it and read it, and then put it out there for free. Doing that helps me; it gives me a platform to get my work out there. People get to know me for my writing, and giving them something free to look at gives them the best incentive to give me the chance to entertain them, if only for a few minutes. It also helps my confidence to post something that won`t get rejected; it`s my site, my facebook page, so rejection isn`t an issue. And sometimes people will post a comment and my confidence is stoked a little bit.
A website or a blog or a facebook page or something. Get yourself a platform.
It all helps make you the writer you want to be and it removes the pressure of trying to get published.

 

I am a very patient person so rejection is only part of the process to me but of course to a certain extent. I submitted to over 50+ magazines in the last two months and just yesterday I got accepted into a print magazine. Submitting poetry is hard enough; I could imagine the frustration I'll experience submitting my novel!

 

I have to disagree. A print publisher has to be able to tell the sellable from the not-sellable. Agents are sales-people. It's not impossible to land a print deal, but it's getting harder all the time and it was darn tough 40 years ago.

 

I don't see this as a disagreement with my post - can you clarify what you're disagreeing with?

 

It seemed that you were saying I thought getting a print deal was impossible as you wrote "...but it certainly isn't impossible."

 

Well, I was responding to you saying that "You can't get published until you've been published and sold a hundred thousand copies." Which seems impossible.

But if it was just hyperbole, we're in agreement - it's difficult but not impossible to get a print deal.

 

And it's even harder to get a GOOD deal, especially for unagented authors.

 

Especially if you mean a "good deal" in Publishers Marketplace terms...

 

Ha, I wasn't thinking of that but that's very true.

 

But not impossible I guess.
And what of the digital only writer, I`m guessing that most of those guys don`t have agents.

 

There was a bit of a burst a few years ago of agents specializing in e-publishers, but I don't think it caught on. So I'd agree, most writers who focus on e-publishers probably don't have agents. But a fair number of writers with agents may end up with their books at e-pubs, if they can't be sold to the print guys.

 

So you`re saying that they tend to end up with agents but don`t necessarily need them, or does it still help them with e-publishing as well?
Not sure why an e-pub author would actually need an agent.

 

Of course it's not impossible, or we wouldn't get thousands of books published each year.

There are a few of those digital-only agents around, but it seems a strange business model to me. I know that I want to exhaust my print options before I go digital only. I wouldn't be disappointed in a digital only deal (assuming it was a good publisher etc) but it makes sense to pursue the channels that'll get you the most formats before you narrow it down.

Personally, I would want an agent for ANY publishing deal. I don't know enough about the legal side to know what to look out for in a contract, and even if I did I'm shit at negotiating.

 

It all seems a curious business to me, don`t know too much about any of it. I know a little about the art business but not about the publishing business - although most businesses have common points of interest.
I know I like writing, that`s about it.
There seem to be quite a few published authors here.

 

There are very few, especially if you mean traditionally published. @BayView there is the most regular, most published.

I'm still firmly in the aspiring boat. It's a long cruise...

 

Ha, yeah, it does seem to be a long one for sure. Around the world in a hundred thousand words, or more.

 

Agents are more than just gatekeepers... they can negotiate deals, help sort things out when they go wrong, help with foreign rights and other rights not in the original contract, and just sort of generally guide a writer's career. That said, I don't go through my agent for books I send directly to e-pubs... just for books I think have a chance at print publication.

 

January seems to be the month of rejection for me. This is just crazy, but I've gotten 24 rejections in the last 25 days. I'm pretty good at keeping things out there and sending out new submissions. What I'm not very good at is apparently short story writing. Still, I have some warped sense of confidence in the stories I have out, and some have been out a very long time like almost a year. Anyway, I hope my friends here are having a better start to 2017 than I am.

Any of you guys sending out submissions for short stories or your novel right now? Have you been rejected in 2017?

EDIT: Okay, it wasn't quite 24 rejections. I had done a search of my rejections so far this year, but I accidentally included the seven submissions I have sent this month. Still, even minus those seven that's a lot of rejection to get so early in the year.

 

My second novel is going out on submission in the next few weeks. I'm sure I'll be joining you in the Hall of Commiseration by spring.

 

That's exciting. I hope you have quick success with it. But, yeah, quick would probably be sometime in the spring. I should have another avalanche of rejections sometime in the spring. Or I could have great luck and sell a dozen stories. I seem to hold out this strange hope for each and every submission I have out. I like to have a lot of things out.

Are you planning to send out a lot of queries? I would. Honestly, I don't know if that's good or bad advice. In the past, I sent out queries like crazy. It felt like I had a lot of interest when a few agents bit, but, honestly, I got way more rejections than I ever did interest. It just didn't feel like that. But what do I know? There is no book with my name on it out there.

 

I sent out about 60 queries when I was querying. I hit the jackpot on about the seventh (? can't really remember) but I didn't know that until a month later.

I'm not sure how many editors we'll go out to. Last time there were nine in the first round.

*quickly writes some lesbian vampire fiction*