Hi all! I'm getting close to finishing the first novel I'm serious about trying to get published. I tried submitting one previously just to see how it worked (or in case I turned out to be a genius without knowing it - suffice to say I did not), but deep down I knew it was not of publishable quality and stopped after 10-15. For this one, I actually rather like and want to give it its best chance, so I'm working with an editor and so forth. It's very much on the long side at 175k words, but I really think it needs that many words to tell the story (particularly since it's written in late 19th century pastiche, which really balloons the word count), and that kind of sprawling multi-character book is my favourite to read, so I'm not interested in cutting it significantly. However, I also know that the market for really long Gothic horror character dramas isn't huge and is already pretty saturated, so it's perfectly possible that no one will think it's worth picking up, in which case I will trunk it for the time being. My question is, how do I know when I've reached that point? How many rejections/unanswered queries should I give it? (I'm UK-based in case it makes a difference.) Many thanks in advance!
A good question that doesn't really have an answer. How much rejection can you stomach? How much time to you want to spend querying? At what point would frustration set it? How much frustration can you handle before it affects your judgment and/or enthusiasm with writing in general? You hear all the time about how this famous author was rejected 100 times. Or how no studio wanted to make Star Wars or the Godfather. I guess you keep trying until you can't do it anymore.
I sympathise with your dilemma about your story being too long. Unfortunately that will get it automatically rejected in nearly all cases. They'll take one look at the word count, and bomb you out without reading a single word. (I'm in the same position myself.) You might get lucky and find a publisher that will be happy to take on longer work from first-time authors ...but they don't seem to exist much these days. And even then, you'll need to appeal to them in other ways as well. If you have written a story you think is good, and it's been edited to within an inch of its life, and everything that doesn't ruin your pace or tone or content HAS been cut—and it's still way too long to be accepted as a first novel by today's traditional publishers? I'd just go straight to self-pubbing. Without a blink. Either that, or write something else within the accepted word count, and attempt to get THAT published. If it's a success and sells well, you can maybe get your publishers to look at this longer piece.... Or not. Noope. I'd just go for self-publication. Get lots of beta feedback beforehand. Edit it to where it's as perfect as it can be. Don't rush to publication. But don't waste time chasing people who are never going to look at it either. You could spend that time much more productively promoting your own work yourself.
Thank you both! Homer: That's kind of my problem, last time I found that I mostly stopped caring about rejection after the first two or three, so hypothetically I could keep going indefinitely, maybe setting aside a day of the week for submissions or something. Will need to think about it! Jannert: I won't lie, that was really disappointing to read. Though I know the averages of course, none of the agents I've been looking at for a first volley of submissions have word counts listed under their submission criteria, so I was hoping that there would be at least a little flex. I could maybe get it to under 150k with cuts, but I'd struggle to get it down to 125k without losing the meat of it. I've still got a load of editing to do, so I'll have time to think about it, but sigh. Kill your darlings, right? I really would rather go traditional because while I can handle a lot of rejection, I find the world of self-pub totally overwhelming and it seems to require a huge amount of time spent on social media doing subtle self-promotion, which I just can't do. TBH I'd rather pack the whole thing in than spend more than an hour a day on Twitter.
Well good luck, whatever you decide. But do make sure that whatever path you follow, the work IS actually ready. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make these days is to rush things—in the euphoria of having finished a first draft, done a quick edit or two—either to self-publication, or to submitting unpolished work to traditional agents, etc. Once you've done that, you're kinda stuck with it. Agents, in general, aren't going to want to see the same thing submitted again, with changes ...unless they've specifically asked for them. There is no upside to submitting material that 'isn't quite ready.' You'll not only get rejected, but you'll screw up your chances with that particular agent. And if you self-publish a mess, either it won't sell, or people will quit reading it partway through and resolve not to buy from 'that author' again. As for the problems with setting up self-publication—I know what you mean. I'm struggling to get my head around the process right now, although my own reluctance is the barrier, and hopefully I'll jump it fairly soon. It is a daunting task. However, once it's actually OUT there on Kindle, or whatever, you don't actually need to do anything more than inform a few of your friends. The amount of promotion you do is up to you! Nobody will be forcing you to do any. If you want to sell to strangers, of course you'll need to work at it. But if you derive satisfaction from simply having the book out there for your friends and acquaintances to buy, you can stop promoting whenever you want. You can always start promoting it more later on, if you change your mind or figure out a better way to do it. Don't think the traditional publication route means you won't have to do any promotion, by the way. Unfortunately, you will very likely be expected, by the publisher and your agent, to do quite a bit. I suspect that may vary according to who publishes you, but don't expect the publisher/agent to do all the work. And they will quickly drop you down their production list if the books don't sell. Writing a book is hard work. So is getting it published. And then getting it sold. However, it's a sad fact that some people aren't all that good at doing all three.
Have you used beta readers? That is a very significant stage that may help you present the strongest version of your story to your editor, agent and hopefully publisher.
Sorry Jannert, just saw your post. Thanks and yes, I am well aware of the importance of getting something as perfect as it can be before sending out (though honestly right now I'm feeling pretty discouraged and having a hard time focusing on the work I meant to do today). I know that all publication requires self-promotion, but somehow there seems to be a different tone to strike between traditional and self-publication, and I think I would be less bad at the former.
Beta readers are usually free. Some writers here may be willing to help in that respect. Otherwise, they may be willing to give critique on parts of your story in the workshop. You have to qualify somehow, and for the life of me, I can't remember exactly what's required. One of the moderators can advise you better about that. Beta readers are pretty hard to find and it does take some time to earn their trust. You may have to roll with the punches but it will all help make your book stronger.
Numbers aren't everything. 150 blind rejections would not be so significant as 10 where you had carefully selected the agent based on what they previously published, said they liked and made sure it fit with what you had written.
I think after 10 queries, if there were not any requests for fulls, I'd start looking at the manuscript again. After 20 I think I'd conclude it might be good to shelf it for a while at least to see if there are flaws I missed. What writers focus a lot on is the writing, naturally. But I am beginning to think the writing quality isn't very important at all. Story is important. If you have a good story written in half-decent English, you'll get picked up. If no one's picking up your book, I'd say chances are your structure is the problem, not the writing. I had only a single full request when I was querying, and it was ultimately rejected. When I wrote back and asked why, the publisher wrote saying there simply wasn't any editor who felt they knew how to shape it in a certain direction. She said it was a game of luck. Of course some luck is involved, that your story would resonate with someone who's an agent/editor/publisher. But I don't believe her. It's not luck. If the book was marketable, they'd pick it up. If every editor waited for something that resonated with them the way writers waited for the muse to strike before they penned a single word, they wouldn't have jobs. Looking back I can see that book had massive structural problems. But it's also been 12 years. It's done. I'm simply not currently willing to invest into it any more, at least for a long, long time. I think if after 20 queries, you're not getting at least one or two full requests, something's wrong with the book. And you are better off investing your energy in a new book, get more experience, then at some point if you want, return to that first book that got rejected because now you'll be a far better place to figure out why it was rejected all the way back then. In your case, you may get rejected just based on word count though. You would probably need an exceptionally good query, or alternatively, attempt to publish this one later, after you have developed a readership and published other, more traditionally-accepted books.
Beta readers are just people who volunteer to read your story and give you honest feedback. They are just 'readers.' So they should be able to tell you if they enjoyed it, if there were parts they didn't like, maybe why they didn't like those parts. These people can be anybody. Friends, relatives, anybody. The thing of course, is that you need to be aware that they won't all be willing to tell you everything they think is wrong, for fear of hurting your feelings. OR, conversely, they might not take your writing seriously because it's you...somebody they know. So you do have to use your judgement about whatever it is they tell you. You're allowed to ask for betas on the forum here, BUT ...you have to be here a while before you can do that. https://www.writingforums.org/faq/the-collaboration-forum.131/ (That's to prevent people from joining up just to get feedback, then vanishing into the blue just afterwards. It's not fair to the membership, or to the people who volunteer their time to help you. It's got to be mutual ...and trust has to be earned. We don't want people giving out their email and other data to folks who have no track record here either.) However, the longer you're here, the more friends you'll make, and who knows? I'd say just let it be known around your circle of friends and acquaintances that you've written a book ...maybe divulge something about what it's about, etc. I'd be surprised if you don't get a few volunteers. I know I did. However, I made the classic mistake of giving my first draft to everybody who volunteered. Yeeks. Don't do that. Save a few for subsequent drafts. You'll want to know if any of the improvements you make actually work. Another thing to keep in mind is that you should NOT keep giving your amended versions back to the same people. You will exhaust them. Just move on to a new beta, rinse, repeat. Betas for hire? Nope. I wouldn't go there. They aren't necessarily going to be honest with you—because it's their business to make you feel good. The best way to get betas is make friends with other writers and be willing to swap, and read what THEY have written.
okay, this is what I did in 2016. i'll spoil the ending: I did get an agent and a book deal. I started querying in February, signed with the agent in September, signed the book deal in December to a big 5 publisher. In January I started researching agents. I set out a number right from the start - 50. I would query 50 researched agents, and then I would stop querying the book. I had a *terrible* query letter. like it was bad. query writing is a real skill and it takes time and headsweat to learn, and I didn't know how to do it. I got lucky. in the middle of February, I started querying three agents a week. I wanted to start slow to see what reaction I got to my (terrible!) query. I was too anxious at this point to start writing a totally different book, but I did get around to that later in the spring. I really advise you to write another book while you're querying. but I'm not sure it should be a sequel to the book you're querying. it turned out that the publisher who took my book wanted a sequel, and the book that I wrote while querying has been sitting in a drawer for years because it was a very different story from the one I was querying (I was in the trenches with a fantasy novel. I wrote a contemporary romance while querying.) I think the safe bet is to write a story that is the same genre as the one you are querying, but a totally different world. because you're going to wind up in one of these situations: 1. you don't sell Book A. That's all right. Book B is ready to unleash. 2. you do sell book a, but they want it to be standalone. super keen. you have another book to develop and sell right on the heels of your first book or to offer as part of your multi-book non sequel contract. 3. you do sell Book A, and they want a duology/trilogy. That's all right too. You have a project you can sell as soon as you're done with series A, or to offer as an option novel when your contract is done. okay, back to the process. I did get requests even though my query letter absolutely sucked. my ratio was one request per ten queries, which was all right. I wasn't busting down the door or anything. but I had my list of 50, and i made it to 34 before I got an offer. but, the query that got the offer was...query #6. so patience is part of the process.
I don't know what you mean, I'm sorry. what happened to the book? It did pretty well. not a breakout best seller or anything, though.
Id suggest reading up on all the rejection letters famous authors recieved. It can be quite eye opening. Push as long as you want to, take critisism and work to better yourself and your writing.
Never EVER give up. If they don't reply to the email, find out where they live and camp outside their house so you can hand in the manuscript face to face. Fortune favours the bold. Good luck
While going on forums for finding beta readers is an okay way to go about it...there's quality issues. I can say that of all the betas I've ever had from forums, only one was legitimately good (and one was semi-good, but that was a friend, and well, friends generally aren't good beta readers for some reason -- reluctance to hurt feelings, maybe). That isn't a comment on this forum, as I haven't been here long enough for that, but on other places I've been, there usually wasn't much commentary, and it feels like I was putting in more than I was getting out in swaps. If you really want a beta, maybe you could try fiverr. I can't speak for that site myself, but it does offer some beta readers if you're really desperate. If I try it out, which I am sorely tempted to do, I'll post my experience on this forum. Lol. Zeppo's comment reminded me of a story about Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. There is a story about him, perhaps apocryphal, where he dresses up in his cop uniform and approaches a producer with his screenplay by acting all intimidating and then slapping the thing down on the table in front of him. Don't give up on the publishing. There are tons of publishers out there these days, and if you can figure out how to self-market, so much the better. We live in weird times for book publishing, y'all. Edit: Ookay, maybe not fiverr, unless you find a beta reader you really like. I went cruising around, and well, it can be pricey. While $5-10 can get you a beta for ~3,000 words, if your novel is 75+k you're looking at $80-300+. A lot of the beta readers don't offer for above certain limits, like 80k or 90k. Since they're all freelancers, there's variation, but yeah.
You already seem to be aware of the things standing in your way in terms of length and your own knowledge that your book wasn't (and I am assuming is closer to being) publishable-quality, and you have shown great awareness by getting an editor to ensure that all those words are truly necessary to telling your story. About the only thing I could suggest is to just keep going, and to possibly consider independent imprints specializing in longer gothic prose. Bigger publishers will hesitate to dedicate so much shelf space to a book that takes up the equivalent of nearly 3 copies of a shorter book they can sell for the same price, but you may get better traction from, say, an imprint that specializes in ebooks! Just keep trying and keep your eyes wide open to jumping on opportunities that present themselves
