Iscah's Blog, page 3

On Rejection

(Going to shift blog format for a few weeks to focus on the anthology I'm editing and will be Kickstarting in March-April.)

I want to share a few words on rejection, more specifically what it means to be rejected by a publisher, though the process of selecting stories and poems for Tomato Slices reminded me a lot of my experience on dating sites.

A while back, an author in my network divulged that a rejection always read as “you suck” to her.  Enough other people expressed agreement that she’s clearly not alone in this feeling.  But particularly after my first experience as an acquisitions editor, selecting pieces from a professional slush pile, I wanted to let other writers and aspiring writers know that was rarely the case.

My initial co-editor and I are both writers, so we’ve both felt the sting of rejection, and yes, rejection sucks.  But that doesn’t mean you suck.

So why do authors get rejections? Here are some of the reasons we rejected submissions. (We had over 200.)

1. Authors generally don’t get rejected, submissions get rejected.

I’m a writer too; I get it.  You pour your heart and soul into your art, so it feels like a personal rejection when someone says “no thank you” for your story or poem.  But for the sake of your sanity, try to internalize that your story is not you.  Just because a publisher rejects this submission does not mean they will automatically reject every story you send or even a revised version of your current piece.

Since I knew some of the people submitting, I skipped names and cover letters as best I could and went straight to the first paragraph of most submissions to be as unbiased as possible in my votes.

There are exceptions.  Editors are people who sometimes have irrational prejudices as well as rational concerns about working with certain authors.  The most brilliant authors are sometimes very difficult people to work with.  My co-editor had the unenviable job of mailing out the rejection e-mails and therefore dealt with most of the reactions, but to my knowledge there was only one that boiled into an actual issue.  The irony is that we had every intention of accepting this author’s story, but there was a miscommunication.  Instead of asking for clarity, they became insulting and refused to accept my explanation or apology.

It’s fine to speak up when you think something is wrong, but even when you’re justly hurt or confused, you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  By contrast, other authors we asked to make changes and even some we rejected were very accommodating and pleasant, and yes, that makes me more inclined to want to work with them again or in the future.


2. Failure to follow instructions.

We had fairly broad guidelines for this anthology because we wanted to celebrate eclectic forms of expression.  However, we did require that the submissions feature a tomato in a significant way.  We had a deadline and specific website where submissions needed to go.

Happily most of our submissions followed the basic guidelines, but there were a few who failed to include tomatoes.  Some that e-mailed us instead of using the submissions form.  There were also a couple authors who had trouble with the website, so they contacted my co-editor and got permission to e-mail her due to technical issues.  This was okay because they got permission first, but unsolicited e-mails or poems posted in forum replies simply weren’t considered.

There was another case where an author submitted a poem with a lot promise, but it was not quite what we were looking for.  He was given some very specific instructions on how to get his piece included, ignored all of them, and sent us a second version which was not as good as the first.

It’s perfectly fine to withdraw a submission if you don’t want to make the requested changes to your piece.  We’re very aware authors have other options and can respect a decision to walk away, but passive aggressive reactions don’t help anyone.


3. The submission requires more work than the editor or publisher is willing or able to put into it.

There were several stories and poems we received that contained some lovely and creative ideas, but they were not quite up to professional standards.

Many poems had a brilliant line or two or started with a fantastic idea but then meandered away from it.  If this wasn’t an anthology on a fairly tight timeline, there are several submissions I would have liked to have tried refining.  But unfortunately that wasn’t realistic for our schedule.  Grammar and spelling are not unimportant, but the odd misspelling is far easier for an editor to fix than poor flow, meandering narrative, poor word choice, or plot holes.

Most of the submissions that we accepted were submitted with a fairly high level of polish and only required minor editing, if any at all.  As many of these pieces are fairly short, we accepted fifty-two of them.  So we occasionally passed over very creative pieces for pieces with better clarity that would require less time investment.


4. The piece just doesn’t fit.

Doesn’t fit covered a significant percent of rejections, and this was what reminded me most of internet dating.  You can meet a guy who is a great person, but things just don’t click; there’s a lack of chemistry or significant philosophical differences that spell disaster for long term partnership.  Yet you still recognize they’ll be a great catch for someone else.

We had several pieces that were written at a professional level or very close to, but for one reason or other did not fit our anthology.  Some of it had to do with how significant the tomato was.  This was sometimes hard to judge, but I started using the rule of thumb that, if I could remove the tomato reference without affecting the story, it probably wasn’t significant enough.

Because this was an anthology, I was also concerned with how certain stories would fit together.  For example, we got three very well written stories featuring the same theme, two with similar endings, two with very similar relationship issues, and all using soup as a metaphor.  Individually, any of these stories would be fine, but in the same anthology, I was worried they would read as redundant.  So I tried to choose the one that was most on theme.

Poetry was very tricky in this area.  We had lots of poems with nearly identical themes, so uniqueness and clarity of theme along with strong word choice were very important to selection.  After 20 to 30 poems on growing tomatoes, a poem about a tomato rotting stood out as a welcome change of pace.

The best anthologies I’ve read have pieces that work together tone wise, so while we wanted to display a spectrum of creativity, there were a few submissions that were just too something or other to play nice with the other pieces.  I remember one story in particular that was rather brilliant in its way, but a little too heavy and esoteric for our quirky tomato theme.  This sort of thing was a question of nuance, so there wasn’t a good way to set specific “write this, don’t write that” parameters, particularly since it was all relative to the types of submissions we received.


5. Chemistry…or editor’s pet peeves.

Art is subjective.  Repeat that to yourself over and over.

The responses for my first novella included some people telling me the writing was amateur and others talking about how charming and well edited it was.  The more stylized and unique or controversial your piece is the more polarized people’s reactions to it will be.  It takes experience and experimenting to figure out when to listen to advice and when to ignore it.

I could write a list of my pet peeves, but there’s always that one story that flies in the face of your pet peeves and proves that they sometimes work.

In many ways, it was very helpful to have a second editor during the selection process.  Not all acquisition editors have the luxury of a double check or second opinion, but anthologies and contests often have teams of judges.

Because Amoeba Ink is a small press, I wear multiple hats and had to consider how well pieces fit with our company policies and objectives as well as fit together for this project.

Amoeba Ink aims for a degree of social responsibility, and apparently, I’m more of feminist than I thought I was.  I rejected two to four pieces based on their treatment or depiction of women.  My co-editor wasn’t always bothered by the same things I was, but with two female editors we were probably a little more sensitive to such things.  We had enough pieces we mutually agreed upon, that a firm “no” from either of us meant a submission was out.

I’m very sensitive to foul language; my co-editor was fairly comfortable with it.  My co-editor has certain pet peeves regarding tense or rhyming which don’t bother me so much.  We reviewed and voted on each piece as they came in.  Those with 2 nos were rejected more promptly, because as much as rejections suck, we know they suck more after waiting months for a response.  2 yeses were almost guaranteed in, though we held back acceptance e-mails until the deadline was over and we could make sure we had a reasonable page count.

We spent hours and days debating the maybes.  In the interest of compromise and keeping the Anthology down to a reasonable length, a few pieces I really liked were rejected, and My co-editor agreed to let some stories she really liked go.


So a rejection may mean one of any number of things, but unless you’ve been hostile, it probably doesn’t mean “you suck”.

Over all, I was very pleased with the quality of submissions we had and my consider doing another anthology in the future.

New NCIS Design

The NCIS fanportal at Cafepress has a lot of restrictions, so it's hard to come up with new designs that have visual appeal, fit the rules, and haven't already been done.  But I've been thinking I need to do more greeting cards, and this idea came to me.

Midway through and pretty sure my crowdfunding campaign is dead.  Whatever, it was kind of an experiment anyway sticking it in the small business section.

I haven't been putting much energy into it, because the March campaign for Tomato Slices is more important.  I've got a facebook, a tumblr, and a mailing list set up.  I'm looking into twitter.

I think I may need a fresh summary for Horse Feathers.  I didn't expect it to be a bestseller with the quiet release it had but I was hoping for more of a trickle.

Crowdfunding for 2016

Doing a little crowdfunding to help launch Horse Feathers and some other 2016 projects. You can pre-order your copy of the Horse Feathers Paperback this way if you like. This is not an all or nothing campaign, so even if you're the only person to show your support, you will still get your perk.



I'm a little tired just looking at this coming year, so support is appreciated, but I'm not going to make a lot of noise with this campaign.

In March, I'll be running a Kickstarter specifically for Tomato Slices. That one will have a lot more energy put into it.

P.S. I can still change the perks up if needed. They're pretty fairly priced, but a little boring. Let me know if you have ideas for perks that you'd like to see but don't.

Horse Feathers Now on Kindle!

Doing something a little different with the release of Horse Feathers.  It will be exclusively on Kindle / Kindle Unlimited for the first three months (possibly six).  Free for those with kindle unlimited and $2.99 for everyone else.  Paperback edition will follow later in 2016.  I'll update with dates when I have them.

I honestly struggled with pricing this book.  It's longer than Seventh Night, but I didn't want to price it too far from The Girl With No Name since it's also an extend backstory/prequel piece.

Horse Feathers is the story of Phillip's journey from Gourlin to Cordance, and his transition from child to young man.  The style of the book is somewhat different from Seventh Night and The Girl With No Name.  It's more descriptive, a bit more realistic.  I really wanted to play with the perspective of a commoner and the more day-to-day aspects of life in this fairytale land.

Signing at Rick's Comic City and a request

There was a color version of this design, but my computer ate it.  I tiled it and made some elegant looking items for the Cafepress Shop.

In other news, I'm doing a signing at Rick's Comic City in Nashville, TN on December 5th.  I may have a 'Seventh Night' with me, which will be fun.

And now the request.  If you've read any of my books, please write a review and post it on either the retailer site you bought the book from or some other site.  Be honest, if you loved it or hated it, or liked some parts but not others, just write that.  You won't be graded, just put your thoughts down somewhere.  And/or if formal reviews aren't your thing, talk about your favorite character, make a fantasy cast on your tumblr, whatever.

And I know I should be doing more of my own online promoting, but with projects falling behind, times is short, and I could use help.  Really, all I want for Christmas is a personal assistant.

I am trying to get Horse Feathers out before year end, but thanks to some technical hurdles, there will likely be a Amazon Kindle only release this year with the print edition and other digital editions coming out in a few months.

P.S. Don't forget that December is the last month to read The Hidden Prince for free!

Do you know Jack?

Focusing mainly on editing Horse Feathers this week, but I managed to put together a new Samurai Jack design last night. Still working on the nuances of the full bleed images, but I think it's on the right track.

GMX was fun. I costumed as Akeela from Minority Report and Buttercup from The Princess Bride. Lining up a few appearance in December and January.  Also may try a more ambitious booktour this spring.  My family is thinking about visiting friends in California, and if I can line up some stops along the way, that would be fun.

Killer Nashville's Bookcon

So the mystery elements in Seventh Night aren't it's strongest aspect.  There's a little "who-dun-it" suspense, but not enough that I'd classify it as a true mystery.  Though earlier in developement, I'd considered having Seventh Night run around the castle more, finding "clues"...just didn't quite work out that way.  However, I will be one of the authors showcasing at Killer Nashville's Book Con this weekend.

This is the same weekend as GMX.  While I don't think I announced it on the internet, if I saw you in person and told you I was going to be at GMX as a guest/panelist...well, I told you that because I had been told that, but I got lost in staff shuffling.  Which isn't current staff's fault, but stuff happens.  I'm still going to try to be at con hanging out in some capacity.  Since I won't be there in a professional capacity, I'll probably do some cosplay.  Draco and the Malfoys (band) will be there, so I'm still looking forward to con.

As usual, I'm behind on my project pile, but my lovely editor and talented cover artist have finished with Horse Feathers.  We've got a couple more rounds of back and forth with editing, but the ball's back in my court to move things forward, which will need to happen this week if I want to release in December.

I've started posting a list of the Tomato Slices contributors.  It's incomplete, but already plenty of talent to keep you websurfing for a few hours.  I've also been working on more tomato themed graphic embellishments.  As part of the kickstarter, I'll have a Tomato themed section of the Amoeba Ink shop on cafepress.  I set up a Tomato Slices Tumblr as well, but I think I've already forgotten the password...so not sure just how active that will be.

I'm very sluggishly making progress on Living Single on Minimum Wage 2nd Edition.  Think I'm just going to have to schedule some late nights at Starbucks and force myself through it.  It shouldn't be taking this long.

Oh, and I'll have a give away connected to mailing list sign-up for the Tomato Slices Anthology...just gotta figure out how to set it up, but should get it soon.

Southern Festival of Books and Tomato Slices

September blew by in a blur.  But the aftermath is I'm moving forward with a tomato themed anthology titled Tomato Slices. Yeah, new facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/TomatoSlicesBook.

This weekend I'm out at the Southern Festival of Books in the Same Old Story booth.

I'm making very slow progress on the budgeting book. My editor has finish Horse Feathers, so I think there's still a shot of at least getting the ebook out in December.

In other news, I've been watching Minority Report and really enjoying it.

Live Interview on Comicstravaganza This Wednesday

I've been wanting to do some shirt design using quotes from Seventh Night, so here's the first.  I'm trying to improve at typography. See swag here.

Both Fandomfest and River City Comic Expo went great.

The stop at Book Stop Plus was again a delight. I think we ended up with two different times posted, so if anyone showed up at 1pm, trying to see me and/or Robert Midget, I apologize for not showing up til 2pm. We've left some signed copies behind at the store.

Coming up this month...

I'll be appearing at the Made in Nashville event this Saturday, Sept. 12, and on Wednesday, I'm going to brave live netcasting on the Sept 9th episode of Comicstravaganza. You can watch live here. If you miss the live feed, it's okay. You can watch it later on YouTube.

Emerging From My Summer Hybernation

I didn't mean to go this long without an update.  I took a part time job and have been taking as many hours as they would give me before my nephew started school again, and I bought a hamster, who is cute and smart (for a hamster) but cuts into my time a bit.

Rather last minute I managed to get onto some panels at Fandomfest this coming weekend, so if you're in the Louisville, KY area, I hope you'll come out and say hi.


On August 28th, Robert Midgett and I will be in Bartlett, TN near Memphis at Book Stop Plus from 2 to 5 pm.

And on August 29th, I'll be back at River City Comic Expo in Little Rock, AR.

Still been doing lots of boring work getting the shop ready for the Christmas season, added current designs to new items. Cafepress dropped a lot of products, which in some ways makes my job easier, though they dropped a few products I liked. I'll need to completely redo my presentation folder, so I'm not showing off discontinued products. I've been slowly adding designs to Zazzle as well, though not at the pace I should.


Writing wise, I'm slowly making progress on the Living Single on Minimum Wage revision. The writing/editing itself isn't too bad, but making time for it has been tough. The cover artist has made progress with Horse Feathers, and I hope to have something to share soon.