After My Second Book Died on Submission, I Took These 4 Crucial Steps

Photo by Aaron Burden

Today’s post is by author Eva Langston.

Well, to be honest, the first thing I did, after my second manuscript didn’t sell, was spend a week wallowing in despair. But I’ll get to that.

First, let me set the scene. I have been trying to become a published novelist for nearly twenty years. First, I got my MFA and wrote several terrible drawer novels. Then, in 2014, I signed with an agent but, after working with him on revisions for nine months, we parted ways and I went back to the query trenches. When I couldn’t find another agent, I wrote more books. I queried for many years with multiple projects. Eventually, I found a new agent. We worked on revisions to my YA suspense novel and I thought: This is it. Finally, I would have a published book to my name.

But the book didn’t sell. It was rejected by every editor who read it. No worries, I told myself. While on submission, I’d been writing and revising another YA novel, so my agent sent that one out to editors. When, a year later, that second YA novel died on submission, it felt like a little piece of me died, too.

I had written another manuscript while the second book was on sub, and it needed major revisions, but I struggled to find the motivation to do them. Give another year of my life and another chunk of my soul working on yet another novel that wouldn’t sell? I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my life.

So here’s what I did.

1. I tended to my mental health.

I was really down. For a few days I felt like I’d been flattened by a steamroller. I barely ate, and I felt physically incapable of smiling. I let myself feel my feelings, but I knew I needed to do something to get out of this funk. So I talked to my therapist, and I scheduled phone calls with my friends. I scrounged up the energy to take brisk walks. I spent time with my family. I made a list titled “ways to feel better” and started checking off items on the list.

2. I filled my creative well.

Since trying to work on revisions to my newest manuscript was fueling my feelings of fear, anxiety, and failure, I read books instead. I forced myself out of the house on artist dates: a sculpture garden, a museum, a long hike. In fact, on the drive home from the sculpture garden, I had an idea for a new novel, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

3. I started a project that was 100% in my control.

You can’t control whether or not an agent signs you, or a publisher offers you a contract, or a reader buys your book, or your book wins an award. In this business, one of the only things you can control is the writing itself.

But I was feeling discouraged with writing. I was feeling depressed that all my manuscripts were likely going to sit in the depths of my computer, unread and unappreciated, for the rest of time.

So I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do for a long time: start my own podcast. It was something I could create and put out into the world totally on my own. I didn’t need anyone to tell me yes. I could just do it. And having that control felt really good.

I started working on my new podcast The Long Road to Publishing with Eva Langston. I interviewed guests who had traveled a long and bumpy road to publishing their books. I talked to authors who had spent years in the query trenches, weathered hundreds of rejections, had manuscripts die on submission. In fact, a lot of the authors I’ve talked to so far have had at least one book die on submission; it’s way more common than people realize. And, honestly, that makes me feel a lot better.

I’m so happy I’ve created this podcast. These interviews have not only been fascinating, they’ve been healing. I’m not the only one struggling. Pretty much everyone who finds success in this business has traveled a difficult road to get where they are. The people who make it are the ones who put in the work and don’t give up.

Of course, starting a podcast was my dream project. For others it might be making a quilt, taking dance classes, playing music, or creating an author website. The point is to do something that’s in your control, and maybe involves putting a piece of yourself out into the world.

4. I channeled my feelings into a new low-stakes novel.

Writing is such a big part of who I am, and I knew I’d feel better if I was working on something creative. But for the sake of my mental health, it needed to be low stakes. Instead of trying to revise the manuscript I’d written, I decided to write something new, just for fun. No word count goals, and I’d keep my expectations low. Just sit down five times a week and write for an hour, I told myself. Find joy in the creative process: the words, the experimentation, the discovery.

Remember that idea I’d had while driving back from the sculpture garden? It was for an adult thriller, and I decided to pursue it. I created a character who was struggling with her career and falling into a pit of despair. I poured all my feelings of anxiety and anger and dejection into this character. And because it’s fiction (and a thriller), I dialed everything up to eleven and made her behave in ways I never would.

It was very cathartic.

And this low-stakes novel that I told myself to simply have fun with I finished it in three months! My agent absolutely loved it, and she’ll be sending it out to editors soon. I think this is my best novel yet, and I never would have been able to write it if my first two books hadn’t died on submission.

Getting traditionally published is incredibly hard at pretty much every step of the process: writing the book, revising it, finding an agent, getting a book deal. You have to hit the right agent/editor at the right time with the right project. And, from what I hear, it doesn’t get much easier after that. The publishing road is full of potholes and detours, even after you get a book deal. That’s why it’s so important to find joy in the writing itself.

Note from Jane: You can listen to Eva’s conversations with guests such as New York Times bestseller Julia Bartz, YA and MG author Kern Carter, and novelist Courtney Maum on The Long Road to Publishing. It can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.