WHAT TO DO WITH AN IMPOSSIBLE TO SELL MANUSCRIPT?!

In 2004 I set out writing a middle grade reader story. I went though countless revisions and edits. I hired an editor to line edit it. Then went back through and re-edited for another year. I started to submit it in 2006 and received word that it was the top five in a submission pile of over one-thousand manuscripts, only to be denied some time later. In 2011 I received a contract with a small publisher (who will remain nameless because they didn’t handle the situation like a professional would) and was dropped from the contract in 2012 due to issues with editing.

I sent my manuscript back out for another round to publishers for about a year. And then in 2014 I decided that it would be better suited for a lower age group and rewrote the entire story as a chapter book for early readers. Again it went out. And I recently switched to submitting it to literary agents (a first for me).

Still rejection after rejection are coming in. Yet at this point in my writing career the rejections do not say all the things they used to (“lack of story arc, the voice is not right for me, it’s too short). Now it appears that the story is simply not at a marketable level (and I feel that maybe it never will be at this point in the game).

Writers are always told don’t throw your manuscripts out, don’t ever give up on them (Yes I know Stephen King was rejected). Yet is there a point when a story is simply not a piece that will ever work or ever be “sell-able?” Is over 100 submissions/rejections a turning point to say…hmmmm…would make a nice little fire to roast a marshmallow… Or does one take bits and pieces from 10 years of work and create a new piece with used parts? Give the story away for free to the internet world (because the story is great!!! even if no one sees it yet)?