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Dale wrote: "About 20 or so years ago, I sent out manuscripts with some regularity to publishers and agents and collected a lot of rejection slips. It's been a long time since I did that, but on January 2nd I s..."Fingers crossed, Dale.
I went through this with several of my books a few years ago and documented what happened on my blog. I've listed all the agents I contacted and the results (who responded, who didn't). My genre was mystery/thriller, both adult and YA. You may want to look over my lists before submitting to a particular agent. It could save you time, money, and heartache.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Theodore wrote: "Dale wrote: "About 20 or so years ago, I sent out manuscripts with some regularity to publishers and agents and collected a lot of rejection slips. It's been a long time since I did that, but on Ja..."Thanks, Ted, I'll have a look at that. I've learned a hard lesson or two from my previous experience, too.
Alex wrote: "Good on you for having the courage to do this, Dale. I wish I had the same courage. I'm too afraid of rejection, though, couldn't handle it, lol."Well, you get over that by being rejected over and over and over, and by learning that some of the greatest writers went through exactly the same thing before finding the right fit, and eventually realizing that it's nothing personal, just a business with a lot of tough competition. My problem was always getting past the third or fourth rejection. I'm determined to spend the whole year submitting Space Operatic to various agents, though. I figure I can hit as many as 10 of them over that time period if they all have response times around 4 to 6 weeks. At that rate, I only need a 10% success rate. ;-) And if I can't find someone to take it on by then, I'll either reevaluate self-publishing it or push on for another year. We'll see how I'm feeling at that point...
Alex wrote: "Unfortunately, life has taught me to shy away from rejection, lol. Fortunately I am okay with self-publishing, I like the freedom it gives me over my books - I'm not sure I'd be happy with giving u..."That is EXACTLY the conclusion I finally came to, Alex. I love the freedom I have over my books, their release, marketing, and so forth. Most of all, I can't stand delays, and from what I read, it can take a year or more after a book is "sold" to a legacy publisher before it sees the light of day. That's nonsense! I've got five books in the works right now, all to be released this year (the first starting on February 5th). A legacy publisher would drive me freakin' crazy.
Can I join in? I’ve had one rejection this year too. It only took two days. I’ll add it to the multiple ones I had twenty years ago and about six years ago.
Alex wrote: "You're a busier guys than me, Ted, I'm only planning 3 releases this year, though if i get my butt in gear i might squeeze in a fourth. Don't want to pressure myself about it, however."At this point, my writing of Flash Fiction is like my wife playing her daily game of solitaire. Pure enjoyment, and it keeps the mind alive because I can jump from genre to genre. I love finding appropriate photographs (or purchasing them) and then, giving voice to the characters. Some stories are humorous, others not so. All are fun to write.
I couldn't agree more about going the traditional route. I don't want to give up the control, freedom and the fun. And ... my next Tracker novel is complete, yippee. Now, it's onto the editing phase. I hope to have it published by early April.
Alex wrote: "Unfortunately, life has taught me to shy away from rejection, lol. Fortunately I am okay with self-publishing, I like the freedom it gives me over my books - I'm not sure I'd be happy with giving u..."There are pros and cons to both. I've been running a small publishing company since late 2010 and have published about 25 books, mostly other people's. But with all that I've learned, I still find marketing to be extremely difficult, especially when I don't have a lot of money to throw around. I would welcome a good agent and a good publisher as partners for my writing career. I might change my mind after having them for a while, but there are definite advantages to the marketing reach and (if one is so inclined and one's work allows for it) the movie industry contacts they have.
Theodore wrote: "Most of all, I can't stand delays, and from what I read, it can take a year or more after a book is "sold" to a legacy publisher before it sees the light of day. That's nonsense!"It takes my little company (my wife, myself, and one of my daughters) about eight months to a year to bring most books from submission to market. It's not at all ridiculous when one is juggling a number of projects all at once. It depends somewhat on the level of editing required, of course, and whether artwork is required. We also have permissions issues with some of our titles Mostly we publish nonfiction, and sometimes there are citations from other works for which permission must be secured.
Granted, you as a self-published author may be able to bring a work to market much faster, but you've probably also completed a pretty polished manuscript which might not need a great deal of editing, you're getting all your artwork from online libraries (not hiring an artist), and you're probably using online tools that automate the layout and typesetting processes as opposed to having a designer and a typesetter fine-tuning the product.
I wouldn't mind taking my time, since it usually takes me most of a year to complete a novel anyway. But we live in a time when there are options, so whatever works for each person is fine.
Amy wrote: "Can I join in? I’ve had one rejection this year too. It only took two days. I’ll add it to the multiple ones I had twenty years ago and about six years ago."Should I say congratulations? ;-) At the very least, rejections mean we're doing something!
Anita wrote: "I couldn't agree more about going the traditional route. I don't want to give up the control, freedom and the fun. And ... my next Tracker novel is complete, yippee. Now, it's onto the editing phas..."Congratulations!
@Dale, yes I agree. Also it was good to discover that being rejected had no effect on me after all these years. The last batch were devastating. That was before I was published and before nice people here and outside of Goodreads (ie those with exceptionally good taste :-) had told me I wasn’t crap.
Amy wrote: "@Dale, yes I agree. Also it was good to discover that being rejected had no effect on me after all these years. The last batch were devastating. That was before I was published and before nice peop..."Three cheers for being able to take it! ;-)
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Just getting an agent is worth hearty congratulations!
I immediately sent it to another agent. This one might be a better fit for me. The other one was a recommendation from a friend, but it wasn't clear to me from the guy's info that he was really that great of a fit for this MS. It was worth a shot, though.