While Rejection MAY Mean You're a Terrible Writer, It Could Mean Something Else

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I don't submit a lot of book-length manuscripts anymore, especially in the field of children's lit, but a couple of days ago I received an interesting rejection on one I submitted to an agent this past summer.

"I thought this was a really interesting plot (and my dream is to solve murders in an English village!) Unfortunately, MG is so very saturated right now, and mysteries have been really hard for me to sell, so I have to pass"

The book is set in a small Connecticut town and not an English village, but I get her point.

My point is that her message illustrates that manuscripts can be rejected for all kinds of reasons having nothing to do with the manuscript itself. Writers hear that over and over again at workshops and read it in articles and blog posts. But it's rare, in my experience, for agents to explain the reasoning behind their thinking when they reject something.

It's rare, and it's very gratifying.

The Weekend Writer: How NOT To Personalize A Query Letter

There are countless numbers of articles out in the world on how to do countless numbers of things related to writing. Personally, I have become selective about which ones I read, because there really aren't countless numbers of ways to do things. But How Not To Personalize A Query Letter by Tiffany Hawk did catch my eye because of the NOT in the title.

Essentially what she's saying is don't personalize your letter in an illogical way that's not connected to a professional connection. For instance, sometime in the last year or two I submitted to an agent who has an apple orchard. It was all I could do not to say in my cover letter that I love apple orchards. I hope I didn't say that.

Also, don't do any of these things.

Hawk also has a 6-step strategy for finding literary agents that I think is very good. 

I Don't Mind Rejection. It's Submitting That's The Problem.

So I've been spending the first two months of the year submitting an adult manuscript to literary agents. This gives me an excellent excuse (or at least an excuse) to mention The Trick To Writing Stellar Book Submission Letters published less than a year ago at Greener Pastures Magazine. 

Today's agent research experience also sent me off a few minutes ago to start another humor piece about literary agents. That sounds terrific, except what I meant to write about today was doughnuts.

The Weekend Writer: A Question For Agents That You May Not Have Considered

The weekend before last, childlit Twitter lit up when a well-known literary agency "parted ways" with an agent and unexpectedly dropped some of her clients. They were notified by an e-mail that went out on a Friday night. 

Hunting for an agent is stressful. Also, it's pretty much a part-time job at some point(s) in a writer's career. Over the years, I've heard many agent stories that indicate finding one who will take you on does not mean you've got it made, by any means. This was a particularly painful tale. 

Why Am I Bringing This Up On Weekend Writer?

Many writers interested in publishing books may want to approach agents for representation. You'll probably read a number of how-tos on how to do so, including what questions to ask agents who show an interest. In response to this blow-up, the Authors Guild released a statement on May 13 that included the following line: 

"The Authors Guild strongly believes that every agent needs to have a succession plan for their authors in case of disabling ill health or death, and we instruct authors to inquire about such a contingency plan." 

Some Self-Publishing Thoughts From Others. Okay, And From Me.

You all know that I'm self-publishing an e-book version of Saving the Planet & Stuff in order to give it a life as a back list title. You know because I keep mentioning it here. You can see the cover over to the left. I have done very little since the beginning of July except work on the marketing plans for this thing and copyediting. When you have text scanned to create a digital file, a lot of errors occur. Who knew?

So, I have self-publishing on the mind. Self-publishing was on my mind when I saw Some Hard Numbers at Janet Reid, Literary Agent. Reid writes about writers who self-publish believing they'll catch a traditional publisher's eye. As she points out, they may not be aware of what catches a publisher's eye. It's sales. Big ones. By big, she's talking 20,000 books. Doesn't sound like a big number to you? Many traditionally published authors don't sell 20,000 copies of an individual title. The commenter who pointed out that a self-published e-book can continue slowly selling for years is correct. That's why traditionally published authors like myself are self-publishing out-of-print titles. E-books function as the back list that publishers can no longer maintain. But slow, low sales over many years aren't helpful for publishers. If they were, they'd keep much larger back lists than they do.

Self-publishing was also on my mind when I read A Day in the Life of a Children's Book Editor. What I kept thinking was that all those things that editor talked about doing are things self-published authors have to do for themselves. Proofing, cover copy, cover concepts, cover illustrations, promotion, deadlines, events...And, as this editor said, she didn't do any editing that day.

One of my Facebook friends said she was surprised to hear that self-publishing was a lot of work. She isn't a writer.