Rejected Everywhere

What do you do when you get nothing but rejection and vague comments?

Dear Sonal,

When do I give up and realize that my book is dead?

My agent has exhausted her list, and there have been no takers. I’ve had feedback from editors, and it’s all frustratingly vague, like “the voice is great, but I didn’t connect with it” or “engaging and well-written but I don’t have an strong editorial vision for this” or “the women’s fiction market is currently oversaturated.”

I don’t mind the rejection. I don’t like it, but I’m used to it now. But I don’t know what else I can do. I worked with a developmental editor before sending out this draft, and I really thought the book was good, but obviously there’s something wrong with my ‘voice’, whatever that means.

How do I fix my book when I have no idea what’s wrong with it? What else can I do? Small press? Rewrite? Shelve this entirely?

Sincerely,
Quit Now On Forever Rejected Piece?

Dear Quit Now On Forever Rejected Piece,

First of all, best name.

Wait. No. First for real… that really, really fucking sucks. I’m sorry.

No matter how much we get used to rejection in this craptastic industry, no matter how tough an attitude we adopt towards it, putting a bit of your heart and soul out into the world and having it repeatedly shit upon is never fun. (Even if you’re into that kind of thing, in which case, I don’t judge but I also don’t want to know because maybe I do judge a little bit.)

But seriously, this is the really terrible part of writing and publishing and the crapshoot nature of it all makes it all the more frustrating. It suuuuucks.

This question particularly hits home for me, since I’m in the midst of this with my novel right now, and you know, I don’t like roller coasters in amusement parks, let alone the emotional one that comes with sending our manuscripts and queries in the hopes that someone will fall in love with it.

There’s the absolute high of a positive connection, the agent who wants to see your full manuscript, the editor who is unexpectedly familiar with you and excited to see your work, the referral to someone you never dreamed you could work with who really seems like they are a perfect fit and will love your book.

Then there’s the lows: No. No. No. Or as I read it, Please fuck off, Fuck off and die, and For Fucks’ Sake, you can fuck right off, motherfucker.

So let me see if I can help you translate this, and clarify some of the paths you can take from here, and also explain why there may be absolutely nothing wrong with your book.

What the fucking-fuck does “I don’t have an editorial vision for this” mean?

The feedback you've received means you wrote a great book.

But…. (and not even Sir Mix-A-Lot would like this big but) … your book has not found the right editor at the right time.

Back in the old days (so I'm told) many authors made a decent living hanging out in the midlist of perfectly-great-but-somehow-not-a-smash-runaway bestseller hit, but increasingly, publishing wants to put its fewer and fewer resources behind the big, blockbuster hits to stay afloat, even thought no publisher can consistently and correctly predict the big, breakout hits.

Basically, it's less a business of “let's put out great books and nurture talented authors” and more like gambling. And to help them make better bets, editors have to use their own judgement and instincts to select which book they're going to bet on.

But like, this means ‘published’ is not so much an arbiter of quality as it is that an editor loved it enough to take it to a meeting with all the other editors and enter into a WWE Royal Rumble-style battle to fight for your book on your behalf against all the other editors with the books they love.

You know how there's this book out there that everyone’s raving about and you read it and you’re more like ‘meh’? Or if there is a book you love and think is brilliant and your friend reads it and says they weren't into it and now you're wondering why you're friends with a blistering idiot?

This is what it is. The editors read it, saw that it was really good, but didn't love it enough to want to pile-drive their colleagues into the mat for it.

Or maybe they did love it that much, but couldn’t get enough of the other editors onside to tag team and defeat, uh…. I’m running out of wrestling metaphors, but sometimes the issue is the person who loved your book needs to work with other people who didn’t love it the same way.

It's not your fault if their taste is suspect.

Okay, But What About The Crack About The Women's Fiction Market Being Saturated?

Oh. That. It's sexism.

Personally, I think we can do away with Men's Fiction entirely, but hey, what do I know?

So how do I get this rejected masterpiece published?

First, have a chat with your agent. See if there's anyone else on their radar. See if there is anyone on your radar.

Yes, your agent is your guide in this, but also no agent knows everything, so it's worth a conversation. Are there places you wish your agent had tried? Ask them about it. They may have very good reasons for not trying there, but it’s worth the conversation.

Plus, some agents truly do suck (I have stories) so if you get a hinky feeling, look into it to be sure that the person you're working with us truly doing everything they reasonably can for you. It doesn’t hurt to chat with other clients to figure out if anyone else has a hinky feeling too.

In general, it’s good to chat with other writers about how things work with their agents, and get some sense of what the process can look like, and see how that lines up with what you have. If your agent is doing everything they should be doing, excellent. If not, maybe this wasn’t as good a fit as you’d hoped.

Trust your gut.

Is small press my only option?

Don’t let the word ‘small’ make you feel like this is an insignificant avenue. Small press can be an excellent thing for writers, and many aren’t even that small.

Generally, small press publishers are doing it because they love books and writers and the experience of working with a small press can be incredibly empowering… You'll have more attention from the publication house, more control of your book cover and marketing plans, and a bigger share of the (admittedly slim) PR dollars.

A big press may have bigger reach, but if one of their Big Deal authors happens to be publishing at the same time as you, pretty much everyone's attention is going to go there, and you will be off on the sidelines catching what crumbs you can. If there are awards that your publisher needs to submit entries for, you'll be competing with every book at the press to be the entry for that house… but at a small press, you are one among fewer titles, which means you are the Big Deal author.

Small press will take more risks than bigger publishers too, so for writers of less commercially-oriented books, it's often a much better choice.

The US is a bit weird in how much focus is given to agents and bigger presses; here in Canada, small press is a highly viable option for building a writing career…. as much as any writer has anything resembling a career.

This is not to say that it's all roses and rainbows at a small press. Because running the press is so often a labour of love, there is less money in it not only for you, but also for staff. Some small presses are excellently run, but some presses are, um, more administratively chaotic.

Is this where you suggest (deep sigh) Self-Publishing?

Any time someone vents about literary rejections on the internet, there will be a voice that pops up to suggest self-publishing, or indie publishing (as is the preferred term) and then they will begin extolling the virtues of bypassing the quote-unquote gatekeepers.

I’m not going to suggest self-publishing.

I'm sure this is going to bring in all the self-publishing cheerleaders to troll me, but go ahead, it's good for my engagement.

Marketing and selling books is hard work, and the vast majority of people don't understand how much. There are certainly some genres where indie books are doing better than others, but unless you have an existing fanbase (or are willing to put in a ton of work over a long time to build one), or your book is incredibly niche, don't go there.

If the day comes that you just want the damn thing in print, go ahead if you must, but don’t go into this thinking that you’re going to be the next Fifty Shades of Grey, which is probably more of a good thing than not.

Got anything else?

Go out and connect with others in the writing community.

Editors—even at big houses—will often still take unagented submissions from writers they know, or via referral from a writer they know well. So while you shouldn't try to befriend editors and their writers solely to use them for access (I mean, not unless you want to be an asshole) making friends can lead to these connections.

Plus, editors also move around to different publishing houses, and this is literary gossip that can help you. If a person who worked on a book you loved moves to a publishing house you can see your book fitting in with, it may be worth approaching them (or talking to your agent about reaching out.) Don't know who worked on what book? Talk to other writers. Read the acknowledgements. Check out Publishers Marketplace.

Finally, not every writer's ‘debut novel’ is the first novel they wrote and tried to sell. Sometimes that comes out much later, or perhaps not at all. This is a sad reality, that you can pour your heart and soul into your first (or second, or third) book and no one is interested. That the next project will probably be better because you’ve learned something is cold comfort.

But in any case, it never hurts to have another project that's ready to go down the line. What if your next book is a smash hit and people are hungry for another one from you?

Fine, fine but what the fuck is wrong with my ‘voice’ since obviously there's a problem?

There is not necessarily anything wrong with your voice.

This might be a relief to read, but it also might be frustrating, because like, if there’s nothing wrong, you can’t fix it and get this thing published already.

Give yourself a little time to get over coming to the end of this part of the process with no publishing contract in hand. If you think you might have another revision in you, read over the book and see if there is something in there that isn’t quite singing.

Listen to your instincts on this. The editorial feedback you’ve received might be useful as a direction to look in, but ultimately, this is your book. You need to feel like it’s realizing your own creative intentions as best you can.

But also… it’s entirely valid to say, no, I do not have another revision in me. Or, I don’t really see what I could change. Or, you know, I don’t think this book represents me anymore.

What’s the tl;dr?

You can keep sending out your book to other editors, either via your agent, small press, or referrals.

You can take another crack at it, and see if there’s anything else that the book needs.

Or, you can stick the book in a drawer. Call it done. Maybe you’ll want to look at it again one day, maybe you won’t.

Either way, have an emotional support cookie or seven, and remember, publishing is about Taste, Timing, Talent and Tenacity.

You have talent—you would not get feedback like that if you didn’t. You had the tenacity to get through all the publishers on your agent’s list, and maybe you’ll have the tenacity to seek out small press if that makes sense for your book.

But Timing and Taste are things you have no control over, and so, don’t take on the blame for rejections based on those things. The stars have not aligned on this one at this time. Fuck ‘em.

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Readers, tell me about rejection, the good, the bad, the hilariously painful. (Writing-related, preferably, unless it’s a really funny story.)