Waiting

[guilianna]

Is horrible. Sent a requested R and R last August. Follow up email beginning of Jan. Nada. Worth another email, or just let it go? Day job horrendously busy so no time to get immersed in next book yet, which is the only cure really.

Agent or publisher? I would chase, I think. I might wait till it's been a month though.

Agent! a month to answer an email seems a long time, but it's a plan. I'll probably get the rejection tomorrow, now I've asked on here...
How's life with you, Countess?

A month is a long time but it happens. It's to do with the way they triage their work, I think - urgent stuff relating to existing clients (contracts and money and so forth), followed by non-urgent stuff relating to existing clients, followed by anything relating to prospective clients.
It came home to me when I read a blog by Jessie Burton, who wrote The Miniaturist, with contributions from her agent Juliet Mushens, about how she got signed up. At some point in the whole process, Juliet had read the beginning of the book and was thinking it was something special (which has since proved right given it's been literally TOP of the bestseller lists) but there was STILL a gap of IIRC, a few weeks before she could find time to read the rest of the book and move the process on.

I'm well thank you. Been working very hard on getting my book ready for self-publication and hence not had much time to work on the new book. I'm bowled over by my brilliant cover design and busy sending out e-advance review copies - can I interest you in one in return for an honest review on Goodreads/Amazon? If you'd like to, pm me your email and I'll send you out a .mobi file.

I guess ... and no rejection today so that's something! I'm only trying to offer her a clean ms not asking for an answer even!
Yeah I read The Miniaturist, and I've seen JM is on twitter. Fascinating that that book had a wait!
I would love a review copy! I have the idea that it starts off with a flight sequence, am I right? that certainly stuck in my mind, anyway. Exciting! I couldn't give it full attention til half term, would that fit in? (ie 3 weeks' time). I'm really looking forward to it, especially as I feel relaxed that I can be genuinely complimentary without any effort at all, which is pleasant.
I'm thinking of self pubbing myself once I have a bit more time to do all the necessary. I worked in a publishing co so the technical side is OK - more the marketing I'd struggle with I think. I'll pm you well before half term!

It starts off with the heroine flying her hawk when she gets summoned by her father who tells her he's arranged a fabulous marriage for her, which she doesn't think is fabulous, and it goes on from there.

Half term would be absolutely fine - publication date is 1st March but after that is still very useful anyway (and Amazon reviews can't go up until the book is out). Thank you very much, and for the lovely comments - I look forward to your pm when you're ready.

I am beginning to notice that more and more of the people who are getting book contracts are the ones who self-published first. It is all very interesting. Having been working my socks off in the last few weeks to market my book (and still much more to do), I am beginning to realise how big the gap is between people who will do that and people who won't, and to understand more why publishers would like to see concrete evidence that an author they are signing is prepared to put the marketing legwork in as well as their having written a good book.

Bearing that in mind, I think self-publishing makes a lot of sense for writers like us who are starting out.

The marketing isn't difficult but it's time-consuming, at least to start with (I'm hoping I'll be faster at it all with the next book....). There is lots of help online and some good books about what to do, though, so when you're ready it's easy to get going.

I remember the hawk scene vividly, superb writing. Didn't want to blunder into a spoiler!
It's the time element with self pub, for me. Creating a market from scratch is no mean feat. Day job is full on; I can write around it, and at certain times of year work quite hard around it, but not sales/publicity on top. V tempting though!
I imagine that a good way forward would be for like minded authors to join forces in a kind of self pubbing conglomerate.

Thank you!

I think you'd have to decide how much time you were going to spend and then do what you could in the time, rather than taking the approach of pursuing every opportunity that comes up. Some things are more time-efficient than others - eg, it's quicker to maintain a Facebook page than a blog, you probably wouldn't want to give talks or attend real-life events to sell books but you could send out lots of ebook review copies. Otherwise it would squeeze out writing itself.

I know there are conglomerates to make elements of self-publishing more cost efficient (eg joint NetGalley subscriptions) but I don't know if there are any which are more to do with saving authors time.

By conglomerate I meant really a group of like minded authors who would run a joint blog and maybe publish under an imprint. After all, if there were say four of you, you could blog monthly each and still have a weekly update! mix of genres, etc. We talked about it in a book club I started but which seems to have lapsed.

Waiting is agonising. The absolute worst part of being a writer.

it is SO grim! thanks for the empathy

I sympathise. I was actively waiting, if there is such a thing, for the end of November, all of december and most of January. I had to turn my emails off in the end as it was getting insane. I had designated checking times. I would send another prompt to the agent to be honest, just saying if you don't hear you'll presume is rejection. Do you really want to work with someone that busy anyway? Before my agent signed me she was very responsive (and still is!)

I've sent a reminder. Past caring now!
What's happening with you, Big Paws?

I went on submission to the big 7. They all rejected it but all with long rejections and four have asked for an r&r, so am now editing again.......

wow, that's great! did the r n r's cover similar territory? or is it a complex nightmare of evaluating several different opinions? Hope it goes well, four interested is really promising and exciting!

4 r&rs out of 7 is amazing, Bigpaws. I know you have to hold off getting excited until something firm happens, but, wow! Good luck with the rewrites.

I sent a pitch to an agent too. Honestly, they often give you response time, but in most cases you'll get a response only if they're interested. I've seen only a few, who specifically stated they give a response, no matter positive or negative.

pitch yes, but when they ask you to resubmit a full ms giving a list of suggestions, you kind of expect a polite no!