Rejection

[Foggyfroggy]

Submitted my manuscript to four agents last week and just got my first rejection. Know I have to toughen up but still gutted 😞

I'm sorry and do feel for you. I'm not clever enough to write but do know one rejection doesn't mean someone else won't want to publish. Keep your chin up and 🤞

It is gutting, OP, and it’s OK to let yourself feel that. You will toughen up inevitably over time, unless of course one of the other three offers you representation, and you don’t need to!

Just remind yourself of all the authors who got multiple rejections for books that went on to win awards.

If you continue to get rejections it can be worth investing in a manuscript assessment from a reputable person or organisation.

Sadly rejection is something that all authors have to get used to. Books go out on sub and aren’t picked up, publishers don’t offer on your next book…even published authors have rejections, you just need to dust yourself off and send out some more queries. I once got three agent rejections in the space of one afternoon! A month later I had an offer from an agent and a publishing contract offer from one of the big 5. Good things can happen, but rejections are part of the game.

Did they give you a proper reason for the rejection or was it just the standard wording?

Some rejections are simply because they have enough of that type of book. There was an AMA with a publisher and she was saying that they need a balanced portfolio so if one genre is particularly saturated, there will be more rejections because they simply can’t take them on.

I’ve seen writers sending out 100 queries so you might have a bit of a slog ahead of you OP. And that has nothing to do with how good or bad your book is. It’s just about finding the right fit at the right time.

I’m going to self-publish as I don’t see much advantage in trad publishing any more, and the process just feels laborious. If you’re finding this hard OP, maybe self-publishing is the best route for you initially? From what I understand, trad publishers are doing very little promotion for new writers any more. And if you self publish and do well, you could be picked up by a trad publisher.

Best of luck to you 💐

Just a standard rejection letter. I was going to self publish but got some great feedback from beta readers so, having made some of the suggested tweaks, I though I might try for an agent.

Would anyone suggest going fast and furious and contacting many agents in one go, or spreading the queries out?

I was thinking of giving it until Feb and then self publishing.

Life is short. Probably very short the way things are going. So I suggest you speed things up and send out lots of queries at the same time.

What advantage would there be to spreading the queries out? The only thing I’d say is to choose carefully, regardless of how many you’re sending. There’s no point in sending 30 queries to agents who don’t represent your genre, for instance, or who’ve specifically said they’re not currently looking for whatever it is you’re writing. I think I sent about 15 in total over the course of a few days.

A possible advantage of not sending them all out at once would be being able to make changes if someone suggests a particular flaw with the book. But the chances of acceptance are so low, and it all takes so long... You might want to work on self-publishing it while you wait for responses (get it ready to publish, but don't actually publish).

Thanks everyone - I was thinking that I could make changes but I think you are right, no point hanging on!

One person’s ‘flaw’ is another person’s selling point, though. I mean, I agree that if several sets of agent feedback says ‘The ending doesn’t work’ or ‘Lose the subplot about the werewolves’, you should take it seriously, but it’s comparatively unusual to get that kind of detailed feedback from a rejecting agent (often they don’t reply, or send a standard ‘Lots to admire, but I don’t feel strongly enough about it to be the right person to represent it’) plus you could drive yourself mad acting on every individual criticism, because someone else will then say the opposite.

A friend is out on submission at the moment, and has had some editors admiring a plot twist as unexpected and satisfying, and others saying it was trite and predictable.

I would send them out in batches so you can tweak things if you realise something isn’t working in the submission letter or the actual project. You can sometimes even glean something from standard rejections. Everything is very slow at the moment, so if you get multiple relatively quick responses, it’s possible that there’s something in your covering email that’s catching people’s attention - in a good or bad way. When I say slow, I mean it can take months for a standard rejection from some agencies - so there’s no real benefit to sending 100 submissions at once. You’re still going to be waiting. Even published authors looking to change agent are reporting very long wait times, and they generally get bumped up the submission queue.
I would say that you need to be prepared to give the process at least a good few months, rather than giving it a quick go before moving straight to self-publishing.

It's just because they're so slow that it's a good idea to send lots off at once. Then after 6 months draw a line under it and self-publish.

I'm up to 12 queries sent out, 2 rejections and 10 silences so far, and that's over a month. It's a tough game to play, I agree!

So sorry to hear this, I know it hurts when you've sent out part of your heart and soul. Unfortunately rejection is inevitable. A number of famous authors had many rejections.
I had many rejections then had intermittent successes which felt all the better against the backdrop of rejections.
All the best,
Helen