posted
After how many consecutive form-rejections from agents (not even a request for a partial) should I take it as a sign that my manuscript is just not good enough, and put it in a dusty old drawer somewhere for the rest of eternity?
I know people always say what's right for one agent might not be right for another, but usually these are in references to rejections of fully read manuscripts, or even partials, not just form rejections from a query letter. It's somewhat depressing to not even get a nibble now and then.
posted
According to OSC, most agents won't represent you until you have been published. And most publishers won't publish you without an agent.
With the paradox and conundrum in that, there has to be a sci-fi novel waiting to be written.
My plan is to make it with short stories. I will write one, send it to the big people (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's, etc), when those reject me, send it to smaller markets, and if those reject me, send it to free markets (because its still a published market). If all else fails I'll post it on my own website and tell everyone here to read it.
Once I get several published one way or another, I'll follow the same process for my novel (big publishers, small publishers).
My thought, though, is that if you can't get a short story published, you're not going to get a novel published.
posted
You just keep writing. Sometimes a novel that doesn't attract any interest now will become something you can offer after you've gotten a little more established as a writer. Work on something else for a while, perhaps come back to that novel when you feel you've gained more skills or a better sense of the market. There's no rule saying that you have to publish stuff in the same order you wrote it, after all.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
True, but I feel like I mostly just have one big story I'd like to tell (perhaps an indicator of my amateur status). I'm most of the way through a rough draft of another novel, but it's the sequel to the first one. And I'm beginning to plan out yet another novel, which is, no doubt you've guessed by now, the third installment in the same series. Can't really publish book 2 before book 1.
Every so often I tell myself I should branch out and write some unrelated stuff, but I just can't bring myself to do it while my beloved characters and their entire world is sitting there calling to me.
posted
Don't spend more time on sequels for a first novel you can't sell. Go check out OSC's Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction. He has a 1,000 ideas session he talks about on how to think of things to write about.
posted
I read somewhere that Stephen King had his first novel rejected almost 30 times before a publisher bought it. JK Rowling had about 20 rejections for the first Harry Potter book. Don't give up. If you're sure you've written your story to the best of your ability just keep sending it out.
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Traditionally you're supposed to keep sending things out until you've exhausted every possible market. Unfortunately, I usually run out of "possible markets" for my short stories after two tries. There are a mess of markets that, for one reason or other, I don't want to submit my stories to. Any e-market, for example, or submitting-to-Analog-after-submitting-to-Asimov's, or any of the DNA Publishing magazines. I might be limiting myself, but I think I'll stick with it.
Some stories are better buried in a dusty drawer, or, better yet, shredded. Everything I wrote before 1990 seems just awful to me now, so if I took an idea out of it I'd rewrite from scratch, not even consult the manuscript. (I haven't yet performed that Final Solution on my old manuscripts---occasionally I dig one out and remind myself of how awful they really were.)
posted
IIRC, Stephen King had 200-300 rejections before he sold his first novel. And does publishing online or in "free" publications count in the eyes of the publishers/agents we want to impress as "publishing"? I would think such things would fall into the same category as PoD or vanity press publication.
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My own "publishing problem" is that I've been published a LOT, but all in magazines and newspapers - articles, interviews, etc., not stories. I can't seem to write short stories (and a lot of novelists haven't published any short stories - JK Rowling being the most well-known in that group). Not all of us can go that route. I'm about to send queries out myself, and I'm gonna follow the advice given on here and Critters and other sites - agents first, then big publishers, then smaller and smaller ones until I find someone who will publish my novels. There are so many publishers out there, somebody has to be interested! (she said hopefully. . .)
As for your novel, I feel your pain, Stewart! My novel wants to be three, at the very least, and the second one is already written in first-draft form (I had to see if I COULD write it, and it became my NaNoWriMo project) and the third one is already popping ideas into my head, all while I polish the first one to the nth degree. I've actually TRIED to come up with short stories or other characters to at least think of another project, but until THIS story is completely told (kinda like Harry Potter being a 7 year story arc, mine is a multiple-year story arc as well), I can't seem to manage it. I am still writing, but it's newspaper and magazine articles and PR kinda stuff. Nothing that would impress a fiction publisher. *sigh*
posted
There's always the possibility that the problem is in the query letter and not the wares the query is trying to sell.
Posts: 71 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I should add that there's no worse feeling for a writer when one's work is rejected when one knows it's good---even if one is wrong.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The distinction between vanity press and pro/semi-pro sales is whether you got paid (and how much), not where the story is published. Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show is a solid market that pays real money and happens to be online. The immortal fanzine that first published Eye of Argon was not.
If someone paid you for a story, then it's worth mentioning (unless it was, like, your grandfather or something). Maybe that someone was an idiot, maybe the person your submitting to now actually hates that other person's guts for some reason. Doesn't matter.
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Is there any way to make the second novel enough of a stand-alone that it can be published first? (Then the first book could be published as a prequel.)
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posted
Well, print publication was what I was striving for, from the beginning to right now. E-mail and e-pub just doesn't fulfill my requirements. I wouldn't say I wouldn't submit if something was solicited (unlikely), or I found the market interesting (more likely)---but, money or not, I'd find it difficult to count it as a "sale" if it wasn't "in print." (All my Internet Fan Fiction is, of course, online, but I certainly don't count any of that as "sales.")
I once said (but probably not here) that the day print markets for what I write cease-to-exist is the day I wave bye-bye to the whole idea of getting published. Technological advances are fine...but I have desires, too.
posted
When it comes to short stories, I don't care if I get published online or in print. To me, short stories are a way to get publishing credits. Besides the point that writing short stories is just fun.
When it comes to novels, I want them in print. But if everyone else rejects me, I'll settle for an e-book, because if nothing else, it's in print. If I can generate enough buzz about the e-book and get a following I can go back and get a print book published.
It's like Ender's Game. It was a novella. OSC got enough buzz going that he got a deal for a sequel. He then was able to get Ender's Game published as a full novel.
There are a thousand ways to get published as a serious writer. I'm just looking for one of them.
posted
I think that e-credits can help you land a "print" sale, particularly if you've got a book or two you want to sell. Given the numbers, an agent or publisher that sees you've sold something to a paying market is far more likely to give your query/submission serious consideration. If online publications are where you can break in, then go for it.
Of course, it's worth doing a little research to sort out the sheep from the goats (as they say). But relying on the "print is good, online is bad" rule will get you scammed much worse than almost any other rule I can imagine, the worst scammers are always promising "real" publication, which they can easily finance with what they take from their victims.
Submitting only to markets that publish stories you like is a good rule of thumb, and I can see how that would slant things against online markets if you're not fond of reading from electronic media. Of course you can always print out a booklet document of a story for your own use, but it seems that many people find this a hassle for some reason.
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I think I'd prefer not having something accepted because I have a track record, but rather having it accepted on just how good it actually is. I've learned not to pay too much attention to each rejection, but now find it hard to credit any acceptances. (When and if. I might have been more grateful twenty years ago. Now I'd consider it long past due.)
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posted
I suppose I can relate to that notion. I'd sorta like to become famous (as a writer, anyway) only in the post-human era.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Rcorporon, prove me wrong if you can. But I think you misread me. I said, 'If you can't get a short story published, you're not going to get a novel published." What I meant was exactly what I said. If you try to publish short stories and never get them published, you won't have much more success with novels. If you want to go the route of skipping short stories, fine, but I think you're missing out on a lot. There are a lot of common elements. If you can't hook an audience for a short, you won't hook someone for a novel. For me, short stories help me with plot development, characterization, hooks, coherence, etc, etc. With a short story you have to do it a lot faster. And I think with all the large and small markets for shorts you can get published a little easier. With a magazine they can have some experienced writers and some new writers all in the same issue. Customers buy for the experience, but they may read your story as well. There's not as much risk for the publisher. With a book, you either need good credits or the most fantastic story ever written, and every page needs to be wonderful. Editors are in the business to reject your work. When a publisher receives thousands of manuscripts and queries a year the goal is to get rid of the slush as quickly as possible. When a short story market pays you (even a small amount) for your work, then that tells people that your work was worthy paying for. Editors don't take chances, that's why you have books written by the same people year after year.
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According to Miss Snark, a publication credit is valid as long as there is a vetting process and not everybody gets published just because they send it in. MANY prestigious academic journals are non-paying. As for the decision to only go with print, I guess that's a personal choice. Thank you for leaving the ezines open to those of us who don't mind getting a perfectly good credit even if it happens to appear only on-line.
One of her favorite sayings is that "good writing trumps all."
I take this to mean that if you send her something she thinks is worthwhile, she's not going to be discouraged if you have no other previous pubs to your name.
Write what you love, and do it well. That's what's gonna draw the attention of agents, if it be novels or short stories, or a little of both. I don't think if you put a bunch of authors in a room together that they could come up with a sure fire way to success that they all used. I'm sure their paths to publications were all different.
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Short vs. long, as rcorporon said they're two vastly different critters. I tried going the short story route. Discovered that the best thing short stories did for me was supply a jumping off place to begin my novels. My short stories were rich in possibilities and while most people that read them liked them, I tended to get a lot of people who wanted less exposition and more showing which upon examining the stories I discovered I had put in a lot of exposition. My mind is not geared to short stories and I only have one short that I sorta kinda half-heartedly send out anymore. Why? Because I took all the short stories that I considered to be good and made them better by turning them into novels. Two of which have partials on submission right now. Plenty of published novelists never sold a short story.
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