In my last publisher update I mentioned that we had received a ‘full’ request within days of submitting the query. Just the other day we received a rejection from that publisher.
I was gutted. I litterally feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts every time I receive a rejection for my work. It hasn’t gotten any easier with practice.
It generally takes me between 24-48 hrs to process and recover from a publisher/editor rejection. I usually can’t even talk about it until this period passes. The next part of my rejection recovery is to put on some good music and create two more queries.
As I stood in line at the post office today, I wondered if one of the packages I was holding would result in a deal. Fingers crossed – again, still.
Categories: Landing an agent · Query writing · Rejection · Writing
I’ve been a fan of the QueryTracker website since the day saw it. I’ve used it to locate agents and I was a member of the forum of a while. Great community.
Patrick and the crew over at QT are having a top competition. Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary is judging one line hooks for fiction manuscripts. Yep, you get one line to win her over. I love that idea. The competition is only open for 24 hours from Monday 13 April at 9am Eastern time (whatever time that is!).
There are three prizes ranging from a 10,000 word submission to full manuscript submission. Full datails are available from the QueryTracker blog – http://www.querytracker.blogspot.com/
No matter how pushed for time you are, I’m sure you can fit in a one line hook for your manuscript. I know i’ll be having a crack.
Very best of luck to us all.
Categories: Landing an agent · Query writing · Writing · fiction
January 28, 2009 · 1 Comment
Well, it’s official – my vacation is over. While the weather is still very much summer – 38 degrees here in Sydney - the return of my students today marked the end of my vacation.
Along with my break from the kids and blogging – I’m now faced with a return to querying and trying to land an agent/publishing deal.
This is only my second attempt at selling a manuscript. This time last year, I attempted to sell my fiction manuscript Plan B to the American agents. No success there. In fact, by about mid year, I reached a point where I stopped querying because I’d had enough rejection. Yes, I know…rejection is part of the journey – I get it – but there’s only so much rejection this little black duck can take. The net result of all that rejection was positive, I realised I needed to do more work on the MS, which is still in progress. Thankfully I scored a couple of writing wins towards the end of the year which have boosted my confidence and willingness to try again.
Along the way I co-wrote a non-fiction how-to/job success manual (which I fully believe will sell) so that’s what’s on the sales agenda now.
I plan to blog-ument my querying and sales journey each week. I’m going to share the process I use to select publishers, how many queries I make and the responses I receive. I’ll also share the other side of it – the emotional journey. I plan on being open and honest about how I’m feeling throughout the sales process. I’m doing this as a form of rejection therapy 
and in the hope that my honestly will help others who are going the through the same gut wrenching process.
Buckle up kids, think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Categories: Landing an agent · Rejection · Resources · Writing · books · writers
