Thoughts on Rejection, Part One

Self-portrait in a bus window

Over the weekend I received a rejection on a three-chapter partial from one of my top wishlist agents.  When Agent-in-Question requested the partial, less than an hour after I sent him my query (on Halloween, no less), I was cautiously happy.  Okay, excited.  I mean, AiQ reps one of my favorite MG authors and my ego took a momentary detour into the world of casually asking said agent for said author's email address as a reference.  "I have been approached by your agent with an offer of representation and was wondering what your experiences have been?" I would casually ask.  Perhaps there would be celebratory drinks involved.

The rejection email was (a) personalized, (b) encouraging  ("I like a lot of things about this -- the writing and descriptions are strong and I like the idea.") and (c) didn't completely slam the door in my face.  ("I'd be interested in reading more work from you in the future.")

And, yet, it was still a rejection.

For the agents who pass on my query, it's not much of a big deal.  That means the story, as presented in the query, didn't grab them.  That's fine.  Despite how long it took to craft and pare and beat my head against a wall for those measly 200 words, a query is just an overly brief sales pitch.  It isn't the "open up a vien and bleed your prose" manuscript that has taken up so much of my life over the past year.

A request for a partial means the sales pitch was intriguing enough for the agent to see if I can write well, introduce and maintain characters that are interesting and present conflicts that draw us into the story.  They also give the reader an idea of tone and how that interweaves with the plot.  It's just enough to let the agent know if the book is something they'd like to pursue further or if it's too close to something they already represent or too close to something already out there.

AiQ rejected me on the strength/weakness of my first three chapters which, again, is fine.  What I didn't get was the comparison AiQ chose as one of the reasons to turn down my manuscript.  In AiQ's eyes, my story was "a bit too close to things like Lemony Snicket..."

I have read posts and tweets by agents who get frustrated by the responses they have received to their rejection letters, especially the ones they've taken the time to personalize.  For the record, I am extremely grateful for the time and attention AiQ gave me and my story.  I appreciated the praise AiQ gave my query and my three chapters.  None of which should suggest I am in any way ungrateful when I say I don't get the Lemony Snicket comparison.  I've read the first six or seven Series of  Unfortunate Events books (before growing tired of reading, essentially, the same story over and over again) and other than my main character being quirky, I don't get the correlation.

Was this shorthand for... something?  Was he saying my writing to was derivative? Or he wasn't looking for a manuscript in that genre?

I know rejection letters may not be easy to write*, especially when the AiQ has liked part of what they have read.  Still, I would hope that a rejection letter would answer more questions than it asks.

(For the record, I am not dwelling on this.  I thought about it for a short while, then turned around and sent out another two queries in its place.  Still, it seems kind of odd to me...)


What about you?  Have you received a rejection from an agent that sparked more questions than it answered?  What did your AiQ say that confused you?


-- Tom

______________________________________

* However, as long as we're the ones with the big time/effort/energy/ego invested in the situation, I can't help but feel that we writers suffer more than the agents.  Sorry, Rachelle.

In Which I Get Critiqued on WriteOnCon.com

A split fiber optic cable on the sidewalk
in front of my parents' house

WriteOnCon (which even managed an online mention in Publishers Weekly) was last week.  After the first day I had thought about reposting some of the entries that interested me the most.  Then, after traveling through most of the second day and having my access to the internets cut off (more like "ripped apart" -- see accompanying photo) for the third day, I gave up on the idea.

In the weeks preceeding the conference the organizers opened up a series of pre-conference forums where people could post their queries, first 500 words or first chapters for feedback.  Having spent some time over at Nathan Bransford's query forums I've developed a good eye for what works and what doesn't work for me in a query.  I spent some time on the pre-con forums responding to some of the queries, hoping to help other writers and to better solidify what was lacking in my own query.

Identifying what's not working in someone else's writing?  Not much of a problem.  Identifying what's not working in my writing?  About as easy as writing my own resumé.  (That is to say, it don't work well for me.  At all)

On the first day of the con I posted a slightly tweaked version of my latest version of my query and hoped people would help me identify what wasn't working.  (The overall verdict: Good first and last sentence but the middle was too factually bland and not engaging enough, both in character, stakes and in voice)  It was a good experience and I appreicate the helpful criticism.

Today I received an email from my CP that read:

"I meant to email you - I saw Kathleen's comments at WriteOnCon. How encouraging! She read through the whole thing and it was a clear case of 'not my style' as opposed to 'this needs work!' Great job. :)"

And I had no freaking idea what she meant.

I did a search on a distinct keyword in my title and came up with only comments to my query.  Then I remembered a few weeks before WriteOnCon Elana Johnson wrote an entry calling for the first 500 words of WIPs for a possible review by an agent.  I tossed my firist 500 words in and promptly forgot about it.  Until today when I did a distinctive keyword search on a phrase from my first 500 words and found this.  (I'm the last one on the list)

Agent Kathleen Ortiz had this to say about my first 500 words:

"Part of me is thrown off by the fact that the main character is referred to as ‘the boy’ and the other part of me isn’t really pulled into the story enough because of its formal tone. This is a pass for me."

The first part of this didn't bother me at all.  My main character is referred to as "the boy" intentionally until sometime later in the first chapter.  The "formal tone" throws me a bit because I'm not quite sure what to make of it.  I know I'm not writing like a kid, using all sorts of modern-day hip jargon, but is that even what she meant?

In the introduction to the critiques, Ortiz does say:

"If I simply say “I didn’t connect with the voice,” then that’s what it means. If I say “It’s not for me,” then it’s just simply not something I typically gravitate to and the writing / plot wasn’t enough to suck me in and change my mind. Please understand that this is such a subjective business. My thoughts may be completely the opposite of my fellow industry professionals or they may mirror other agents’ thoughts."

Instead of analyising this to death, I think I'll take heart in what my CP said and consider myself grateful for having an agent say "this doesn't suck, it just isn't something that I'm drawn to."

Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at the query.


--- Tom

There Are Some Books That Just Need to be Self-Published

Local Goose Poses for Area Photographer

I spend my weekdays doing IT work at a well-respected University Press.  One of my occasional jobs has been to clean out the (now defunct) "generic" Press email inbox.

It was during one of those clean out sessions that I found a query that stopped me in my tracks.  I have been spending some time working on a query for an agent for my Steampunkish MG book and have read up on what makes a good query.  What stopped me wasn't so much that this query not only breaks all the rules of query writing (and drops them from a twenty-story building and then runs over them with steamroller) but the earnest tone with which the author makes his claims.

"Dear agent, publisher, movie make, gallery owner, associate, friend, etc., 

I am a yet unpublished book writer/unexihibited artist/unproduced scriptwriter who is in search of representation.  You seem like someone who might have connections for an author of non-fiction like myself, or are somebody with pull or an imagination. I am submitting this query to you for your consideration to represent/assist me. Do know I am writing the most “evolved” books ever written on Earth. With them I intend to move humankind by “leaps and bounds”.  That is because I’ve written a book more "important" than the best selling book in the world, the Bible.

It is so that I have written the most "important" book in the world; way more "important" than the Torah, Bible, Koran, Pearl of Great Price; etc. Read on if you don’t believe me. I plan to change the world with my books, especially with “God is also a woman” (now Earth’s “most important book” and dedicated to my parents).  Please do let me know if you can be of assistance to me in finding a willing agent or publisher."

I've thought about this query over the past several weeks because I completely believe the author's sincerity.  I believe he believes he's written "the most 'important' book in the word" and that he plans "to change the world with (his) books".  I believe this, in part, because I've dealt with people in the past (my wife's ex comes to mind) who would make equally ginormous claims about the effect a book they had written would have on the world.

I also believe him because his query included several attachments (including "God is also a woman"), each of which continues this same train of thought.

Here's the thing: I'm struggling to become a first-time published author, much like the author of the query.  That I've spent time researching how to write a proper query that has a fighting chance at being given more than a five-second cursory glance by an agent (or their assistant/intern -- Hi Assistants! Hi Interns!) is not the point.  The point is that I know that, as a first-time author, there's a very good chance that whatever publisher decides to take a chance on unpublished me is going to do so (a) with some requested edits and (b)with only a small-to-vaguely-moderate publicity budget to promote my book.

For me, this isn't such a huge problem.  I understand publishing, publicity departments, the time and  money available to all of the books on the publisher's seasonal list and that, as the new kid, I'm likely to be waa-a-a-a-ay down the totem pole.  Once the story is polished to their standards, the job of selling my first book will, in fact, largely be mine.

On the other hand,  my guess is that anyone who says he has written "the most 'important' book in the world" would not want their message edited.  Nor would he or she be satisfied with a limited publicity campaign.  Me, I'm writing to entertain a young audience and hopefully make some of them laugh.  The author of the query, on the other hand, is writing to "change the world."

To my mind, that type of author would be best served by self-publishing.

Yesterday, over at There Are No Rules, Jane Freeman wrote a great entry entitled, "The No. 1 Most Important Factor for Writers Considering the Self-Pub Option" (Hint: knowing why you're doing anything is a good start)  Freeman doesn't include the reason I'm citing, but I think it should be included.  If your stated goal is to change the way people think, perceive their world and how they live, you have to not only sell your book you need to evangelize for your book.

If the author is the best salesperson for his or her book, the author of a world-changing book needs to make sure the book is done right, without the interference of agents, editors or other people who might want to change the message to fit their corporate interests.


-- Tom

Do you have any experience with self-publishing?  Interesting query letters?  Let's discuss them in the comments section.