Thanks, but no thanks – making friends with rejection

So, I finished my manuscript - or at least I thought I had - I wrote a covering letter, blurb and bio for myself and I was ready to ready to press ‘send.’ I read that doorstop, the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, prepared a spreadsheet of agents and publishers who were willing to consider crime fiction, and studied their submission guidelines. 

Some of these people had lots of preferences and predilections. One agent said: ‘I do not represent books with talking animals.’ Some said: ‘Tell me what else you’re working on!’ Another said, under no circumstances tell me what’s in your bottom drawer or I’ll come and take your firstborn. Well, almost. 

Then I started pitching. And I realised why published authors-- who’ve had a front-row seat to the fraught pitching process—say being an author means making friends with rejection.

Some just didn’t respond, which made me wonder if I’d been sending the manuscript into the abyss. Others sent me the pro-forma let-down: This is a very subjective business and another agency or publisher may well disagree. But what really made me sit on the couch for a week eating Maggie Beer Burnt Fig, Honeycomb and Caramel ice cream was when my manuscript made it to the top of the food chain of a publisher, but clearly not far enough. I was encouraged to submit further manuscripts in the future. But a rejection is a rejection, whatever the window-dressing. Sure, there were ‘vanity publishers’ aplenty, who wanted me to pay them to publish my book. Well, they were about as welcome as a bad case of acne on a date.

Then I started thinking, JK Rowling’s manuscript, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,’ was rejected by twelve different publishers before it was finally accepted by a literary agent who took it home to his child who gave it the thumbs up. Even after Rowling found a literary agent, it was a year before she could find a publisher for this book.

Matthew Reilly, having sold more than 7.5 million copies of his books worldwide, was only published after his self-published book ‘Contest’ was picked up in a bookshop by a Commissioning Editor from Pan McMillan Australia. He was then signed up for a two-book deal and Pan MacMillan republished it. And Kerryn Mayne, author of ‘Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder,’ got a rejection letter the same day she inked her contract with Penguin Books Australia. As the pro-forma letter says, publishing is so subjective.

Being rejected doesn’t mean that your manuscript is hopeless or that you’re without talent. (But that is cold comfort when you’re sitting on the couch with your Maggie Beer.) There are any number of reasons why a manuscript is rejected. Maybe it was ‘undercooked.’ I’m certain many of my earlier submissions were, before I asked a freelance editor to do an editorial appraisal, structural edit and a copy edit. I was so eager to get it out into the world. Or it may just mean that you’re writing in the wrong genre. And the ‘X factor’ has a lot to do with it. One mainstream publisher told me that they already had a crime fiction book on their list for this year and next year, and didn’t want any more.  Some publishers may have published a lot of strong female protagonists and just want something different. Whether the manuscript is your first one or your fiftieth—the good news is that none of it’s wasted. It’s all grist for the mill.  It’s learning the craft. And in the words of Jane Harper, ‘[You] can’t control what anybody is going to think of [your book], all [you] can control is the amount of effort that [you] put in, and the quality of the work that [you] put out.’

And those aspects of the process I can control are motivation and learning the technical aspects of writing.