For the past year or so, I’ve been playing the rejection game in the form of submitting my book to agents. Out of more than 80 queries, I’ve gotten two requests for partials and about 30 outright no’s.
Through another channel, a personal connection. I got my book looked at by a major publishing house. They told me I had a strong voice. But ultimately, they failed to find an editor for it. Another rejection.
Rejection hurts as much as a physical assault (that’s science). So maybe it’s no surprise that after that rejection I curled into myself and stopped submitting.
I had plenty of reason to doubt myself. Nothing’s Ever Lost is an odd book, not fitting neatly into a clear genre, (though YA speculative fiction comes close.)
Two teenagers who die and travel through the afterlife to discover what their friendship is made of? Probably not the next Harry Potter and Hermione.
I know that.
I also know that this book tells a compelling story. One that will be meaningful, for anyone who has ever lost someone they love too soon or anyone who has wondered what their own life is worth.
According to Jia Jiang, a self-made expert on the subject, rejection is a numbers game. It will take time and energy to submit my book over and over to agents, seeking the one whose life circumstances, personal philosophy, and stage of life are open to this quirky novel.
I could persist in it. Or I could take another route, one that I had earlier rejected.
The road less traveled by
With apologies to self-published authors, I used to think that self-publishing was something you did because you couldn’t hack it as a real author. I thought that if the establishment rejected you it was because your work simply wasn’t any good.
But rejection is a personal matter. It says as much about the person doing the rejecting as it does about the rejectee. (Yes, this is a real word. Merriam-Webster says so.)
I’ve learned that even if the work itself is good, market forces, timing, and the natural desire of the industry to sell as many copies of a book as possible mean that I might never get published through the traditional channels.
By rejecting self-publishing, I had narrowed my path. I was forced to work through the list of agents one by one, my entire literary future resting on the opinions of a single person.
But with indie publishing the narrow track becomes a wide open field. I can seek out the people most likely to love my story and present it directly to them.
Will I still get rejections?
Oh most definitely. But I’m willing to take that beating if it means finding the people who love and accept (and, hopefully, will be changed by) my book.
Theoretically, I have the skills to do this. I’m a voracious reader, an obsessive researcher and a practiced marketer. I’m also not afraid to ask for help when I need it.
But I’ll tell you a secret—I have no idea what I’m doing. I hope you’ll come along with me while I figure it out.