I actually received THREE rejections today! Is that a record? Probably not, but it does sound nicely ink-stained and wretched, doesn’t it? One of them was an e-mail rejection, so I am only metaphorically ink-stained, I guess. I am not just winning the Race of Rejections (tm, all rights reserved, etc.) with Litlove, I am positively dominating. I think I’m going to start sending out to agents who only represent Christian Children’s books so I can collect even more rejections and win the race. No, that would be cheating, kind of like using EPO or steroids.
I’m preparing my second round of attacks on the Fortress of Agents. I also decided to try out new and innovative things and submitted the entire MS to Macmillan, which has a New Writers program. It is not the best deal in the world, since they do not pay advances, but it is a straight business deal and I’ll earn one pound thirty (it’s a UK company) on each copy sold. They guarantee that an editor will read the entire MS and they will respond in 12 weeks. If they decide to pass, I hear nothing; if they like it, I will hear by November 21, the day before Thanksgiving. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. If they publish, I am requiring every reader of this blog to buy a copy so I can get my $2.62 (wow, the dollar really sucks, doesn’t it?) for each copy. Based on my blog stats, that should yield about enough to buy a new tire for my bike.
Have faith, Hobgoblin! You will get there, maybe it will take longer than you want, but I know you’ll get there! I have faith in your story and your writing. 🙂
It’s really too bad you don’t live here; my boyfriend the bike mechanic would probably hook you up just for the priveledge of reading your book (it sounds like the kind of thing we’re both into). Or, we would just both read your manuscript and discuss it over a lovely beer.
Hey no fair! I won’t get my chapters out before the end of the week! But never fear, young man, I will be catching you up in no time at all…..
I’m with you on attacking the agent fortress at the moment as well. What a horrific experience. I got an email rejection within 5 minutes of hitting send the other day, ouch! Don’t lose heart – this is such a long process and individual agent preferences really count for a lot (or so I will keep telling myself until I hunker down for yet another draft).
oh, puke, rejection letters – no fun whatsover. Stay strong – your book has a place. It just takes a while to find it!
I’m in line to buy that book, you know. Elbows out, just in case somebody tries to cut me. I just submitted my novel to a literary prize thing — which was a great way to get it shaped up to start the agent search. I think the answer to rejection is to get going on the next thing, if only I could stop holding my breath long enough to type up the next thing. Wishing you luck! BL