Delayed Success!

[Medesha]

Gripe about your rejections and other roadblocks here.

[Darakonis]

Roughly two years ago, I emailed a submission to Dungeon Magazine. I was not expecting to get published, but rather was awaiting my first letter of rejection with some enthusiasm.

Yes, you read correctly. I was eager to receive a letter of rejection.

Why?

In the past, I've written a plethora of short stories, flash fiction, a novella, and the first few chapters of a couple novels. However, though I've always aspired to be a part-time author, I had never actually tried to get any of my works published - writing was just a hobby.

But by sending in a submission, I was making something more out of it. Any answer from Dungeon would mean that someone read my work - someone recognized that I had written something and was actively trying to get it published.

My mentality was, "once I get my first letter of rejection, I can truly call myself a writer."

Unfortunately, it took much longer than expected to receive a response from Dungeon, and when I finally did, it was not what the answer I had anticipated. They were asking for a re-write.

It was the standard, "Your submission, in its present state, does not meet the present needs blabla..." but with an additional, "However, if you do such-and-such, we will consider taking another look at it."

Somewhat put off by this turn of events - having to wait even longer for my letter of rejection - I delayed making the re-write until a couple months later, submitted the re-write (though I much prefered the original), and had to wait another longer-than-expected period of time before finally getting my letter of rejection.

By then, the novelty (no pun intended) of it had worn off.

Total waiting time from first submission to letter of rejection: ~8-10 months.

[Medesha]

Yeah, Dungeon responses take for-ev-er. (Check out the "Dungeon submissions thread" in the RPG Market thread). I have 3 adventure queries waiting for response/rejection that I submitted around September/October.

I sent off a dozen agent queries for my novel just before Christmas and got one rejection almost immediately. "Thank you for your recent query. Although your project sounds interesting, we unfortunately do not feel it is right for us at this time. We encourage you to query other agencies, and we wish you all the best in finding other representation. Thank you again for thinking of The Knight Agency. Best regards, Elaine Spencer" )

The "your project sounds interesting" part is encouraging, but I suspect it's a form letter.

[Medesha]

Two rejections in the mail today, one from the Nelson Literary Agency and one from Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. Bah.

[Darakonis]

Medesha, how many rejections did you go through before you were first published? I hear it's quite tough to get your foot in the door, so to say, and newbie writers can expect quite a handful of rejections before getting anything published.

[Medesha]

Well I've only been published in magazines, plus my WotC books. I probably sent Dragon 3 or 4 queries before they accepted one, but that's the easiest market to break into. I pestered Chris Perkins about a book job for 8 months before he gave me one.

As far as novels go, I'm still stuck on Book One. It's been rejected about 10 times so far.

[Medesha]

Make that 11 times; got a rejection from the Evan Marshall Agency today.

[Medesha]

I sent that agent the pages she requested and she said they weren't what she was looking for. Oh well.

[Medesha]

The winners of the WD Short Short Story contest were contacted, and I was not one of them. Oh well. I'll post the story for review.

[Darakonis]

First "paper" rejection letter. From Asimov. Or Analog. Don't remember anymore.

As soon as I sent in my short story, I knew it was an exercise in futility. I knew they wouldn't print it, and I knew they would just send me the standard rejection letter without explaining why.

It would be nice to be able to get concrete criticism from people in the business. People that won't say whether a story is good or not, but what makes it good or not. And I'm not talking about grammar and whatnot - I mean the essence of the story itself. People that would know why an editor would or would not like a story.

Things along the lines of, "your audience cannot connect with your main character; you should delve more into such-and-such in order to let the audience empathize more," or "the story is anticlimactic and in general lacks a sense of urgency; your main characters are so powerful that any resistance they encounter is easily vanquished, and so there is no build-up towards the final battle."

So that's where I am.

[Arkinazz]

I sent a query package to Tor this year. They returned the package to me with a photocopied form letter saying thanks but no thanks and the pages I sent were so crisp and clean that I think they never even looked at the stuff. I guess that's why you need an agent.

[Darakonis]

Originally Posted by Arkinazz

I sent a query package to Tor this year. They returned the package to me with a photocopied form letter saying thanks but no thanks and the pages I sent were so crisp and clean that I think they never even looked at the stuff. I guess that's why you need an agent.

*casts level 10 Thread Revival*

That's a real bummer... to go through all that work, to send it in and everything, and they do not even bother to read it...

[Arkinazz]

I can't say for certain that they didn't read it, but the pages still had that "just printed" look to them. Oh well.... Maybe one day I'll get motivated and try to find an agent. That is, if one would even have me....

[Darakonis]

How much do agents charge? I don't like a system that essentially forces you to spend money to even have a hope of making a tiny bit of money...

[Arkinazz]

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. Reputable agents do NOT charge anything in advance but make a percentage of the money you make once they place your manuscript with a publisher.