Rejections III -- Update

I wrote and posted a blog five days ago on rejections. Specifically, I mentioned an award I had submitted to and was waiting to hear the decision, fearing the inevitable rejection.

The e-mail rejection arrived today.

Amazingly -- and quite gratefully -- I don't feel bad about it. I must be getting old. (Stop laughing out there. I see you.)

Though I edited some of it down, back in late June I submitted the first 5,000 words of An Untidy Affair, a detective novel with private eye David Blaise, for the 2016 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, which is sponsored by the national office of Sisters in Crime. This is the third year for the award, which grants $1,500 to its recipient.

The winner this year is Stephane Dunn, whom I don't know. But congrats to her. I'm sure she is more than deserving.

The award is named after Eleanor Taylor Bland, a pioneer in crime fiction who passed away six years ago. As it says on the SinC website, the goal of the award is "to support the recipient in activities related to crime fiction writing and career development." I can use some support in both those areas. And it is all the more important given that the latest survey of SinC shows fewer than 5 percent of its members are black.

I knew it was a longshot but I had nothing to lose. And I'm sure the organization, of which I have been a member for nearly a decade, would have preferred a woman, since the stated goal of SinC is the advancement of female mystery and crime writers. But one of my favorite things about Sisters in Crime is that the organization supports and promotes female writers but doesn't discriminate against us Mister Sisters. I am proud to be a member of Sisters in Crime and currently serve as vice president of the Speed City chapter of SinC. Speed City covers all of Indiana and our next short story anthology, The Fine Art of Murder, comes out in early October.

But rejection is common in writing, as it is in more creative areas. So I'm okay. I will just keep on keepin' on. There are more novels and short stories to write and more agents and publications to submit to.

So watch out world. I'm still coming for you.

Thanks for reading.

Rejections III

It's been a while since I have touched on this subject. Probably the last time was in 2010. But that's not to say it hasn't happened or deeply touched me since then because it has. Query letters to agents and publishers, a manuscript submission, awards and contests -- lots of rejections.

I am thinking about it now because I am expecting another rejection soon, perhaps as early as Monday. I submitted the beginning of my detective novel An Untidy Affair for an award. I should probably hear by Monday. It's not for a publication, but there is a cash award. Hooray. The submission was some time ago and I have managed not to think about it much until now.

 Now I know this is getting the cart before the horse. (Where have I heard that before?) But while the submission was strong -- it's a good book and even in rejection at the end of last year, a publisher said it was a good piece of work -- but I'm sure the competition is strong. And I guess it is easier to be pessimistic at this point so I won't be as disappointed when the news comes. (Kind of like Donald Trump has started to say the November is rigged just in case Clinton beats him.)

The novel reached the quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest back in 2010, so I know it has potential. That was the reason I submitted it to this award.  (No, I'm not going to say which award right now. You will have to wait.)

Since in the publishing industry luck is nearly as important as talent, wish me luck. I already have the talent part handled.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

Discover Mystery contest, Part II

The winner and four finalists for the Discover Mystery contest of Poisoned Pen Press were named today, and needless to say, my name wasn't among them. I'm a bit bummed, of course, by not winning, though I knew, with nearly 200 entries, it was a longshot. But I'm not hatin'. I'm proud of my novel, An Untidy Affair, and I know there are other publishers. Affair one day will find a home.

The winner is Ronald Sharp, whose novel, Human Pest Control, will be published in October. (That struck me as a particularly short publication schedule but what do I know.) Congratulations Ronald, and best of luck. (I'm assuming Ronald reads my blog, although I have absolutely no evidence that is the case. But I put my congrats out there anyway.)

The other finalists are:

Slone's Last Dance by Bill Butler; In the Market for Murder by Dawn Marie Fichera; Who Killed Julian Emery by Susan Lumenello; and Mortgaged to Death by Bruce Rolfe.

Congrats also to the finalists.

On Poisoned Pen's website, I asked publisher Jessica Tribble whether those who didn't win would have any feedback as to why. Given the likelihood that there'd be a large number of entries, she said no, we wouldn't hear anything from them -- only who the winner was. She wouldn't have the time to provide much of anything else.

So once again, I face rejection and don't know why. But I'm going to keep writing. I enjoy it and know that one day, lightning will strike.

Thanks for reading and keep writing and submitting.

Trying to set a new personal best

Yesterday, I embarked on a quest to set a new personal best. Personal best, you say! Of what?

Rejections.

I sent out a batch of query letters yesterday for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR and will now see if I can top my personal best set on Sept. 13, of last year when I got four (4, IV) rejections on the same day. That topped the previous best of three set one week earlier.

While this is probably a worthy goal, I, sadly, will probably not top it anytime soon because my querying strategy has changed since last fall. I am sending out fewer queries at a time and if all the responses are negative, then I re-write the query in hopes of drawing more interest.

I send four queries yesterday throughout the day as time permitted, and will ship off three today. And that is it. Seven. Then, I will wait to see what happens. If nothing good happens, then I know that letter doesn't work and I will to try again with another letter. And then I will ship off another batch of seven.

For this letter, I used my novel's background as outlined in my Publishers Weekly review. It was good and generally well-written. I adapted parts, of course, but the overall structure was the same. Now I will see if that helps. Plus I made a brief mention of being a quarterfinalist in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Time to see if that horse has any legs.

Well, that's it for today. I have a couple of other topics I want to discuss next week. But for now, have a great day and keep writing.

Thanks for reading.

Query rejections

I got into a heated discussion with my wife a couple of nights ago. We were in the car and she was talking about her work, and I could feel the anger rising up in me as she talked. I couldn't believe she was being so stupid and short-sighted. Or, to be accurate, I thought her position was stupid and short-sighted.

She is a senior vice president for her employer and two positions reporting directly to her are vacant. This is a serious problem for her because the positions are critical and until they are filled and the people are fully functioning, doing her job will be much harder for my wife.

It's an employers market and she says they have more than 300 applications, and most are qualified for one of the positions. But no more than half the applications will ever land on her desk at any point and fewer than 20 applicants will get any sort of interview.

She says she has dozens of cover letters to review and she makes up her mind in seconds whether consider or reject the applicant. And one of the deciding factors is whether there is a mistake -- ANY SORT OF MISTAKE -- in the cover letter. Spelling, grammar, a typo -- doesn't matter. The person is rejected. They could be perfect in every other way, could be perfect for the job, but she rejects them.

"Why would you do that?" I asked. "You have made small mistakes before."

She said there has to be a method for quickly getting through the applications and cover letters, and that is one method she uses.

The reason I got so hot under the collar was because just the day before I was reading some agent who said a tiny mistake in a query letter isn't a good thing, of course, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get a rejection.

After listening to my wife, whom, by the way, is a beautiful woman I'm most proud of, I wasn't so sure the agent was telling the truth. In fact, I thought they were lying.

Agents get dozens of query letters a day, hundreds a week, much like the hundreds of applications my wife has. And agents must weed through them. And I suspect a small error will get you bounced. Agents can't possibly have the time to seriously read all those queries. They have to find ways to get to the bottom of the pile.

Knowing I could be rejected for as minor a problem as one misplaced comma is a scary thought. All prospective writers pour over their letters looking for something to give them a slight edge. But I hate to think that an otherwise wonderfully written query letter could sink the chances for a brilliantly executed novel because the writer had a little typo. It puts even more pressure on you to have the perfect query. (As if you don't have enough pressure.) But anyone can make a mistake.

Life just doesn't seem fair.

Thanks for reading and don't give up. See ya next time.

50 percent

In the first two weeks of this month, I went on a tear and sent out 30 query letters. And today, I got my 15th rejection letter. So I am at 50 percent.

Normally, I get about 50 percent replies, so I suspect I probably won't hear from any more agents unless I send follow-up letters to agents I didn't hear from. I generally only send a follow-up if the agent is on my A-list. And come to think of it, I don't think I have ever gotten a reply from a follow-up e-mail.

(I am a little loopy today because I went to the dentist this morning and had two teeth extracted. The numbness is gone but I'm on painkillers and am having a little trouble with focus. So that's my excuse for poor writing today. I will have to think of another excuse for all the other days.)

Ten days ago, I was talking to an editor at Writer's Digest who said it is a mistake to send out more than a handful of queries at a time. If all of them are rejected, you know it is the query that is the problem. You won't have wasted a lot of time and you know to work on the letter.

He said I should take a step-by-step approach. Get past the query stage, then the partial stage, then the ms stage. By then, I should have an agent.

An online friend who is very good at query letters -- she's my own Obi-Wan Kenobi -- re-wrote my letter this morning and sent it back to me. She also suggested only sending out seven at a time. So that is my strategy at the moment. Seven-at-a-time. But this time, I am going to start with only my A- and B-list agents and see what happens.

Well, my meds are really kicking in at the moment so I will go before I forget how to spell my name. (It' Michael, by the way.) Since I didn't work today and I have a large freelance project in the works, I will be very busy for the time being. Not sure when the next batch of query letters will go out. But perhaps I will get a few requests for partials before I hit the 50 percent rejection mark again.

Thanks for reading, especially you folks in Russia this month. Now get back to writing.

Query News, Part II

It's been quite a week in the Query Wars. Two weeks, really.

Since the Friday before Labor Day, I have sent out 29 query letters for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, some with partial pages attached and some without. Twenty-six were e-mail submissions, two were submissions through the agency's in-house process via their website and one went by snail mail.

No requests for additional pages, a partial or the entire manuscript. There have been 12 rejections, including one in the return envelope through the U.S. Postal Service.

This week was the big week, of course. I got four rejections on Monday, more than on any single day since I started sending at queries for my first book, FIGHTING CHAOS, three years ago. Tuesday saw two additional rejections, none Wednesday, one on Thursday and none (so far) today.

Totally, my response rate is just over 40 percent. But it may increase in the next week or so and in about two weeks I will send out reminders to selected agents. In the past, that has also generated a couple of responses.

I was reminded this week, more than once, actually, that all it will take is for ONE agent to love my book. I can't do much except send out queries until I find that ONE.

Enjoy the weekend. I will be attending a book fair tomorrow at the Hancock County Public Library and, hopefully, signing some copies of my story in BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD.

Thanks for reading. Now go out and write something good.

The 27

I planned to blog today about an op-ed piece John Grisham did a couple of days ago for The New York Times. It was about being a writer. But just now, I changed my mind. I have taken a couple of blows in the last couple of days and, against my better judgment, I decided to say just a little about it.

The main story in the current issue of "Writer's Digest" is called 27 Agents Looking for New Writers. Sounded good to me. I'm new.

I looked them all up and, not surprisingly, they don't all represent the sort of material I write. But a sizable portion of them do.

Since last week, I have queried five of them, including one already today. I will query a sixth one later today.

And while as a group they may be looking for new writers, many of them obviously are NOT looking for me. I've gotten three rejections so far, all saying basically the same thing. Nothing personal but I don't want you. (One form rejection was badly written. If I were her, I'd re-write my rejection form letter.)

I know it's not personal but when the rejections are coming in waves, it is a little harder to take. Agents as salespeople and are rejected by publishers all the time. They, apparently, don't take it personally. But they also didn't write the manuscript.

So, I am going to lick my wounds for the moment and go for a walk. It's wonderful outside -- warm and sunny. Then, later today, I will get back to work. It is what a writer does.

And I am a writer.

p.s.

And I ate steak. I only had a light lunch earlier but this afternoon I was hungry -- and a little depressed. So I ate steak.
I took Angela to dinner Saturday night for her birthday and brought home a doggie bag that contained part of my steak. It was 3 oz. So to make myself feel better, it's what I had this afternoon. Helped a little.

mbd
Thanks for reading and don't give up.

50 iconic writers who were repeatedly rejected

This was posted on the Internet earlier this week and I planned to comment on it here on my blog but decided to pretty much let it speak for itself. I may never write a Great American Novel, let alone ever get one published. But here are 50 reasons I don't feel like a nincompoop.

Have a good weekend. Thanks for reading and don't give up writing.
___
From Onlinecollege.org on May 17, 2010.

50 Iconic writers who were repeatedly rejected.

Here are 50 well-respected writers who were told no several times, but didn't give up.

1.Dr. Seuss: Here you'll find a list of all the books that Dr. Seuss' publisher rejected.
2.William Golding: William Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before becoming published.
3.James Joyce: James Joyce's Ulysses was judged obscene and rejected by several publishers.
4.Isaac Asimov: Several of Asimov's stories were rejected, never sold, or eventually lost.
5.John le Carre: John le Carre's first novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was passed along because le Carre "hasn't got any future."
6.Jasper Fforde: Jasper Fforde racked up 76 rejections before getting The Eyre Affair published.
7.William Saroyan: William Saroyan received an astonishing 7,000 rejection slips before selling his first short story.
8.Jack Kerouac: Some of Kerouac's work was rejected as pornographic.
9.Joseph Heller: Joseph Heller wrote a story as a teenager that was rejected by the New York Daily News.
10.Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows was not intended to be published, and was rejected in America before appearing in England.
11.James Baldwin: James Baldwin’s Giovanni's Room was called "hopelessly bad."
12.Ursula K. Le Guin: An editor told Ursula K. Le Guin that The Left Hand of Darkness was "endlessly complicated."
13.Pearl S. Buck: Pearl Buck's first novel, East Wind: West Wind received rejections from all but one publisher in New York.
14.Louisa May Alcott: Louisa May Alcott was told to stick to teaching.
15.Isaac Bashevis Singer: Before winning the Nobel Prize, Isaac Bashevis Singer was rejected by publishers.
16.Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie had to wait four years for her first book to be published.
17.Tony Hillerman: Tony Hillerman was told to "get rid of the Indian stuff."
18.Zane Grey: Zane Grey self-published his first book after dozens of rejections.
19.Marcel Proust: Marcel Proust was rejected so much he decided to pay for publication himself.
20.Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: Chicken Soup for the Soul received 134 rejections.
21.William Faulkner: William Faulkner's book, Sanctuary, was called unpublishable.
22.Patrick Dennis: Auntie Mame got 17 rejections.
23.Meg Cabot: The bestselling author of The Princess Diaries keeps a mail bag of rejection letters.
24.Richard Bach: 18 publishers thought a book about a seagull was ridiculous before Jonathan Livingston Seagull was picked up.
25.Beatrix Potter: The Tale of Peter Rabbit had to be published by Potter herself.
26.John Grisham: John Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 publishers before finding an agent who eventually rejected him as well.
27.Shannon Hale: Shannon Hale was rejected and revised a number of times before Bloomsbury published The Goose Girl.
28.Richard Hooker: The book that inspired the film and TV show M*A*S*H* was denied by 21 publishers.
29.Jorge Luis Borges: It's a good thing not everyone thought Mr. Borges' work was "utterly untranslatable."
30.Thor Heyerdahl: Several publishers thought Kon-Tiki was not interesting enough.
31.Vladmir Nabokov: Lolita was rejected by 5 publishers in fear of prosecution for obscenity before being published in Paris.
32.Laurence Peter: Laurence Peter had 22 rejections before finding success with The Peter Principles.
33.D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers faced rejection, and D.H. Lawrence didn't take it easily.
34.Richard Doddridge Blackmore: This much-repeated story was turned down 18 times before getting published.
35.Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath had several rejected poem titles.
36.Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance faced an amazing 121 rejections before becoming beloved by millions of readers.
37.James Patterson: Patterson was rejected by more than a dozen publishers before an agent he found in a newspaper article sold it.
38.Gertrude Stein: Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before having one accepted.
39.E.E. Cummings: E.E. Cummings named the 14 publishers who rejected No Thanks in the book itself.
40.Judy Blume: Judy Blum received nothing but rejections for two years and can't look at Highlights without wincing.
41.Irving Stone: Irving Stone's Lust for Life was rejected by 16 different editors.
42.Madeline L'Engle: Madeline L'Engle's masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time faced rejection 26 times before willing the Newberry Medal.
43.Rudyard Kipling: In one rejection letter, Mr. Kipling was told he doesn't know how to use the English language.
44.J.K. Rowling: J.K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejected it.
45.Frank Herbert: Before reaching print, Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected 20 times.
46.Stephen King: Stephen King filed away his first full length novel The Long Walk after it was rejected.
47.Richard Adams: Richard Adams's two daughters encouraged him to publish Watership Down as a book, but 13 publishers didn't agree.
48.Anne Frank: One of the most famous people to live in an attic, Anne Frank's diary had 15 rejections.
49.Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind was faced rejection 38 times.
50.Alex Haley: The Roots author wrote every day for 8 years before finding success.

Rejections II

I have been popular in the last two days. I got three e-mail rejections. In fact, if you consider the timing in terms of open business hours instead of calendar days, the rejections came less than two hours apart. The first one was after 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, and the other two came before 9:45 this morning.

I am only slightly bummed out but not particularly sad. I have gotten multiple rejections before and perhaps will again. I'm just trying to stay positive and ship off my query letters.

One of the rejections this morning was from an agent who rejected DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL back in July 2008. (I mention it in my first posting titled "Rejections.") So I know it was a form letter. But, it was an response. By my calculations, at least 50 percent of my query letters never get a response.

So, have a nice weekend. I hope to have dinner or drinks from an old friend from high school either Saturday or Sunday. And I have more queries to do.

Keep positive and keep busy writing.

Thanks for reading.

MOVE

First of all, MOVE is not an acronym. If I'm not mistaken, the full name is On the MOVE.

Today is May 13. And MOVE, a radical, urban, back-to-nature group -- yes, I realize that urban and back-to-nature in this case is an oxymoron -- had its last major confrontation with Philadelphia police 25 years ago on May 13, 1985.

City authorities wanted to evict MOVE members from their West Philly home. After a day-long confrontation (with authorities using bullets and full-pressure water hoses), police dropped a satchel of explosives -- read: bomb -- on the roof of the MOVE house in a misguided attempt to knock a fortified bunker off the top of the building. The attempt failed.

The bunker and the roof caught fire. The fire department did not immediately turn on water hoses once the blaze became apparent and, ultimately, the burning bunker collapsed into the second story of the structure instead of falling off of the house and into the street, as officials had hoped.

The resulting fire eventually went to five or six alarms, destroyed 61 houses, left 250 people homeless and cost 11 people, including five children, their lives. All of the dead were from the MOVE house.

Though the neighborhood was rebuilt, it was shoddy and now, 25 years later, the city owns 37 of the rebuilt houses and apparently has left them abandoned.

I mention this because the MOVE confrontation plays a minor, yet crucial role in my current novel, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR. Affair is a murder mystery and isn't in the least bit a political novel. But when I decided to have it set in Philadelphia, I wanted to use a major event as a backdrop for the developing murder story. And there is no event in Philly's recent history -- say, the last 50 years -- that is bigger than the 1985 MOVE confrontation.

In my novel, there is another body found in the debris left by the bombing and fire, though it is not in the MOVE house. It is in a house further down the block. Figuring out who it is and why they were killed is the mystery in the book.

I don't mind using that sad day as a prop in my story. It's attention-getting. And it is the biggest story I have ever covered.

But as I reflect on that day and the days that immediately followed, I remember working the story. I remember standing with other reporters watching the entire neighborhood burn to the ground. I remember a day or so later standing with a resident in front of the remains of her property. The only thing that was vaguely recognizable was the burnt frame of a window air-conditioner. Everything else she had was gone. And I remember standing on some one's porch looking down the block of burned down houses as the coroner removed the first of the 11 dead bodies. I wasn't suppose to be on the porch -- officials restricted the media's access -- but a kindly elderly woman let me into her home and I was the first journalist in the world to report that they had dead bodies and were moving them.

I hoped then that my reporting and writing accurately described the events without bias. And as an author, I hope my readers one day get a sense of the misery of that day and the following days. I made one of the characters in my book a resident whose house was destroyed. It was a time of incredible sadness but I still had a job to do and I think I did it well, remaining fair and balanced. I was respectful of the victims and didn't pull any punches for those responsible, though several of the city officials I respected and one or two I really liked.

Anyway, those are my thought for the day, in addition to the fact that I got a rejection e-mail today from one of my B-list agents. No big deal. I sent her a quick thank you e-mail and moved on.

Thanks for reading today and keep on the MOVE.

Submissions

When I am ready to query agents (and even some editors), I compile of long list taken from several sources, both online and in print. (I love JEFF HERMAN'S GUIDE TO BOOK PUBLISHERS, EDITORS & LITERARY AGENTS, and got a 2010 copy as a birthday gift last month.) And among the online sources, I particularly love AgentQuery, though I also view others.) I rank each agent according to a purely subjective set of criteria that can change from day to day, and I pour over their websites for every hint or clue as to what they are looking for. (But what they say can be so obscure, which I hate. I was just looking at a listing for an agent in a well-established agency in New York who stated that among her areas of interest were "exceptional fiction" and "anything outstanding." What does any of that mean? And who would be looking for 'unexceptional fiction'?)

After I do the research, I start sending queries -- e-mails first to those who accept them, snail mail later.

I have A, B and C lists of agents, with, of course, the A-list as the top. But I don't always start with the A-list. When I send several queries at a time, I try to pick someone from each list.
In a sense, I suffer from both a fear of rejection and a fear of success. If I haven't sent a query to an A-list agent I particularly hope to attract, I also haven't been rejected by them. It's stupid, I know. So sue me.

Today I am at the top of my A-list and I'm about to send a query to by No. 1 draft pick. I really want this agent, though she has rejected me before (for DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL). She has editorial experience and says she likes to help a new author get their book in the best shape it can be in before it goes to an editor. She represents a number of mystery writers and is a member of MWA. I love her blog. It is informative and witty, as well as well-written. And I have gone over and over her website, writings and blogs for just a little something to help me get her attention.

Right now the book is as a good as I can make it. I have poured over every word of my query numerous times and it is as good as I can make it for this agent. Now it's time to let it fly.

Like most writers, I hate sending out query after query with little hope of a positive response. But I know I will never get this agent (or any agent) unless I willing to risk rejection. Am I ready for a response from this agent? I don't know.

Maybe I will sit on it one more night and send it tomorrow morning. And maybe I will just have the balls to send it now.

Who knows?

In any event, thanks for reading and don't give up.

E-mail vs. snail mail

Agents are funny people. Well, to be truthful, people are funny people. But I just want to address agents at the moment.

Agents have all sorts of likes and dislikes and many of them are listed on their websites or on agent listings, both online and printed. And while it is rare that all of an agent's preferences will be so obvious __ and not knowing is a potential minefield __ it is always important to follow their suggestions based on their preferences.

I think it is civil to write "thank you for your time and consideration" at the bottom of a query because I really am taking up some of their time, if only marginally. But I know of an agent who expressly doesn't like that. She says she should be thanking the writer for taking the time to consider her. So, in my query letter, I didn't thank her for her time. (She rejected me anyway, but was quite nice about it.)

But the preferences that always confuse me is when an agent only wants snail mail queries or only e-mail queries. Why one and not the other? Why not accept either? Why be some funny about it?

Snail mail, of course, is more traditional, more time-consuming, costly, and less immediate. But it does give the agent something to put their hands on and allows the writer to show they can conform to the standard publishing format, i.e. margins, headings and such.

The writer doesn't know how his or her letter is going to appear on the other end if it is in an e-mail but that is balanced by its immediacy and the fact that if the writer is sending the query online then they probably have checked out the agent's preferences on their website. It will appear less of a form letter sent to the next agent on the list.

And rejections tend to come quicker, allowing the writer to emotionally move on quicker.

While I do send out snail mail queries, I prefer e-mail. Even when targeting for a specific agent, which is an absolute, e-mails are quicker to write or adapt and mistakes are easier to quickly correct.

But I always follow their preferences where they are stated. That's just basic business sense.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Looking an a reason to reject

Ten months ago, while I was working on a re-write for "Fighting Chaos" and researching agents to query, I sent off an e-mail query to an agent. The agent promised a response in two to four weeks. I agonized over sending the query but I sent it anyway.

As I have been reading, agents and their readers get so many query letters and so much material to consider, they don't have the time to dig deep into someone's material or letter before deciding what to do and moving on. Thus, they are looking for reason to reject.

This is sad but, of course, it makes perfect sense. Just this morning I got a stack of letter to read. I know I'm not interested in it all and don't have the time -- or just don't want to spend the time -- going through it all. So I go through it with the thought of what I intend to throw away.

It's been a few weeks since I sent out a query letter as I have concentrated on the final re-erite of "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal." But I know it's going to be viewed in much the same way as I used to when I would get press releases in the mail. If didn't see something highlighted with the who, what, where and whens, I was less likely to read it. And it needed to be near the top. On average, a press release had seven seconds to get my attention before I would throw it away.

It's not an easy world out there but I am determined to break through.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Rejections

I got the first of my rejections for "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal" yesterday, and she was quite nice, actually. It was almost encouraging.

Here are the first two grafs of my query, followed by her response:

Courier-Times owner/Publisher George Wilson was a tyrant. He was nearly as indiscreet as he was sexually promiscuous. This dismissive father and neglectful husband was more feared than liked. And now Wilson is dead and investigative reporter Jason Crown must piece together his murder.

Jason discovers the victim's long-held family secret -- a secret in which money, power and revenge collide. And it doesn't help when Jason begins to fall for one of the sexy suspects. As Jason comes to terms with his personal feelings, he must find the killer or risk becoming the next victim in “Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal.”
---
Thank you so much for giving XXXXXXXX a chance to consider your work. While I found your query intriguing, I’m afraid I wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic to ask for more at this time. As I’m sure you know, publishing is a subjective business and it’s very likely you’ll find another agent who feels differently.

I wish you the best of luck and the greatest success.

____

The agent found the query "intriguing." That's what I'm looking for. I think I must be on the right track with the query. And I got a reply. She took the time to shoot me a short response. Not a lot of time but some time.

It's these sorts of rejections that can give a writer hope in the face of overwhelming odds. It gives a writer the strength to carry on. She is kind and considerate. It's why I like her as an agent. Too bad she's not my agent but . . . oh, well.

Keep the faith and keep writing. One day, it will pay off.

Thanks for reading.

It's time again

I am in particularly good spirits today, which is good because my last posting was a bit of a downer. I am playing the main theme from "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and thinking about what I did just an hour ago.

I sent out a query letter via e-mail. And now I am in that period before any rejection letters where I have all the hope for the future and all the possibilities it brings. It's a wonderful feeling.

I think the novel looks good at just a hair under 80,000 words and the top is complete and ready for an agent to see. I continue working on rewriting the rest to sharpen its focus.

But for now, the world is in front of me and I'm looking forward to what comes next. Regardless of what responses I get when I jump full swing into querying, I am not giving up on my writing. I will probably start my next novel in August and certainly by September, even if I am still querying for Jungle-bunny.

So that's it for now. I have to run.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

The prospect of facing rejections

I am a bit depressed today and worried. And yet in a short time I must gird up my loins for the assault on my ego. Rejections.
I hate rejections and I don't take them well. I know you are not suppose to take them personally but I often do. I got a rejection for some freelance work today. I was surprised. I hadn't expected it. I will sure I would get some work. But sorry, Charlie.
And I took it like a man -- or more appropriately, like a professional. Like the professional that I am. I e-mailed a thank you back to them for considering me although I wanted to tell them to just go fuck off.
So now I am playing "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" over and over, depressed and sad, and contemplating my fiction and what's coming next.
I e-mailed an author friend today who is in my critique group and asked for some help with my query letter. She said just submit it with my other material when my turn comes up again in the group. But that won't be for another TWO FREAKIN' MONTHS. I have worked on this query for about two months and I have no intention of waiting another two months before I send out some queries.
I feel like I have labored so long and hard, and that I'm still lost somewhere in a forest with no one to turn to. It's depressing. I don't know what to do.
I love to escape into my stories, reading and rereading over and over again the parts that I love, such as the scene in "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal" where it is revealed who Charlotte is. Or in "Fighting Chaos" when Brewster meets with his old buddy in the FBI.
But I can't just live in the past in those stories. I must move forward. I just don't know how best to do that. And all the while I keep playing "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" because it is sad and it's how I feel.
I think fiction is my future. I certainly hope so. I hope I am ready for it when it comes.
In the meantime, thanks for reading. And don't give up on writing.

Rejections

I have noticed some things about my rejections.

So far, I have only queried via e-mail. I have a response in about half the queries I have sent, and all of those came within two business days of being sent. Regardless of what the agent says on their website, I now assume that if I don't hear back within three business days, I won't hear back at all.

But judging from the responses, I noticed something else. None of them turned me down because the writing was bad or the plot was dreadful or the narrative made no sense.

One said, "Unfortunately you've caught me at a time when the demands of my current clients leave me with very little time to devote to developing new talent." Another said, "Due to the high quantity of query letters I receive, I must be highly selective in requesting further materials to read. Unfortunately, I¹m afraid I must decline on this project right now, but I do want to encourage you to continue submitting."

I am not getting responses that say that I or my writing is crap.

Perhaps people are just being polite. After all, half the agents don't respond at all. But I'd like to think that the value of my work is getting some consideration and that it does have some value. There are countless reasons to reject someone's work other than its writing.

So, keep the faith. I know I am.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

E-mail rejections

I have come to a reasonable conclusion about rejection letters. Or to be more precise, rejections via e-mail.

In each case in which I have gotten an e-mail rejection, the response came within two business days of my sending a query. I got a rejection yesterday and it came within 24 hours. I’m not sure what that means but it is the fact.

As I mentioned earlier, once I got an e-mail rejection in less than 15 minutes. In one case, it took four days, but that included a weekend.

So my assumption is that agents who accept e-mail queries read them quickly and decide just as quickly. Again, I’m not sure what, if anything, that means, or how I can use it to my advantage.

But what I do know is persistence will pay off. I read somewhere in the last week or two that if you have seven rejections, send out an eighth query.

More about rejections later. But for now, thanks for reading and don’t give up on writing.