Rejection #2
by Richard Perkins
Renegade is officially off the slush pile and into the circular file. The date on DAW’s rejection letter was only 6 days after the post mark on the reply card. Guess it didn’t take the reader long to decide this new author wouldn’t be a commercial success for them.
I can’t say the thought that other companies have published books they rejected did much to soften the blow. And their suggestion to submit to them again in the future might have been more convincing if this didn’t look like a photocopied form rejection letter.
At least they were courteous, prompt, and professional. Still no feedback on the manuscript, or their specific reasons for rejection. As with Tor, I didn’t really expect feedback from a house this big. I’ve run out of large publishing houses that accept unsolicited submissions at this point . I’m at a crossroads.
On the one hand, I could keep looking for a publisher on my own. This would entail sifting through about a million medium to small press houses to determine which ones are legit and which are shady. All that effort would be time I couldn’t spend writing or searching for a paying job, so that’s a definite trade-off.
On the other hand, I could look for an agent to represent the book. That search could require just as much or more sifting and background checking, but a good agent would open doors at publishers that wouldn’t consider me otherwise. There are a lot of online resources to help, like AgentQuery, and AbsoluteWrite forum threads like this one on agents who represent science fiction and fantasy.
Are you an author, published or otherwise, with an opinion on this question? Drop me a comment, and I promise to respond. If you’ve worked with an agent or a medium to small press publisher willing to consider a first time fantasy author, feel free to plug them here.
At least you heard quickly.
If my current quest comes to naught, I will definitely pursuing the agent route.
Stephanie – Other than the obvious disappointment, I have no complaints about my interactions with DAW and Tor. Their responses were professional, courteous, and faster than advertised. Both groups are first class imprints in every way.
The other publishers I’ve found in the genre who accept unsolicited submissions are harder to run background checks on, and harder to find on bookstore shelves. So I’m leaning toward agents for my next round of query letters.
Best of luck to you on Jenri and Beast, and thanks for reading!
P.S. Your site link points to askthers.today.com instead of here.
Thanks for the kind words and pointing out the error.
No worries Stephanie. I’ve plenty of kind words to spare. Cheers.
Perhaps consider self-publishing (lulu.com) and then marketing it yourself. I don’t have any experience with that, but is my plan if I need to publish my manuscript (which also got rejected from everyone)
Matt
Hey Matt, I actually already have a version of Renegade published and ready start distribution through CreateSpace. I will fall back on the self-promotion route if I run can’t find a publisher or agent interested enough to run with it. Good to hear from you.