I'll Show You! I'll Self-Publish!

A post from Rejection Collection:

This happened about ten years ago. I wrote an African folktale which was actually a project for an English class. Since it accounted for 50% of our grade and was a presentation, I made it into a book, very amateurish, but it looked fine and I received and A on the project and an A in the class. I was so proud of myself and encouraged by others in the class, I submitted it to a local publisher that specialized in children's book publishing.I don't remember nor do I think I have the actual [rejection] letter but I will never forget this phrase forever imbedded in my memory."This was a cute little story but we are not looking for submissions of this type at this time".

What bothered you the most about this letter?
The condenscending tone. This left a mark of insecurity on me. True, I didn't know the first thing about queries or submissions policy. Still I felt and still feel that it was a good story with a moral. I think I am going to dig it out, polish it up and resubmit or better yet, self-publish myself.

Yes, that was condescending. But think how much more condescending literate people are capable of being. And, when in doubt (or anger, or despair), refer to the rules of rejection.

What interests me is that the writer seems to be thinking, "I'll show that publisher! I'll self-publish!"
Uh... no.

If you don't care what other people think, then self-publishing is perfect for you. You just want a book to hold in your hands and maybe to give to friends as a gift. You don't care about the book appealing to buyers of books or reviewers of books. Which means you don't care about it appealing to publishers of books. Fine.

But if you are a person who just can't take what other people think, self-publishing is not a band-aid for your wounded ego. It won't prove anything to the publisher who rejected you. Because while you may harass a couple local bookstores into stocking your aspirations-made-manifest, you are never going to sell the 10,000 copies that would make a publisher think again.

I'm afraid that the majority of self-publishers are, in fact, in this latter group. They care what people think of their book, but they only want to hear about it if it's positive. All of the serious writers I know (both published and unpublished), know exactly what the problem with that is.

The moral of today's blog:
Rejection probably doesn't mean that you don't know what you're doing. Self-publishing probably does.

The 8 Rules of Rejections

I've been reading http://www.rejectioncollection.com/, where people post the decline letters they've received and talk about how the letter made them feel.

"How it made them feel"?! Hoo-hoo!
Thus, today's list:

1. Rejection letters are the opposite of personal. They might even be the inverse.

2. The people who write them are sometimes wrong.

3. Most of the people who write them are nice, and not trying to make you angry or suicidal.

4. The rest are not interested enough in you or your manuscript to offer you any real advice.

rules 3 and 4 mean that

5. Most rejection letters are a long, long way from direct, forthcoming, or meaningful.

which means that

6. Most rejection letters mean nothing. Nothing. (Except that you can cross that publisher/agent off the list.) You need to internalize this fact however you can. Chant it in the bathtub. Write it backwards on your forehead. Listen to a tapeloop of it while you sleep. No matter what the editor/agent says, no matter what words they use, rejection letters mean nothing.

7. The only possible exception to rule 6 is specific constructive criticism.
a. if it is not specific, it means nothing.
b. if it is not constructive, it means nothing.
c. if it is not criticism, it means nothing.

rules 6 and 7 mean that

8. Ignore the flattery. Ignore the snark. Ignore the polite phrases that may be new to you, but trust me, have been repeated so many times by the person who wrote that letter that her boyfriend knows them by heart from hearing them muttered in her sleep night after night. Ignore, in the end, the rejection.

This, readers, is how to approach rejection letters. Absorb this, go forth, and prosper.

Pet Peeve of the Week:

Agents who represent themselves.

Every once in a while you see this from legitimate agents, and it drives me up the wall. An agent sends us a manuscript they've written, on their agency letterhead, with a cover letter with all the normal schmoozing. And we're expected to treat that manuscript as agented?

Certainly in the strictest sense, it is agented. But publishers offer agented manuscripts faster turnaround and more personal responses because agents are supposed to be doing some of the slush-sifting for us. That doesn't actually apply when it comes to something they wrote.

So I'm wracking my brain for a professional, polite way of saying, "You can't be trusted to be impartial or discerning about your own writing. Your manuscript has gone into slush with all the other unsoliciteds."

But so far, no luck.

Are children’s books a girl’s club?

Once again, someone in my hearing has been complaining about the lack of good chapter books for boys, and spreading the idea that this is because most children’s book editors are women.

Grrrrrr.

Most children’s book editors are women; but more important is the fact that most children’s book writers are women, and most children’s book readers are girls.

Don’t make that face, it’s true. The natural response to this point is to submit that for just that reason publishers should be reaching out to boys. Maybe if there were more books for boys, we could get more boys reading.

I’m the last person you’ll find disagreeing with this hypothesis.

But publishers don’t create books, and we don’t create the market that is sometimes less gladiator-vs-gladiator and more christians-vs-lions. Most children’s book writers are women, so publishers have thinner pickings when it comes to manuscripts for boys. And because boys don’t account for as many sales, the manuscripts that we do acquire need to have really strong salability.

I do agree that there could be more chapter books for boys. But it makes me want to knee people someplace tender to hear that I might be the problem.

Let me sing the praises of How Angel Peterson Got His Name, which is a peon to the spirit and ingenuity and immortal brainlessness of boys. It is one of the funniest books ever written, and humor may be light, but it takes genius.

And what about Hoot and Flush? What about Holes and the other wonderful (and under-read) books in the Sachar oeuvre? What about No More Dead Dogs and Crash? What about Joey Pigza and Percy Jackson?

All are books about boys, written by men, and all are manuscripts that I would have cried tears of joy to find in my mail. Feel free to say there should be more books like these. Just don’t go suggesting that female editors wouldn’t recognize them in the slush.

Let me point out something that people who complain about children’s books often seem to forget—the thing that is the underlying ill of the industry, the thing that means we don’t have the gender spread we want, or the lean, mean slush piles we would kill for.

Children’s books get no respect. Because children get no respect.

What that basic truth about our society means is that an enormous part of the population doesn’t think of children’s books as real books, and they come to one of two conclusions:
1) I can do that!
2) I’m better than that!

Think about those two attitudes for a moment. It means that a bunch of people who know nothing about writing are convinced that they, too, can be published. And another bunch of people who perhaps do have some sense of the value and difficulty of literature don’t want to touch kids’ books with a ten-foot pole.

Slowly, and owing in great part to Harry Potter, children’s books’ star is rising. A few more people are thinking of them as real literature. Whether or not adults will ever start thinking of children as real people, I can’t tell.

The Biggest Mistake Would-Be Writers Make

Underestimating the slush.

Really, I shouldn't term this a "mistake," singular. The fundamental lack of understanding about how much slush there is feeds many, many of the most commonly made mistakes writers make--mistakes that hurt their chances of getting published, and often hurt their morale. Some of those mistakes are below; but first, a visualization excercise:

First, you need to realize that you do not know what a pile of 15,000 manuscripts looks like.

Let's say you have a table that seats four. Imagine that in your kitchen at home. 1,000 manuscripts would cover that table in piles that would teeter. Tall piles. Take a moment to picture that.

Now fill the floorspace underneath and around the table with 4,000 more manuscripts. There is no room for chairs anymore. You can't reach the manuscripts in the middle of the table.

1,000 manuscripts fill your counter space; another 2,000 stuffs all your cupboards and shelf space. There is no longer any room for the coffeemaker or toaster; all of your food and crockery has been displaced to the living room. You cannot close the doors on your cupboards because of all the manuscripts spilling out of them. The kitchen is no longer about eating or cooking or anything but manuscripts.

The remaining 7,000 manuscripts cover all the remaining floor space in thigh-deep drifts. You cannot enter the room now. You can only reach those manuscripts at the doorway. Your kitchen is now less a "room" than a tank of paper.

Good. Keep that image in mind. Now imagine that you read 15,000 manuscripts last year, and a good 50% were so inappropriate, illiterate, or crazy that thoughts of the hard work you did in college and the enormous debt you're still carrying from attending that schmancy institution made you nigh-suicidal. The cause of literature seemed futile and meaningless. You might as well hole up in a shack in Montana, awaiting the end of western civilization and stockpiling Joyce.

Now imagine that another 47% were just poorly-written, or aimed at the wrong age level, or derivative of much better (and better-known) writers, as well as having several concept/plotting/arc issues. If asked to say what was wrong with any of these, you would first have to think hard about how to prioritize the problems you saw, and then think hard about how to put them nicely. (Editors are picky, critical people, but they're also nice people. They don't want to hurt your feelings.)

The last 3% were nice, but manuscripts that no consumer was going to spend her money on when she's got so many other choices.

Which left you with 0.02% --3 manuscripts from 15,000-- that were worth publishing and ended up paying you back for the time it took to read them. (As well as, of course, the tens of thousands of dollars it took to publish them. Let's not forget about that.)

Did those 3 manuscripts pay you back for the time it took you to read the 14,997 other manuscripts in slush? No. Why do you have to read another 15,000 this year, when you have more than enough work to do (and agented manuscripts to acquire) to completely fill your 50-hour work weeks?

That's a good question.

And yet we do keep reading. Maybe it's 'hope springs eternal,' maybe it's the thrill of the chase. Maybe we're nuts.


Now see if you can answer some of these commonly asked questions yourself:

1. "Why is it so hard to get published?"

2. "Why are decline letters so impersonal?"

3. "How can some publishers decide not to reply at all unless they're interested in acquiring?"

4. "Why does every publisher have to have a different set of submission guidelines?"

5. "Why are they so slavishly attached to their submission guidelines?"

6. "How can they be so perfunctory about something that means so much to me?"

5 Things Not to Write Any More Rhymed Picture Books About:

1. Insurance
2. Calculus
3. IRS audits
4. Shakespeare
5. STDs

It's been a bad week in the slush.

In wildest woods, on treetop shelves...

Okay, I have a question about similar concepts. Good God, no, not another Harry Potter rip-off. Fairies. Two or so years ago I began submitting queries for a young adult novel I'd completed. It happened to involve sinister fairies, which as you are well aware, now plaster every back cover of every young adult urban fantasy known to man. (Well, toss up between sinister fairies and sexy vampires). I was told time and again by editors that my writing was spot on and my book was infinitely publishable . . . except for the small problem that they already had several books like that about to published. I rolled my eyes and moved on to writing another manuscript, which I've just started to push out into the slush piles of agents and editors, with good response so far. My question is - what of Sinister Fairy Novel? Is it unmarketable now? Did my timing damn its chances? Or is there a chance that time will heal all wounds and I'll one day be able to market it again? Thanks for your time!

The children's book market, like most things, is cyclical. So yes, I'd say "sinister fairies" has a chance of one day not being so overdone.

It might even be sometime soon--though in editors' terms, "soon" can be something like 5 years. God, how time flies when you spend your days running around like a headless chicken.

If I had to guess (and it would be a wild guess; the market's unpredictable), I would say perhaps two years for most submitters to get tired of hearing "no more sinister fairies" and give up, and maybe another year to let editors feel like it's been a while since they saw anything about the evil fay.

How do authors really get carpal tunnel?

From twiddling their thumbs.

Dear EA,
I have interest in my manuscript from a couple other presses, but my preferred publisher hasn't responded yet. If I let them know that they have some competition, would it get them to give me an answer sooner?

Well, depends. Answer these questions first:

1. Has your preferred publisher had the amount of time it requires (as posted in their submission guidelines) to evaluate your submission? If not, sorry. Trying to jump the queue is more likely to get your manuscript declined without a look than otherwise.

2. Not all publishers are in the same league. Would your preferred publisher call those other presses "competition"? If not, sorry again. Keep twiddling.

Ok. So let's assume that everybody has had enough time to review your manuscript, and all the publishers in question are (a) selling into the same markets and (b) of comparable reputation.

In this case and this case only, yes, you may inform your preferred publisher that press X and press Y are interested in the manuscript you submitted on date Z. Be sure to name names. If I get a letter informing me that unnamed publishers are interested in your manuscript, I will assume you're jerking me around and decline your manuscript without looking at it.

Good luck!

I've got your "special treatment" right here

A woman calls me up about her manuscript. She sent it in a while back and hasn't heard from us. I have no record of it getting declined, but that doesn't mean anything. We don't track a lot of our declines. Well, she's sure that the mistake is ours.
Can she send it again?
Sure.
Is there a fax number or email she can send it to, since it's been so long since the original submission? And can she get her response emailed to her?

Ah. If she's read our submission guidelines (always a long shot, to my continuing frustration), she knows she's asking for two separate kinds of special treatment.

She should have tried this on me in the morning. At the end of the day I'm tired, and I practice being a hardass.

Look. It's possible we made a mistake. It's possible the post office made a mistake. It's possible she made a mistake. I have no proof that the manuscript was ever submitted to us in the first place, except for her word for it.

She's probably used to businesses graciously assuming it was their mistake in such circumstances. That's because to most businesses, she is a Valued Customer.

But she isn't a Valued Customer here. "Valued Customer" in my terms means an author who I know and whose work I know I can sell.

What she is is one of the 15,000 people every year who want us to take the time to read their manuscripts--99.99% (I'm not exaggerating) of which will be a waste of our time.

So no. No special treatment today.

From the Tampa Craig'sList:

Publisher Wanted for Children's Story
Reply to: job-280141904@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-02-17, 10:32AM EST

Looking for a publisher interested in a new imaginative children's book with illustrations. Not looking to self publish.

Embarassing Wetness

I opened just one piece of slush today, and what was at the very top of the cover letter?

"Within this 6,000 word picture book you will find the legend of the bed-wetting fairy..."

I am now trying so hard not to laugh that my eyes are actually watering. "Are you all right?" asks the editorial assistant.

"Six thousand word picture book," I manage to gasp.

Follow the yellow brick road

A woman emails me at work:

"You were nice enough to give me some advice and feedback on my manuscript, and I was wondering if you would give me advice about where else to submit it? And if I paid you, would you edit it for me? I'm very busy--as I imagine you are too--and I really don't have the time to research publishers and agents or join a critique group. Isn't there was a quicker way to go about this process?"

You mean a magical highway that allows you to skip all the work of publishing and go straight to "being published"? Of course there is. It's called "self-publishing." It's a highway paved with your money, but there's no tedious research and no pesky critique.

Of course, past the "Now Entering Published Authorhood" sign, the highway stops very suddenly against two brick walls called "No National Exposure" and "Nobody Wants to Buy Such Amateur Crap," but if all you care about is having something to pass around to your friends, my best wishes go with you.

...But maybe you want to join the ranks of genuinely published authors, who are paid for their work. In that case remember that editors know a lot of the hardworking authors who have fought their way through the publishing process and earned the places they now hold. Next to them, you sound like a real whiner.

A Romantic Evening with the Slush

Who needs a social life?

There's more than one submission from a lawyer, tonight. (On behalf of someone else, of course.) Why do people ask their lawyers to submit for them? Because they know that editors offer agented submissions special treatment.

And they think editors are stupid enough to think lawyers are the same thing as agents.

We're not.

Creative Thinking Is a Disease and Must Be Stamped Out

Ok, I'm not serious. But if I get one more "You've never seen something like this before!!" pitch this week, I'm going to wring the editorial assistant's neck. (She sits closest.)

"My proposal is for a retelling of the three little pigs, but they escape from the wolf by jumping out of the book! There are many spofs (sic) of fairy tales and fractured tellings in the children's books now but my book will be a spoof of the fairytale tradition and children's books and pigs."

And pigs? Ok, leaving aside the dreadful proofreading that didn't go into this cover letter, your proposal sounds a great deal like David Weisner's The Three Pigs, which anybody in children's books ought to know about. It won a Caldecott, for chrissakes. What combination of drugs and hubris could make you try to imitate that? Pass.

"I have done a great deal of research into the book industry, and discovered that books are very, very expensive to make. But in the movie industry, they put little ads for things, like Pepsi, in the movie and the people who make the things pay the movie people. This could be a great way to make books more profitable for everyone."

Product placement? Do I sense you angling for a larger advance?

If you've been watching the industry at all, you will have heard of Cathy's Book, which included several paid-for plugs for Cover Girl make-up.

That was indeed some creative thinking, and the publisher was thoroughly flogged for it. Evidently a great many booksellers feel it's offensive to try to manipulate children under the cover of promoting literacy. Go figure.

The moral of these two stories, dear readers, is Do Your Homework. And then once you've done it, go ahead and assume that the editor you submit to still knows more about children's books than you do, because she does. "I'm breaking entirely new ground!" claims just make authors look like boobs.

Why You Need to Read the Submission Guidelines--

and then follow them.

Thinking of sending in a submission by fax, or on a CD that we're never ever going to look at? Thinking that if you get me on the phone and read your book to me ("it'll only take 5 minutes!")or attach your manuscript to a giant sneaker it'll make you stand out from the masses of other submitters? You're right!

People who think they are above the rules (or living on a different planet from them) spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E. They are going to be one headache after another, throughout the bookmaking process. Editors don't want to work with them.

Maybe you think you are a rebel, or an artiste, and rules are for the dull and narrow-minded. Be careful what assumptions (and adjectives) you apply to the people you're asking to invest time and effort and tens of thousands of dollars in your work.

Maybe you picture yourself a year from now, basking in a circle of admirers and explaining how you shook up a stodgy industry and propelled yourself to stardom.

Listen, you. You can tell your fans whatever you want, once you have some. Until then, act like a fricking professional.

How to Tell You're Never Going to Get Published (part 2)

Another quiz!

What the children's book market needs more of is books about:

a. morals

b. how much mommy loves you

c. kids who find out they have a special power and must go away to school to learn about it

d. squirrels

Oh, good.

And a message on my phone:

"Hi, this is Patrick Ring. I sent you my manuscript Tipsy Toodles Off a while back and got a rejection letter from you guys but I wanted to call you back and ask if submitting my illustrations with the manuscript would make a difference. The illustrations really help to tell the story, and people really love them. Would it be possible to resubmit? I know you're inundated with submissions, but if you would reconsider it I'd be so grateful."

Haha. Ah, poor guy. Realistically, the chance that his illustrations are going to make even a little bit of difference is miniscule. But he's welcome to resubmit. Because here's the thing: I have no memory of him or his project. He could resubmit that selfsame manuscript every month for the rest of eternity and I would never be the wiser. Between the thousands of people sending us manuscripts and the variety of people here reading the first two lines or so and rejecting them, the chances that I will see that manuscript again and recognize it are nada. So, sure, knock yourself out.

How to Tell You're Never Going to Get Published

Take this short quiz!

a. You're writing about your pet.

I know you think your pet is darling and precious, but try to wrap your mind around this: no one else cares.

b. You're writing about your grandchildren.

See above.

c. You think writing poetry is easy.

Rhyme doth not a poem make. On the other hand, it's impossible to mail me the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, so why not send bad verse?

d. You think writing a children's book is easy.

I mean, children can barely read as it is, so how hard can it be to write for them? (www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail84.html)

e. You're writing about squirrels.

Seriously, what is it with the squirrel manuscripts recently? There must be something in the water. Something squirrely.