To be clear, I am definitely acting on everyone’s advice - I know it’s hard for some to express when life is impersonal and complicated and it’s not clear if I’m just strange or just another schmuck.
I feel like it’s harder than ever to distinguish from the cheer and getting "Future Endeavor"ed. Nobody around me really understands or is even into anything I do, so this has been very lonely and very isolating for me.
Yes, I seek approval. Yes, I seek attention. and Yes, I seek validation. I’m going crazy because I have no idea if I’m any good, and I take compliments as flattery or evasion. It’s obvious I’d drive myself nuts.
I want to succeed. More than that - I just want to say I’ve done this from start to finish.
I get it. It why I recommend looking for a good writer’s group on Facebook. It makes it easier because everyone goes through these same things. Yes it is tough to find one, but once you see the industry from the eyes of other writers, I think you will not feel quite as isolated. Pick your genre, looks for groups and then just hang out and read. You don’t have to contribute until you are comfortable.
I wish I had some recommendations for you, but I only belong to 3 groups and none would work for you. Two are for published authors and the other is for authors in my own press. But jumping in there and getting your feet wet will be good for you.
Absolute Write can be worthwhile, but also daunting due to the sheer number of people who post there. But it has some great advice so definitely worth your time.
WELP! I’m done! over 71,000 words. I’m going to start the search and business processes to get into the door. I hope I can find my way. Time to put the advice and preparation to work.
In the meantime, I can start content that’s been sitting around and delayed.
Ran across this piece in the Federalist which mentioned the indie Facebook group 20BooksTo50K. Name comes from what the author figured he needed- 20 books bringing in 50K per year to retire in Cabo. My understanding is the group tries to focus upon how to make more money as an author and tries to stay out of the political flap over on the SF side with the Nebulas. You might find some good tips there beyond the wealth of useful information Aerythe has given you. I got to say you are super lucky to be in this guild with a pro for guidance at hand like her.
Well, it’s been a while but the first query went unanswered and the second one was rejected within 48 hours. It stings and is discouraging, but I’m not giving up. I should, however, consider how long I’m going to be doing this before I made the effort myself to publish the book.
My ultimate fallback is just to put it on Gumroad, then Smashwords.
OK, did you go to Query Tracker? They not only have agents but they have info on publishers as well.
Did I understand correctly that you sent out (3/18) a query literally a few days (3/12) after you finished the first draft?
I hope I’m wrong and misread that. LOL
Most agents/publishers will contact you in a few weeks if they are interested. Some can take months. You most likely won’t hear anything if they are not interested. In this case no news is bad news. They probably read your submission within days of receiving it.
You have to do several drafts before giving it to beta readers to critique, then going through a few more drafts to polish and back to beta readers again. Then more polishing on your end and THEN you research and see what agents/publishers you are interested in that might be interested in you. After that you send out queries in bunches of 10-20 depending on how many you finished researching.
I really hope you didn’t send out a first draft. I get so many of those and it is obvious they are first drafts. I reject those after a few sentences.
My press actually responds with a rejection to probably 95% of the submissions we receive. The other 5 percent will get asked for a full. (I never ask for a partial as I feel those are pretentious - I either want to read it or I don’t.) I have offered one contract to a new author in the last year. My current authors are producing new content, so it is really tough to get in with us.
People who do not follow the instructions on my website and send anything other than what our submission requirements are get an automatic rejection. This might sound cold, but seeing if they follow instructions is the first test.
For instance we require the query letter, the short synopsis and the first 10 pages in the body of the email. An attachment gets an automatic rejection from me. Send me 3 chapters? Almost always a rejection because the person didn’t bother to see what our guidelines are. I can usually tell in a few sentences if I like something and rarely read beyond that. I’m a big proponent of killer first sentences.
Yeah, I went through 6 pages of agencies on Querytracker. The next phase for Queries 3 and 4 are going to be a second pass on those agents and agencies.
The first draft was done in January. I revised it and added about 20,000 words by March. By this point, I didn’t have anything to add left to it outside of something editorial, and I was mostly wanting to move on. In several ways, I worked on it until I was sick of it.
I don’t have beta readers. Most people I know aren’t even interested in anything I do, nor do they understand any of the words I use or issues I write about. Either I do this by myself or I give this away for free. If anything - it takes guidance from my previous work, which is already available. I’ve gone as far as I’m gonna go to make things understandable to the target audience. If I’m not good enough, then it’s just another thing I’m never good enough for in life.
I followed directions to the letter. The forms ask for things and I provide to specification. I might have what my elder’s consider an attitude problem, but when it comes to this I follow directions. I don’t trust strangers with it, and I’m not in/near a community that could help without expecting something in return.
Forgive me if I’m skipping details - but I took every piece of advice to heart, as well as doing the manuscript until I was sick of it. I don’t mean to express frustration, even in the light of an N of 2. I didn’t expect to score right away, and the bar to clear is very high. As nobody has ever cared about anything I’ve ever done in my life anyways, It’s to be expected if I come out of months of this giving up and slapping a 8.99 price tag on it and putting the PDF up on gumroad or smashwords for even more people to not care.
I’m trying my best with what I got - I act on every piece of advice.
Well, I honestly don’t know what else to tell you other than wish you the very best of luck.
FYI - One of our best novels that we have published was 10 years in the making. My first was 2 years. Some people write fast and publish fast. It shows. I write fast and then polish for a year or so. Stepping back so I can let it settle and not going back until I have some distance. Just food for thought.
LOL. Nope, not an idiot. Even finishing a novel is more than most do and you should be proud of that. But avoiding as many rookie mistakes as you can will help you actually realize your dream.
I spent weeks just researching what to do (and not do) and going to Absolute Write and reading some of the zillion threads there. And of course, even after 9 years immersed in this industry, I’m continuing to learn every day. What seems daunting at first becomes second nature with time and practice.
I write fast and then polish for a year or so. Stepping back so I can let it settle and not going back until I have some distance. Just food for thought.