How to go on without losing hope?
I have recently been rejected by three agents for my work, which has been in the making for seven years. I have a passion for books and take them seriously, but fear that I am not getting any attention because everything is dumbed down these days, and all agents want is stupidity.
It's sickening the authority these people have. At the push of a button they can make or break you. They have no idea how devastating they are to those who are passionate about writing.
I can't stand seeing terrible books in bookshops about toilet humour and yet my work isn't being given the time of day. The opinion of one person should not dictate what the public will like, especially if the agents are bias, narrow-minded and are into trash and wouldn't know quality if smacked them in the face.
Couldn’t leave this question without making the following comment. How’s this for the height (depths) of wrong thinking and perverse priorities?:
[From the list in Adrian’s comment] “Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” A rejection letter sent to Dr Seuss. 300 million sales and the 9th best-selling fiction author of all time.”
Imagine admitting that your reason for rejecting a work was that it was TOO original!!!
Cuppa Tea: Why do you want to get published? For the money or because you really want to offer something of value, and give people (outside of your personal acquaintance) the chance to read it? If for the latter reason – as Lorraine has pointed out – you could go for self-publishing.
However, I add my voice to those others that advise you to get your work assessed by others. Of COURSE you think it’s good. What author believes that their work is totally without merit? But before you sink your money into self-publishing, get 2nd (and 3rd, and 4th…) opinions. You can pay professionals for this service. As Paul has pointed out, you can also get amateur/semi-pro feedback from your fellows writers here on this site at “shared works”.
For anybody interested in finding a publisher that IS more interested in quality than in money (“We’d rather go bust than commercial”), you could check out http://la-granota.com/crazy.htm
“[…] we want to be different, and we’re looking for authors and illustrators who are willing to take a risk, who aren’t trying to “write a best-seller” or “give the public what it’s used to” or “please the publisher”. If you’ve written a book that no other publisher would touch because it’s not commercial enough; if you’ve written a book that might even knock us backwards with surprise […] we just might be the publisher that you’ve been looking for (and vice versa).”
Mind you – unless it’s a REALLY exceptional novel – we’re now limiting ourselves to books for children. And you’re NOT going to “get rich quick!” with us.
My advice to anybody interested in this subject: Read EVERYTHING that Lorraine has written about it [My advice to anybody interested in this W&A website: Read EVERYTHING that Lorraine has written on ANY subject.], as well as the list of publishing “bloopers” in Adrian’s longer comment (source: http://www.litrejections.com/best-sellers-initially-rejected/ . I LOVE this web-page, though the compilers made [at least] a couple of bloopers themselves:
1) “[Ursula K. Le Guin’s] book The Left Hand of Darkness […] is now regularly voted as the second best fantasy novel of all time, next to The Lord of the Rings.”
(The Left Hand of Darkness is NOT a “fantasy novel”: it’s science fiction. It comes in as all-time #2 to Frank Herbert’s Dune in THAT category. LeGuin [back when her fantasy novels only comprised the original Earthsea trilogy – now a hexology, 5 novels and one book of short stories] was voted #2 fantasy writer of all time (behind Tolkien) AS WELL AS #2 science fiction author of all time.
2) “To prove how hard it is for new writers to break in, Jerzy Kosinski uses a pen name to submit his bestseller Steps to 13 literary agents and 14 publishers. All of them reject it, including Random House, who had published it.”
I was willing to become a die-hard fan of Kosinski (not having read anything by him, but for doing something so wonderful), but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steps_(novel) , it wasn’t Kosinski who played this trick: “In 1975, a freelance writer Chuck Ross, in order to prove his theory that unknown authors always find their books rejected, sent out excerpts from Steps to four different publishers, using the pseudonym Erik Demos. All four did not accept the sample. In 1977, Ross sent out the entire book to ten publishers, including Random House, which had originally published the book, and thirteen literary agents. Again, the book was rejected, also by Random House, having not been recognized, despite being an award-winning work).”
Quote from Cuppa Tea: “I just feel that the way in which somebody becomes published is wrong. Agents should have a passion for books, not a passion for money. And work should be judged by a panel of different individuals, instead of this lazy skim and bin system by people who have worked their way up from coffee maker.”
Agreed, 100%. But that’s a fantasy on its own. For one thing, I’m sure that SOME agents/publishers ARE passionate about books. (After 121 rejections, the publisher who finally did publish Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance said something like: “Reading this book made me realise just why I was in this business.”)
But you have to consider 2 important points:
a) Agents have to eat, too. And they only earn any money if your book sells. They could (theoretically) LOVE your book, but realise that it isn’t going to buy them even one sandwich. What should they do? Spend hours and hours of their office time trying to flog a work that they KNOW won’t have sales potential?
b) I read somewhere that ONE literary agency receives something like 300 unsolicited mss every WEEK. Imagine that it has (say) 30 readers. That means, on average, each reader dealing with 10 mss per week. Some of which are frankly dross. Could YOU deal with that workload?! And your “work should be judged by a panel of different individuals” suggestion would multiply that workload by however many people are on the panels.
But back to my being in agreement with you that for practical purposes, money means more than quality to too many agents: I’ve written this before and I’ll write it again: If you were Leo Messi or Ginger Spice and happened to casually mention that you were CONSIDERING writing a book (on ANY subject, in WHATEVER genre and style), you’d have publishers beating a path to your door. If it were completely shit, they’d pay ghost writers to completely overhaul it (or maybe not), but your famous name would be on the cover… and that would guarantee huge profits. Because people will buy shit if comes out of a famous arsehole. (Did you know that Madonna insisted that toilet bowls used by her in hotels be smashed to pieces once she'd left?) Are agents and publishers to blame for that? Well, maybe partly: they should stop encouraging the practice by rejecting anything without quality… and lose the chance of becoming rich.
Finally, a small portion of tough love: You write that you’ve been rejected by 3 agents. That’s NOTHING! How about going for a world record of 122? (Mind you, it only qualifies as an official world record if your book later becomes a best seller.)
Frankly, never having read your work, I have no way of agreeing with your own assessment of it, but the current record holder, Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is one of my personal 60 favourite novels. Just goes to show that some jewels DO escape the reject pile…