My first rejection letter! [purplecthulhu]

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This may be odd, but I'm curiously proud of something that arrived in the post today - my first rejection letter for a piece of fiction I submitted for publication. The piece was an ultra-short short that I was encouraged to submit by an APA colleague who is a published author. It was submitted to Shaherezade (I can never spell that right) and, 6 months on and after some prodding, I got a rejection letter back today. They said it was well written and had some good imagery, but didn't treat the subject sufficiently originally for them.

So some good with the bad!

And I'm starting up the requisite pile of rejection letters I need before publication! Only a few thousand to go now....

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There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

The facts I recite to encourage myself:

Octavia Butler's first novel wa rejected 18 times.

Joanna Russ's The Female Man and Samuel Delaney's Trouble on Triton each took five years to find a publisher.

And well done for sending the story out.

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Thanks for the encouragement. I have another, rather more serious submission, to send out once I have some more comments from APA members, and another one that's still with a publisher but its been with them for a year now and no word so is probably dead in water.

And I should probably go and write some more now!

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Nice work. Remember Heinlein's Rules:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

You've already got to Number 4, a good deal further than most aspiring writers ever do. Good luck with future submissions.

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Congratulations! I must admit to a small jonesing in my soul for my own pile of rejection slips - matched by a bigger pile of acceptances of course.

I talked to Patrick Nielson Hayden (sic - can't quite remember the spelling at the moment) about getting started as a new writer and he said he only had one piece of advice for new writers and that was to send your work to an agent and not a publisher. He said it is easier to get an agent than a publisher and once the agent is got it is easier to get published and you get better feedback and faster as publishers read agents submissions first. When I finish my great Irish SF novel I plan on taking his advice - then we can compare rejection slips.

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So how does one go about getting an agent then?????

The only new-ish author whose career I know well enough, Charlie Stross, had a number of short stories published before getting an agent, though it has to be said that his agent does seem to have done very well for him. But how do you get that agent ab nihilo?

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ah! I think that the assumption is that an agent's unsolicited piles are smaller than a publisher's. It is four years since this conversation but I think he basically said to send material to several agents and to say that you have done so and ideally to get a recommnedation from somebody on that agent's list already.

As I said though 4 years ago and we were talking in a pub. There was a 3rd person at the table and I can't remember who it was so you could ask Amanda if it was her as this was at the 2000 Foundation conference we went to together.

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You use the short story credits to get the agent.

Use the Writers' Handbook. Work out who agents for people not too dissimilar to you. Ask around at cons and ask the authors you admire who their agent is.

Then you send a *short* cv which lists your publications in pro magazines, one chapter of your novel and an outline of the rest of it.

Theresa Nielsen Haydn has very good advice on how to write the cover letter, but it boils down to, keep it brief be polite, address the agent by name, and remember that they have the power.

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Oddly, using short story credits to establish a track record in acquiring an agent was kind of the plan I envisaged, as was talking to authors of similar stuff to get a list of possible agents.

Thanks for the indicating that my evil plan is not as crazed as it might be!

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Don't go overboard.

Short stories don't pay. Aim to publish around four, then get down to the novel. Much as I admire the likes of Kelly Link and Ted Chiang, you can't put bread and butter on the table with their output.

Good models for the working writer are Jon Courtney Grimwood and Karen Traviss.

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I'm certainly not intending this as an alternative career based on one rejection letter! I have to see if I can publish anything (at least beyond the factual article I had in Astronomy Now about a year ago) first. And I'm still not convinced that I (a) have novel-shaped ideas yet or (b) have the stamina to produce something novel-shaped.

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Congratulations on sending it out! Let's hope the pile of rejections doesn't get too high.

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Someone asked Neil Gaiman for advice on getting literary agents, etc. and he forwarded the question to Teresa Neilsen Hayden. She replied with what seems to be some pretty sage advice and an in-depth list of links (including to some of her previous writings on the subject).

You can find it here.

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purplecthulhu

My first rejection letter!

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Useful info

December