Multiple Updates

A series of developments occurred over the weekend.

The Nethereal partial manuscript submission I sent to Tor back in December resulted in a form rejection.

The agent I'd queried most recently replied today with identical results. I'll be sending out another query to a new agent tomorrow.

It's startling to look back at that December update and see that I was only on chapter ten of the latest Souldancer revision. I'm now on chapter 46 and expect to finish the latest draft of the book this week.

End transmission.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

An agent I queried asked for the first five pages of the Nethereal manuscript last week. The pages were rejected in a frank and highly professional manner. The gesture is highly appreciated.

I went into Heinlein phase five bracing myself to face criticism. I conditioned myself as best I could to take negative comments with an open mind, revise the book if they made sense and ignore them if they didn't. Funny thing: There really hasn't been any criticism to speak of. The most common replies I've gotten have been: A) nothing and B) form letters. The two or three personalized responses all amount to, "Your premise and execution are fine, but it's not what we're looking for."

The dearth of feedback is something I didn't anticipate. I have plans in place to deal with, "Your work is bad, and here's why." Instead I'm left grappling with, "Your project is OK. For someone else. But I don't know who it is."

On further reflection, I believe I'm facing the following difficulties:

It's impossible to sell a manuscript unless the buyer reads the whole thing. Not only can't you judge a book by its cover; you really can't judge it till you've read the last paragraph. Readers may have that luxury, but not people whose jobs depend on acquiring new titles. And yet...

Agents and editors don't have enough time to read every manuscript submitted to them. It's a fact of the busy world we live in: more so for literary agents and acquisitions editors, who receive thousands of submissions a year. These conditions force them into the paradox of judging something piecemeal that can only be fairly evaluated within the context of the whole.

Faced with this Joseph Heller reference, most professional writers advise researching agents and editors' tastes before querying them. A common strategy is to look up agents' recent deals to find out what kind of books they represent. Mining the acknowledgements pages of novels in the same style and genre as yours is often recommended as a good way to find like-minded agents and editors.

I've been following that advice for years, but...

I haven't found anything close enough to my work to identify an agent/editor with similar sensibilities. From one perspective, the fact that I can't find other books like mine is good. Agents and editors often say that they're looking for fresh material. On the other hand, it's bad because people usually stick to what's worked before and don't go too far beyond their established tastes. I know I do that. There are sound logical reasons for playing to one's strengths.

Frankly, I don't want to work with an agent, editor, or publisher who isn't excited about my book. Agents are salespeople (so are writers), and the best salesmen are genuinely passionate about the product. A project has no better friend than an editor who's willing to champion it to the publisher, and a lukewarm publisher is apt to bury a book at the end of the list (or drop it altogether).

The way I see it, I have two options:

1. the Jim Butcher method: which ain't gonna happen, if only because I have too little charm and too great a fear of jail to crash invitation only industry lunches.

2. the black hole: wherein I keep throwing message-laden bottles into the ocean hoping that just the right alignment of circumstances prompts an agent to request a sample based on my query letter, that the partial reading elicits a request for the full manuscript, that the MS convinces the agent to approach an acquisitions editor on my behalf, and that the editor agrees to take on the project.

I might be a timid eccentric, but I'm a very patient timid eccentric.

December Update

Just a bit of necessary blog maintenance:

-Agents queried: 4
-Replies to queries: 2
-Rejected queries: 2
-Form rejections: 2

Also, I've submitted a pitch/synopsis/first 40 pages to Tor. With any luck, my submission packet is in their slush pile as I write this sentence.

This week the agent hunt continues, as does my ongoing revision of Souldancer. As of this writing, I'm on chapter ten.

In closing, here is sage advice from John C. Wright.

Nethereal Final

I'm pleased to say that the final version of my Nethereal manuscript is done. The final draft is far leaner and smoother than the others, weighing in at 541 pages (compare that figure to 720 for the original). That's without deleting any chapters or scenes; just making smarter word choices and using more concise phrasing. The shift to third person variable perspective also helped to weed out excessive description and exposition while adding dialogue.

I don't plan on making any further changes unless a professional editor orders them, so the next step is to start querying agents. I'll keep everyone apprised of how my search goes.

Submission Update

I just heard back from Pyr, who have opted to pass on the Nethereal manuscript. I was hoping for a little feedback, but as mentioned on their submissions page they didn't have time to give details.

Still, the turnaround time of only six weeks for a slush pile submission is pretty impressive. I'd prepared myself to wait for months. Now I can safely shop the book around without fear of simultaneous submissions.

The latest revision has reached chapter 28. It shouldn't be long before the manuscript is ready to be sent out again. I'll keep you posted as always. 

First Novel Submission

After 18 months and three full revisions, I decided that it was finally time to market Nethereal. Following careful research, I chose to send my first submission to Pyr. They're a subsidiary of Prometheus Books who've got a pretty robust presence in the industry. Most importantly, many of the titles in their catalog come close to the tone and genre of my book. Even better, they accept unagented electronic submissions of the whole manuscript--not just a query or a sample.

We'll see what happens in the coming months. I can tell you that my search for an agent will continue in earnest.

Having submitted my manuscript is no excuse to slack off, which is why I'm glad that Nick Enlowe has agreed to work with me on polishing the narrative structure and general presentation of the book. As stated above, the text has been through several revisions; but the results have been clearer, tighter, and just plain better every time.

I keep putting myself through the wringer because I believe in this story. It took some convincing, especially after the somewhat ambiguous initial feedback. But the test readers (to whom I am deeply grateful) all report that basic plot and theme is solid. I can work with that, if nothing else, and I've got a feeling that my esteemed colleague's help will draw out a great deal more.

Short Story Submission Update

I submitted my short story to Title Goes Here: yesterday. Their submission guidelines page said that I'd receive an automatic reply from their system in short order, which occurred almost instantly. They further advised me that I could expect to hear from an editor when the story went in their pile. The stated response time for the second notice was up to two weeks, so I was pleasantly surprised to get a personalized message from the co-editor in chief later that same day.

The third and final notice I'll receive will of course be the rejection (or failing that, acceptance) letter. The magazine's web site claims that the final word may not come for 120 days. However, considering the target time to actual response ratio I've experienced in my correspondence with them so far, there's reason to hope for a much speedier resolution. I'll keep you in the loop.

Mick over at This Is a Music Thing enlisted my help with the labels on his posts, so I'm off to see what I can do. I'm open to advice from anyone who cares to give their two cents on this subject.

Title Goes Here

As promised, I have decided upon the next magazine to submit my story to. This time, the lucky recipient charged with poring over my derivative, pseudo-Lovecraftian scrawl is Title Goes Here.

I'll keep you updated on further developments.

From Bronze to Silver

Merrilee Faber was right when she said that Three-Lobed Burning Eye is prompt. They read and rejected my short story within two days of my submission, which has to be some kind of record. Even better, this time I got a personalized response instead of a form letter. 3LBE's extremely rapid reply has been duly recorded over at Duotrope.

Not only did I receive feedback this time, it was unequivocally positive. The editor said that the story was very well written. It's just not what they're looking for at the moment.

I should be able to start looking for another magazine to submit the story to on Wednesday.

Art and Additional Materials

Visual art seems to enjoy pride of first place among the aesthetic fields. One of the primary reasons for its universal appeal is probably its immediacy. Anyone can get the gist of a drawing or painting after even a cursory glimpse, but extracting the meat of a literary piece takes significantly more time and effort. Artists, therefore, seem to achieve recognition more easily than writers.

If you want a practical example, try finding a comic book publisher who's accepting unsolicited script submissions. Even bigger studios periodically have open calls for new artists, but unless a story is accompanied by finished pencils at least, good luck getting it in the door.

An interesting observation I made during my unsuccessful bid to launch a web comic is that, while many authors (myself included) openly admit that they can barely manage artwork equaling grade school notebook sketches, every artist I've ever spoken to judges his writing to be on par with his art.

Having been rebuffed by pencilers who already had stories to go along with their artwork, and thus no need for me, I resolved to abandon comics for the time being in order to focus on novels--an medium dedicated entirely to the written word...or so I thought, until I came upon a common clause included in many standard book contracts imposing upon the author the obligation of providing additional materials, including original art.

Since, as I stated, I can't draw, the obvious answer was to include no artwork in my book, other than the front and back cover, which are the publisher's problem. However, I soon discovered that the standard contract specifies that the inclusion of additional artwork is at the publisher's sole discretion. If I do get a book deal, the publisher can demand interior art. Now, publishers know very well that there's every chance a particular author can't draw or paint as well as he can write (a rare combination despite what many artists seem to think), so they add a clause stipulating that the author will be forced to pay for the services of a third-party artist (or even the publisher's own art department).

Usually the publisher will just go ahead and farm out the production of additional materials for the novel, including permissions and indexes (or even maps made by actual cartographers) in addition to original art. Then they'll charge a debit to the author's account which, like the advance, is recoupable via royalties.

Long story short, if you're an author with a book deal on the horizon, make sure to renegotiate these generally unfavorable provisions of most standard literary contracts.

Next Stop: Three-Lobed Burning Eye

After meticulous research--okay, I searched Duotrope, I've decided to resubmit my short story to Three-Lobed Burning Eye. To be honest, the Lovecraft reference put them over the top.

In keeping with Nick's experiment, I have stepped down from publications offering pro pay scales to semi-pro. Since my primary goal is to build a portfolio of published short stories, a few cents less per word is no problem.

According to Duotrope, their acceptance rate is about 2 and a half percent (pretty good odds while still having standards). They publish online irregularly over the year and print a trade anthology every other year.

I've got a little editing to do in order to meet their submission guidelines. After that, we wait 90 days and see...

The First of Many

I reached an inevitable, yet no less important, milestone in my literary career yesterday. After electronically submitting a short story to Shock Totem slightly over a month ago, I have finally received my first ever rejection letter.

As far as I'm concerned, this response was welcome news, primarily because the magazine responded at all (sometimes they don't). The swiftness of the reply, which was less than half the maximum, was impressive. Even more impressive is the fact that Shock Totem is currently on summer break. So not only did they reply faster than normal, they did it with a diminished editorial staff. All told, I was extremely satisfied with my first rejection experience.

I'm not marking this one as a loss. It's a bronze medal. The story's going back out as soon as I find another magazine with the right submission guidelines. Just four more rejections and I can submit it to The Rejected Quarterly.