Monday, August 4, 2014

Writing Day 16

I chose this bit of wisdom regarding rejections today because I feel it is something I need to remember as I ready myself to jump back into the fray - the wonderful world of editors and publishers and rejection letters.

Coming off a rejection for my most recent academic offering, it becomes imperative to remind myself that my writing does have worth. On the plus side, two of the three reviewers did say that while my piece was not quite academic enough for their use, it was a promising op/ed piece for a different venue. so, that's exactly what I did with it. I used it, along with some of the resources I discovered while writing it, as a new post for my academic blog. If you are interested, you can read it here.

Having digitally submitted my children's book to two publishers and getting my hard copies and queries ready to submit to three additional houses, I feel it is necessary to remind myself again that even if my book doesn't find a home with one of these publishers, there are more out there. I just have to keep looking. Now, an interesting thing about children's publishers is that they do not send rejection letters. If they are interested, they will respond to you within a given time frame - usually 3-4 months. If they are not interested, you will hear nothing from them at all. They will recycle your manuscript and move to the next one in their pile. There is an awful lot of waiting involved in publishing, but I'm not sure how I feel about submitting and not getting anything back. However, if you think about it, it's just like filling out job applications - submit them and keep your fingers crossed someone will call you.

In the writing class I took over the summer, we spent a good chunk of time talking about publishing, researching publishers, writing query letters, and working out the best way to present our work to editors. In the process, I learned a great deal about matching your work to publishers and querying with an eye toward not only each house's current catalog, but also their affiliates and partners. Getting published (especially the first time) is A LOT of work. It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

If you are looking at publishing, the best advice I can give you is be prepared to do your research. Get your hands on a copy of Writer's Market (you can get the previous year's volume at a deep discount which is fine because by the time the next one gets published many of the entries are already outdated or you can subscribe online for $5.99/month). Visit the publishers' websites, check their criteria, browse their catalogs, read their books, research their company, and decide which houses seem like a good fit for your work. Submit to a variety of publishers (make sure they accept simultaneous submissions [SS]) both large houses and small. Do not submit to publishers not accepting unsolicited submissions. Make sure you read their guidelines carefully AND follow them to the letter. Personally, I would not submit to a publisher who doesn't accept SS unless I felt strongly that they were the ones for me.  The publishing world changes quickly, so I don't see the value in paying for a subscription when I am going to have to do all this work either way.

At the end of the day, I write because I love to write. I will continue to write for the same reason. I'm not saying it wouldn't be wonderfully satisfying to see my work in print or to see it in the hands of readers who enjoy it as much as I do, but whether or not this happens, I will continue to write (and to look for homes for my work).

With all this being said, let's talk about the novel for a moment.

It is steadily coming along. I finished another section of Chapter 8 today. One more and I'll be ready to move on to Chapter 9 (and back to Verity's story again). While I did a lot of work today, I didn't get as much writing done as I would've liked - 592 words today. But before I beat myself up too much, I did get almost 600 words and really that's nothing to sneeze at. :)

Tomorrow, I will be talking about another aspect of writer's work beyond writing - self-marketing AKA building your writer platform, but until then. . .

Good Day and Good Writing to you all!


Today's Stats -

NIP - WTA - pages: 58; word count: 16121

No comments:

Post a Comment