It’s Not A ‘Publishing Journey’ But That’s The Nicest Term We Can Come Up With

We talk about the “Publishing Journey” because it would be too awful to call it what it is.

Hard Slog.

Impossible Mission.

Death March.

Do Everything Right, See If the Universe Cares

Sorry, even if you follow all the querying and pitching advice on all the FWA Blogs and everywhere else, you still face an uphill battle.

The most important thing is to produce a high-quality manuscript, so you hired an expensive editor. Also important is to research agents and publishers, so you did that and sent dozens of targeted queries. You were patient and professional, and the only thing coming back to you through the internet is the sound of crickets.

At this point, you may want to go back and examine your manuscript, query strategy and the content of your emails. But they may be fine.

All you can do is keep plugging away. If your book is good, you will find a publishing home for it.

But Enough About You

Let’s talk about me. Here’s my publishing “journey.” I’ll tell you the ending now, so you’re not weeping before you get there.

I sold my first novel to the largest American non-Big Five publisher on a contract that included two sequels, and they’ve all been published. OK. Now, here’s how I got there.

My query spreadsheet is 167 entries long, covering twenty-seven months.

There are three possible outcomes of a query:

1. Rejection
2. Request for more pages, usually the full manuscript
3. No answer at all

Most of my queries had outcome number three. Of those that were answered, the vast majority were outcome number one. And they took months to come in, sometimes over a year.

But I had some successes. Thirteen people asked to read the full manuscript. Woo Hoo!

All of them rejected it in the end. Except three.

The first was query number 46.

An agent from a major New York City agency offered me representation and I accepted. We tweaked the manuscript for a year. Yes, a year. She pitched it to a few major publishers and got polite rejections. She said she’d send it to more publishers, but then changed her mind and refused to do so unless I made a major change we had never talked about. I was not willing to do that.

So, I fired her.

You Did WHAT???

Yeah. Trust was broken. As a newbie, unpublished author, I fired my top-tier agent.

So, although I’m not giving legal advice here, as an author I recommend having a good escape clause in any agent contract you sign. I’m also not advising you to fire your agent unless you really have to.

Meanwhile, back at Square One, I started querying agents again, and added direct queries to publishers. (Some publishers require writers to have an agent, others don’t.)

Then came number 101.

Finding Ms. Right, With Help from Mr. Almost Right

Number 101, a publisher, answered my query in exactly fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes! I sent the email, walked my dog, came back, and there was her request for a full.

I am willing to bet that’s a World Record.

But…

(You knew there would be a “but” because I told you my query spreadsheet is 167 entries long and this was only number 101.)

…she didn’t have time to read it during the initial six-week period she specified. Or the next one. Or the one after that.

She didn’t have time to read it for ten months.

I could have had a baby.

Instead, I sent her polite, professional reminders every couple of months and kept querying, which is how I got to 167.

And 101 might never have read the manuscript if I hadn’t gotten help from number 126, a small publishing house.

They wanted my book. So, I sent one more email to 101 to let her know. That’s what it took for her to make time to read it. Within a week, while poor 126 was waiting, 101 offered me the three-book deal.

And by the way, I never made the change the agent wanted. She told me to eliminate my female lead, who is now one of the most beloved characters in the series.

But Enough About Me

It’s important to note that my “journey” was not so bad by industry standards. Many people take far longer to achieve success, with far more ups and especially downs. Some have it easier, too. And of course, some projects never get published.

Traditional publishing is not for the faint-of-heart. If you have the commitment to learn the craft, the passion to write the manuscript, the patience to go through the editing process, and the work ethic and thick skin to crank out hundreds of queries, you must be prepared to persevere through the delays, setbacks, and rejections.

If you can do all that, your “journey” may be a Hard Slog, but it won’t necessarily be an Impossible Mission or a Death March, just a disheartening, soul-crushing, ego-destroying, years-of-your-life-eating pain in the #@$%.