Wanna read a positive rejection – sob, sigh!
My agent just got the following response from Allen & Unwin I read the sample chapter over lunch. It’s clear that Tahlia has a good handle on action and pace, and I’m tempted to ask for the whole manuscript. But as we’ve got a number of similar titles in the pipeline, I think it’s best at this stage for me to decline, as I don’t feel confident, in such a crowded fantasy market, that we could successfully publish this novel in addition to the others. I’m sorry! I’m sure you will find a good home for it and wish you and Tahlia well. That’s the nicest rejection I’ve ever had. What do you think?
Submission news & are demons finished?
My agent has finally sent email proposals to contacts at Allen & Unwin, HarperCollins and a letter submission to Harlequin Teen in New York . In the email telling me this, Debbie said, ‘Harlequin Teen looks like as good a possibility as any. It is very tough at the moment and demon stories seem to be out of fashion.’ Out of fashion! Sheesh, what a reason to be rejected. I replied to this by saying .. ‘It might be good to point out, if anyone gives you the chance, that the demons in my story are not based on a western idea of demons with heaven & hell & angel mythology, as other demon stories are. My demons are based on the eastern view of demons as a metaphor for negative emotions. To a reader, the world in the book looks quite different to the world in other demon books.’ Will any of the publishers get so far…
News
I spoke to my agent yesterday. She’s read the re-edited version of Lethal Inheritance and she loves it as much as she did the first time she read it. She noticed the new beginning but couldn’t see what else I’d changed in the ms. That’s because the main changes were in the quality of the writing, not in the big structural elements. I told her that basically, it’s just much better written. Specifically More skill in showing not telling – a lot of subtle changes here that add a lot to the immediacy of the writing.. More clarity in the explanation of how the elements of the world fit together More clarity in the nature of the energy exchange between Nick and Ariel A slower & more interesting development in Nick and Ariel’s relationship She was a little concerned that it’s 97,000 words long, thinking that publishers might be reticent…
The query letter
I rewrote my blurb and query letter maybe twenty times, because without a good one, no matter how good your book is, no one will want to look at it.
Searching for a publisher – the next step
My agent has sent an email proposal for my book to Macmillan Australia, Text publishing, Macmillan in the UK and Simon & Schuster and Walden Media in the USA. The news we want to hear is that one of them wants to read the ms, but there will inevitably be rejections.
A nice surprise
A post about ‘Lethal Inheritance’ on the book blog ‘Caught Between the Pages.’
Step one achieved
Step one achieved. I have an agent.