It even has a title: "Ellie Grange and the Mythical Space Diamond" :) Also known as asexual, female Indiana Jones in space.
With this one I want to try the more traditional route first, I think. I'm going to sub it to agents to see if I can get a bite. I have just bought a new copy of The Writers and Artists Yearbook, which should be dropping through the door today if Amazon are on form. I can get on with all the cover letters while the book is polished :)
I also follow several agents online who I have my eye on. They will be my first port of call once it's ready, but I will have the highlighter and page tags out for going through the book when it arrives.
I cannot believe that some people require hard copy submissions still. Whatever happened to the paperless office? It's 2016 people!
I was looking at publishers who don't need agents too, and there was one (who shall remain nameless) who wanted the whole novel, double spaced, single sided - that's like a forest all by itself, and they might not even read it! Think of the trees!
Then there was another one that went on about how perfectly the novel had to be edited before they would even look at it and basically how the author had to do all the work once it was published. Made me wonder what the publisher was actually for other than taking a huge percentage of sales profit. I know in the modern set-up the author has to do lots of work in the marketing, but this sub page made me think the publisher did nothing. I'm sure that's not the actual case, but they managed to make it sound that way :) Not very inviting.
I haven't tried the traditional route for years (except once last year), because, frankly, it can be kind of soul destroying. Last time one of the rejections had clearly been photocopied so many times it was virtually unreadable - now that really makes a person feel wanted. That's if you even get a reply at all. It can be like shouting into a void. I mean, how hard is it just to send an email saying thanks, but no thanks?
What made me want to try again was actually another rejection. Ironic, I know! I subbed to one of the agents I follow online last year, on the off chance, and the rejection that came back was lovely. It basically said thank you, you can write, but the particular book's just not for me. It was short and to the point, it said no, but didn't crush the spirit, in fact it lifted it. I will be forever grateful for that rejection. Now if only I can send her a book she will be interested in :).
JKR was rejected lots - I refuse to be disheartened ;)
This entry was originally posted at http://beren-writes.dreamwidth.org/347655.html.