Write That Book Already!: The Tough Love You Need To Get Published Now (9 page)

The other solicited manuscript is by a mother of three who is just starting out on her career as a writer—not the likeliest scenario for bestsellerdom. But something about her query letter charmed you and you want to give it a shot. You are feeling grumpy because of your disappointment over the academic—you had really believed that that one might work—but you try to shake it off and settle into this new work.

You begin to relax as you read her cover letter, her brief, admittedly thin, yet charmingly honest bio. The one-paragraph synopsis is well constructed and to the point, as is the longer plot outline. She has even provided you with some comparison titles, and apparently has the ear of at least one well-known author who will provide a blurb.

But it is the writing that gets you. The first of the fifty pages your guidelines ask for draws you in instantly. Your office disappears as you go deep into this author’s world. You want to represent her. You will send the e-mail immediately, along with a few suggestions. You are already thinking of the right editor at the right house.

Lastly, you look through the manuscripts that were sent to you unsolicited. If they have a return envelope with postage, you make a note to your assistant to send them back with the usual form letter that directs the author to read and follow your submission guidelines. Those that have no return envelope you place unceremoniously in the recycling bin. Why should you have to spend your hard-earned money returning them?

DON’T TAKE REJECTION PERSONALLY

Prospective bestselling writer, are you getting the idea? What to you is a cherished work of art or impassioned cause is part of someone else’s workday. This imagined scenario is not intended to discourage you, but rather to get you out of yourself and into the shoes of those whom you must successfully engage—and who, in turn, must sell your work to others.

When you do get that manuscript returned in your self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with a form-letter rejection from either an agent or a publisher, you get to indulge in exactly twenty-four hours of feeling sorry for yourself, and then you have to get over it. Think about ways you can improve your manuscript or proposal, and do them. It’s no fun to get rejected, but it happens to everyone and you can’t let it keep you from working on your writing career.

AN EXAMPLE OF AN EFFECTIVE QUERY LETTER

Here’s an especially good query letter, written (and generously shared with us) by our friend, author and writing coach Leslie Levine:

Dear ______________ :

Do you save the wishbone? Do you pause before you blow out the candles? Does wishing make it so?

In
Wish It, Dream It, Do It: Turning What You Want into What Is Yours,
I will clearly, creatively, and gently show readers how to combine their dreams and wishes with practical strategies intended to help them achieve what they really want from life.

The person who follows her bliss doesn’t simply gaze at the stars or daydream about becoming a millionaire. This dream catcher
does
something about what’s missing in her life. And although she holds on to her dream like a hat on a cold and blustery day, she also engages in and embraces the hard, hard work that wishes and dreams require but rarely disclose. In other words, she will wish it, dream it, and, finally, do it.

In all 52 chapters—one for each week in the year—I will prescribe a three-part strategy that will help readers combine their inner resources with external sources of support, such as mentors, workshops, books, and friends and family. Each chapter will instruct readers to (1) ask, (2) experiment, and (3) affirm. For example, in the chapter “Listen to Your Quiet,” I will provide questions such as “What have I not been hearing?” and “Am I giving my dreams a voice that’s loud enough to hear?” Also, I will encourage readers to experiment with the what ifs, so that they can get a sense of what might happen if, indeed, they try on their dreams. In other words, I will show readers how to test themselves without worrying about failing or being judged. Each chapter will close with an affirmation—a show of support and a few words intended to coax readers toward taking the next step. Ultimately, readers will learn how to create and then live by their own affirmations.

I have thought about
Wish It, Dream It, Do It
ever since I began writing the manuscript for my second book
, Ice Cream for Breakfast: If You Follow All the Rules, You Miss Half the Fun
(Contemporary Books). Soon after I signed the contract I picked up the Wish It, Dream It, Do It affirmation in a gift shop. To this day it serves as a constant and rich source of inspiration. My dreams don’t always come true, but I am a firm believer in the power of the tenacious human spirit. And I am convinced that people can pursue and often achieve their dreams if they can access the tools and strategies that very often move them from “wishing” to “doing.”

My articles on topics ranging from home remodeling to parenting have appeared in
Woman’s Day Remodeling Ideas, Better Home and Gardens Remodeling Ideas
, and
The New York Times
. My first book,
Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home? Simple Advice for Settling In After Your Move
, was published by Dearborn. I am frequently quoted on relocation issues and have been featured in the
Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
,
Chicago Tribune
,
Parenting
magazine, and other publications. Also, I have been a featured guest on the Today Show, CBS This Morning, Fox News, and WMAR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Baltimore. I have also been a radio guest on several stations across the country. Subsequent to the publication of
Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home?
I served as the national spokesperson for ERA Real Estate. In addition, I speak on a variety of topics including change, relocation, pursuing dreams, and breaking the rules.

Contemporary Books recently bought the rights to
Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home?
The initial print run for
Ice Cream for Breakfast
was 20,000. Contemporary Books also has right of first refusal for
Wish It, Dream It, Do It
.

While I am sending this query to a few other agents, Danielle Egan-Miller, my editor at Contemporary, specifically recommended that I contact you. In addition to providing a proposal, I would be happy to send you a copy of
Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home?
and/or a set of galleys for
Ice Cream for Breakfast
.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I can be reached at ___________________________or via e-mail at ___________________________. I look forward to your response.

Best,
     Leslie Levine

True Stories of Repeated Rejection Followed by Great Success:

STEPHEN KING

“When I was sixteen, I pounded a spike into my bedroom wall and started spiking rejection slips (I’d write the name of the rejected story on each pink slip). The spike tore out of the wall four years later. I was home on semester break from college when it went. I counted, and there were over 150 rejection slips on it (which didn’t count the slips that came to my college dorm). After that I just piled them up. I sold my first story about eight months later.” Stephen, the authors would like to note, went on to rock-and-roll stardom as the rhythm guitarist for the Rock Bottom Remainders and has had some success as an author, too.

MEG WAITE CLAYTON:

“My first novel,
The Language of Light
, was rejected by pretty much every publisher in the country, sat in a drawer for years, then was revived by the praise of a very kind Bharati Mukherjee when I pulled it out of the drawer and brought it to Squaw Valley Community of Writers. I submitted it to the Bellwether Prize, for which it was chosen as a finalist (but did not win). My agent asked if she could submit it and sold it to the first editor she sent it to. Similarly,
The Wednesday Sisters
was rejected by ten publishers when it was represented by one agent, only to receive multiple offers after I stripped the book back to what it had been when I signed with the first agent, found a new agent, and revised in a way that made sense to me.”

CATHERINE BRADY

Author of
The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories
and (by the way) winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction: “For my first book of stories, I had a manuscript that I kept dithering with and retooling, but couldn’t sell. It was even a runner-up in a few contests, but no dice. I am a slow learner, and one day it dawned on me that the book needed to be a REAL collection—to contain stories that really worked together. (Prior to this, I’d just been tossing in whatever I had available.) I threw out several stories and wrote some new ones so that the book would have a strong focus on Irish American immigrant women, and many of the stories in this version were related. Writers often talk about getting rejected in one place and sending a book elsewhere, but at least in my case and to my huge surprise, a publisher that had rejected a novel I’d sent the year before decided to accept this book for publication. It was probably foolhardy for me even to have sent it to the same publisher, but it worked. You just can’t second guess or try to finesse this trying, unpredictable process.”

JOE QUIRK

“I am the Rejection King! I own 375 rejection letters. When I sent the first chapter of my first novel
The Ultimate Rush
to a publisher who will remain unnamed, I received my 371st form rejection, and scribbled across the bottom were the words, ‘Give it a rest, pal.’ A few months later, Molly Friedrich sold the book to William Morrow on the strength of that first chapter. It made the
Boston Globe
bestseller list, St. Martin’s bought the paperback rights for a quarter million, and Warner Brothers bought and then renewed the film option. Author Steve Kelly, writing for the
Richmond Review,
called it ‘One of the best opening sequences of any novel I have read.’”

ANDREW SEAN GREER

Author of
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
and
Story of a Marriage:
“My own story is that I read somewhere, back in my early twenties, that you had to amass two hundred rejection letters before you ever published anything. It was the kind of information that you hold on to tightly as an aspiring author, but which has really no helpful meaning to it. Of course my thought was: ‘Well let’s make that go as quickly as possible!’ So I wrote stories quickly, sent them out many at a time to dozens of magazines, and started a binder of rejection notes. I remember the
Atlantic
being particularly wonderful, from C. Michael Curtis. I even recall one from
Esquire
that was hand-written—it started to become important if they were hand-written, or completely standard. I think the meanest ones were bitter boilerplate: ‘Most of the stories we reject have either A. a mother in bright red lipstick; B. a miscarriage; C. a dream sequence; or D. all of the above’ and they would circle which one mine had (lipstick). And then one day I came home to my tiny apartment in Missoula, Montana to hear a voice on my answering machine: ‘Andrew, this is Richard Ford and I’m editing
Ploughshares
and loved your story, wondered if you would let us use it for the next edition. . . .’ How many rejection letters had I amassed over those two years? Almost exactly two hundred. No kidding. What scientific law can we take from this experience? Absolutely nothing. There’s only one rule: persevere. One rejection or two hundred, a good story will always be published.”

SUZANNE KAMATA

Author of
Losing Kei:
“I had high hopes for my first literary novel, a coming-of-age story about a mermaid-obsessed girl in Michigan who falls in love with a Gypsy. An early version was a finalist for an award for novels in progress, and I published a chapter as a short story in a literary magazine. I even signed with a literary agent. Unfortunately, I was so grateful to snag any agent at all, that I didn’t check her credentials. She ultimately referred me to a book doctor that, as it turned out, was under investigation for fraud. Fool that I was, I shelled out a thousand dollars. After I cut ties with the agent, I submitted my novel a few more times to small presses and big agents, got some useful feedback, then set the novel aside for awhile to work on something else. I wrote stories, essays, another novel (this one about an all girl rock band), publishing in literary journals and e-zines from time to time. Then, I wrote another novel,
Losing Kei
. This one was set in Japan, and concerned an expat mother trying to regain custody of her bicultural son. Shortly after a chapter appeared in a literary magazine, I received an e-mail from an agent. She wound up representing me and sold my novel to Leapfrog Press.”