Getting Published - 9. Waiting for Publication (Part 2)

Last week, in Waiting for Publication (Part 1), we were interrupted by a phone call that may or may not have been from your literary agent and which may or may not change your life…. The story continues.

It turns out the call is from your agent. But it’s good news and bad news. The five publishers she sent your manuscirpt to all loved it, she tells you. They all gave such lovely feedback. “That writer can really write.” “Some lyrical passage of prose.” “I laughed, I cried. It was beautiful.” And all these from those mythical names that you see on your bookshelf - Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins… These giants of the book world loved your book!

But.

“But it’s just not for us.” “But we’re not looking for rural romances right now.” “But the main character isn’t quite convincing enough.”

You’ll do anything, you say. You’ll fix it. You’ll make the main character convincing. You’ll change the Dorset farmyard location to New York. Whatever it takes. You’re so close!

But a but is a but.

Your agent resolves to send it out to five more publishers. “They all say they are confident that you will be published and they will live to regret the day they turned you away.”

So you go back to your nail-biting and waiting. They’ll regret it, you think. Yes, they will. You are suddenly Eliza Dolittle marching around your living room imagining all manner of doom for those fools who rejected you. “Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins, just you wait, I’ll be published and famous one day!”

I know a number of writers who have reached this stage and not got any further. Most put aside the dream of being a novelist and pursue writing in some other way - through poetry or writing creatively for pure pleasure or working on short stories. One writer has reached this stage with five different novels. And he has re-worked each one several times and they’ve submitted them to further rounds of publishers a year after the initial failed stage. Still nothing. And still he perseveres. I think he is on novel number seven now. And it’s about fifteen years on from the day he first started on novel number one.

I remember those phone conversatons with my agent. I remember standing at the window with the phone to my ear and feeling an icy chill creep all over me. I had come so far and now, we had received some beautifully generous let-downs from a number of publishers. How could this be happening? Things had gone so well. I couldn’t believe that I had come so close and it could all just fizzle out.

In my case, I had panicked before the last few answers had come back. Hodder & Stoughton was among them. And they offered me a contract.

There is something mad and tragic about being a writer sometimes, I think. Writer/ blogger Mark Pettus described it as being like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, waiting for the bridegroom who will never come amid the cobwebs and mouldering wedding cake. For me, my “prince” did come and saved me from being a mad old maid and I shall forever be grateful.

If you are a writer and you’d like to share your story of waiting for publication - whether your experiences have been good, bad or ugly - please add a comment or email me. I’d love to hear from you.