Rejections

I submitted Boundless, my memoir, to a handful of literary agents and small publishers. I spent quite a while looking though QueryTracker to find agents who could possibly be interested in it. I have worked on this book for years, stressing over the structure so much that I rewrote it three or four times. Sending it out to agents was like handing over my baby to a stranger. They say a writing a memoir is like standing naked in public and the idea that anyone will read it is partly terrifying. At the same time, I felt relief. It was over and in someone else’s hands. It gave me permission to start a new project. I am a one project at a time kind of writer apparently. I obsess over whatever my current project is and I can’t think of anything else.

The first few rejections have come trailing in. I thought I would feel dejected or unappreciated, but I didn’t. As I read my first rejection, I was reminded of reading Stephen King’s book On Writing. He took his rejections and pushed them on a nail by his desk so he could see them. I can’t remember how many he got before he found someone who wanted to publish his stuff, but it was a lot. The rejections gave him motivation to keep going. I felt the same way.

The rejection emails I got from literary agents were respectful and encouraging. They said things like, I love this idea, but it’s not for me. It was vague enough that I knew it was probably copy and pasted and used over and over again. But that didn’t bother me. Literary agents have to reject so many queries these days. I would copy and paste too. Their courtesy felt good. They liked it enough to respond.

I know this book will find it’s place. I know it could be hard to sell to the masses. I have been listening to podcasts like Publishing Rodeo and Print Run which have been giving me an idea of what to expect. I expected silence and got rejections and that was great. One rejection email told me that they need a larger audience in order to publish a memoir like this. They suggested I take a year to build my audience and then come back, or just go to a small publisher. In my busy time of life with two young kids and part-time work, I have no time or, frankly, mental capacity, to build an audience. That is another reason I stopped going down the self-publishing route. Also, my future books will be nothing like this memoir, so an audience based on that seems pointless.

My goal with this book is to get it out to all the other young mothers, especially Latter-day Saint and Christian mothers, who need permission to take care of themselves. I don’t think this book needs a big-time publisher, so I have started reaching out to smaller presses. I know small presses might not give me what I want with marketing, but I will cross that bridge when I get there. I have to understand my limits and work with what I have.

Getting rejection emails makes me feel like a real writer. It is a rite of passage that everyone has to go through, some more than others. It gives me great satisfaction to know I am on the path towards a published book, even when that path is not immediately clear.