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Rambles about publishing
Feb. 15th, 2024 11:12 amSo.........I thought I would take a break from writing/revising, but I found myself feeling so antsy that I decided to start revising Novel #4. (I've also run out of ARCs and books to read for the time being, sigh.)
Miraculously, I do have some ideas for how to revise the book now. Not ideas for major rewrites, but tweaks here and there to make the mystery more interesting and possibly make individual scenes more compelling.
But that's led me to feel sour, too.
Being a marginalized person, especially a multiply marginalized person, in traditional publishing often feels like not only are the barriers higher for you than others, but also, no one cares enough to mentor you to improve. You have to be twice as good as your peers, because if not, gatekeepers will just say "you're not good enough" and leave you to flounder on your own to figure out how to get better.
All of my beta readers loved Novel #4. My agent didn't point out any major problems with it. But I did not get a single bit of useful feedback from all the editors who rejected it. The "kindest" rejections were "I just didn't feel drawn into the story enough" or subjective reasons for rejecting. The worst were the ghosts and the form rejections. Only one editor even commented on the premise, which I thought was a fresh and compelling hook, but apparently editors didn't.
It just feels like I'm left to fumble in the dark and figure out how to edit my books perfectly myself before editors will take me seriously.
Miraculously, I do have some ideas for how to revise the book now. Not ideas for major rewrites, but tweaks here and there to make the mystery more interesting and possibly make individual scenes more compelling.
But that's led me to feel sour, too.
Being a marginalized person, especially a multiply marginalized person, in traditional publishing often feels like not only are the barriers higher for you than others, but also, no one cares enough to mentor you to improve. You have to be twice as good as your peers, because if not, gatekeepers will just say "you're not good enough" and leave you to flounder on your own to figure out how to get better.
All of my beta readers loved Novel #4. My agent didn't point out any major problems with it. But I did not get a single bit of useful feedback from all the editors who rejected it. The "kindest" rejections were "I just didn't feel drawn into the story enough" or subjective reasons for rejecting. The worst were the ghosts and the form rejections. Only one editor even commented on the premise, which I thought was a fresh and compelling hook, but apparently editors didn't.
It just feels like I'm left to fumble in the dark and figure out how to edit my books perfectly myself before editors will take me seriously.
