To Traditionally or Self-Publish – THAT is the Question
Category : Publishing Advice
Myth #1 (cont’d): If a publisher offers me a contract, then I know I’m good enough to be published.
NEWS FLASH #2: That editor you just submitted to has a boss, and that boss (aka their Senior Editor or Editor in Chief) has a production schedule—with slots they’re looking to fill based on marketing trends or previous books they’ve already contracted. These schedules can sometimes stretch over the next year or more, even though, the reality is, they’re playing a very high stakes game of lotto.
Yes, publishers have insider information—charts, graphs, Excel spreadsheets filled with figures to compare against the latest keywords—but, unless they’ve employed a team of psychics, they don’t have any more clue what’s going to be the next bestseller than you do. No joke!
If your book is rejected it may have nothing to do with the quality of the writing. It could be that you wrote a rock star romance and the editor just contracted six—boom, those spots are taken. It could be that an email came down from the Marketing Department and, based on their analysis, paranormal shifters are no longer selling enough to justify the cost of production.
Regardless of the reasons, the editor is going to skim through your synopsis, forward it to their assistant and ask that they send you a rejection form letter. They are not going to get into the specifics because they have two thousand queries waiting in their inbox and, quite frankly, they don’t have the time…nor do they want to tip you off on what may or may not be coming.
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No author should assume a rejection letter automatically means thousands of readers wouldn’t love to gobble up your book. In fact, just the opposite could be true. What happens at one publisher generally happens at another. They all decide the rock star romance market has been overly saturated and quit publishing those books. Ahem, if you ask us, that sounds like the perfect chance to strike.
NEXT – Myths #2-4