REFLECTIONS ON GETTING MY SECOND REJECTION
My agent called to say that we got rejection # 2 re my submitted memoir which means two down and two to go. I suppose I could leave off right here and say no more but as I am, among other things, a newly self recognized official author, I have no choice but to reflect on some of my thoughts and feelings.
First of all the timing is interesting to me. The first rejection came during the middle of the second week. This one came in the middle of the third week. I initially thought I might get an answer in a few days or it might take months. Who knew?
Second - the least wished for publisher was the first to reject me {well not exactly me, they don't know me, and not exactly my book, as I will explain in a moment}. The next to last favored publisher was the second to reject me. This makes me feel hopeful.
Third - both publisher editors sent personalized notes to my agent both of which are equally puzzling. The first rejection note indicated that she liked the very interesting story but was sorry to say that she felt the company might have a hard time making it work. {She seems to be talking about some issue in marketing.}
The second rejection was even more puzzling. The editor wrote that it is a very interesting story - compelling in fact - and that the author (me) has a good background but since she was not sure how to present it {position? market it?} and since she didn't " love it enough to take a chance" she would pass. {Similar and equal or similar but different responses? Hard to know exactly. Wish they both could have been more concrete and less vague.}
Interesting, compelling, good background sounds good to me. Reading between the lines, the second editor clearly liked it but was skittish about taking a shot on it. So, it would seem to me wise to distribute it to her staff and perhaps better 20 or so readers at random and let them give her feedback. Pipe dreams That is too sensible.
Oh yes - I forgot to mention that being throughly aware of the market in addiction I sent an 85 page marketing plan which included numerous web site addresses for potential buyers including conventions, associations, libraries, schools, and so on.
So I am tantalizingly close to being contracted but not quite close enough. So apparently this thing is like going onto a dating web site and listing what I think are my strong points.Once done the matter is out of my hands. Someone has to "fall in love" with my work.
I know I can't force someone to love me or my work. No one can. But I do know that my 11 year psychoanalysis has left me with a feeling of supreme confidence. I know what I have and I know what I have accomplished. I know the market in substance abuse and know that it is wide spread.
In this connection, let me give you all an interesting observsation.
Since the James Frey flap I have noticed that on Amazon under his title: A million Little Pieces there have been an additional 1700 plus self -appointed interviewers commenting on his book. Some hate it, many love it. This is an significant sample of people strongly suggestive of wide spread interest in getting information - both entertaining and factual - about drug addiction and rehabilitation.
Given the fact that my story is an absolutely factual account {and a psychological thriller} of what went on behind the walls of an innovative therapeutic community - Odyssey House - in the sixties relevant today - I would bet there is a market that is hungry for the truth of the matter.
I would be most interested to know your opinions about this. In my way of thinking half the people in the world are addicted to some substance or other, and the other half are trying to get off.
As far as the rejections are concerned, they don't really seem so terrible - in fact they are encouraging. I will change my mind if the next two responses are similar to the first two. If so then my agent and I will have to try and figure out if there is something we can do to increase our chances of getting a contract.
As for now - my conclusion is that if you have a good story that is well written that has a market sooner or later some editor is likely to resonate to it.
And like meeting a mate, or getting a job, or spending time with anyone - frankly at this point in my life if my heart isn't in what I am doing I would rather not participate. Similarly if a publisher is not enthralled and captivated with my work I would rather them hold off. So I am prepared to wait until someone really feels about my work the way I feel about my work. Isn't this whole endeavor of writing, editing, submitting the work to a potential publisher and their resonating or rejecting it intimately connected with what most of us refer to as love?
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Carol Roach
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Comments: 24
I don't know that people are buying Frey's book with the mindset you mention. I think they are looking for hope. This is what I got from those I saw on Oprah who had read it, and the people I know personally.
Are there really only four potential publishers for your work? That alone would scare me, althought I guess there aren't many more real options for what I write either. Shoot, the novel I have finished doesn't fit any genre, so I am going to have a really tough time when I get my butt in gear and market it.
Aileen - THis is the first four we have tried. There are many alternatives. I think your idea about how to position it makes sense. I think that the next two are most resonant with the psychology of my story than was the first two so I am cautiously optimistic.
Without knowing your book or field of expertise or the publishers contacted, but from a lifetime spent in advertising and promotion (much of it for motion picture and fine art sales), I believe you are being told, in a nice way, "We don't think there is a large enough market to convince us we'd recoup the costs of publishing, advertising and promotion." An eighty-five page marketing plan sounds impressive, but of thos contacts, do you have a way to estimate the number of people who may be willing to lay out the money to buy the book? Would it be a "reference work" someone in the field would find useful in their day to day activites? The publishers may be thinking, "How relevent is something that happened in the sixties to therapy today? Or, "This is a good story, well written, but how many people outside of substance abuse pros, are likely to choose it as a recreational read?"
It's pretty much a numbers game for a trade publisher. Of course, you could call Oprah.
• This is the first book that objectively evaluates the nature of and vicissitudes of a therapeutic community with an exclusive population of
substance abusers;
•This is the first book that views the subject matter from a combined objective and subjective perspective;
•This is the first book to explore in breadth and depth the hypothesis that substance abuse is a symptom of the core problem of basic distrust and exploring the derived practical implications for evaluating effective versus ineffective treatment outcomes.
•This book clearly points out the complex psychodynamics and practical politics associated with basic trust and basic distrust and the related vicissitudes both undergo in the treatment process;
•While similar to R.D. Laing's Politics of Experience, it extends it by applying Laing's theoretical psychology to an actual flesh and blood situation;
•This book gets below the surface symptoms to core issues and outlines effective and ineffective ways of working with the material.
Anticipated Audiences for this Book
•This book will appeal to those people who are interested in understanding the nature of cults and quasi religious organizations as to what motivates their adherents to be both attracted to, and over-staying once the 'craziness' of the leader and like minded associates has been experienced.
•This book will appeal to those professionals and paraprofessionals who are directly or tangentially associated with substance abuse, heroin addiction, mental health, and rehabilitation including social workers, and psychotherapists.
•This book may also appeal to those people who enjoy a psychological thriller probing the unfolding complexity of conflicts generated in the author, in a diverse group of his associates, and in the social system - all influenced by cultural variables and their multifaceted interrelationships.
•This book will appeal to idealists who are searching for a way to maintain their ideals in the face of adversarial practical power politics; to people in despair who are looking for a way to understand what causes their plight and successful ways of mastering their difficulties; and to those who wish to attain a state of meaningful connectedness with themselves and others.
•This book will appeal to workers who have to cope in organizations that are run by authoritarian managers particularly college graduates just starting out.
•This book will probably appeal to a wide audience who sees strong parallels between the microcosm of the Odyssey atmosphere and the macrocosm of the dark side of the Nixon presidency of the sixties and the phenomenon of 'Enronitus' and the breakdown of moral authority in the leadership of the Catholic church in the present as a failure to live up to their stated ideals of basic trust.
•This book will no doubt appeal to those persons interested in the rarely discussed topic of male sexual harassment in treatment settings and in the workplace.
•Dramatic events described in this book are viable motion picture material.
This book will appeal to all who want to read a psychological thriller.
Here are my observations as an outsider looking in on the subject of "substance abuse" but as a published writer with a reasonable number of credits considering the amount of time I've been able to put into this pleasant avocation. Your comments are eriudite, written in language that professionals in the field may understand and respond to, but to someone not in that field the vocabulary and syntax are dense and almost pedantic. I don't know if your book is written in the same style - it may not be. Unless they are reading to learn, most folks respond to, and understand, anecdotes and stories, particularly those about people and situations they can relate to, even though the subject is unfamiliar. Example: The ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL series which drew huge numbers readers into a rather obscure subject: rural veterinary medicine (in another country, yet). Many more people have been touched in some way by "substance abuse" than by bovine mastitis, but in the process of reading Herriot's compelling writing they became "educated" about things they may never have thought interesting. I'm assuming that one of the reasons you've written your book is to raise general awareness about the challenges and treatments in your field of expertise. Unless you are targeting just professionals in your field, the "approach" is critical. One of the best books on writing, including a chapter (Science and Technology) on how to make obscure subjects understandable and interesting to readers outside the field is William Zinsser's ON WRITING WELL. If your book does not find a "home" as written, you might want to consider an "anecdotal" rewrite (assuming this isn't how it's written now). With eleven years "on the couch" three times a week, you have the kind of stick-to-it patience to undertake almost anything!
As to the nine Anticipated Audiences, the operational word here, as in any product, is: ANTICPATED. Only the marketplace will say if your suppositions are true. If the two publishers who have declined were as convinced as you are, you'd have a contract in hand, and they'd be happily contemplating big increases in their bank account.
I wish you and your agent great success. When the book comes out, put me down for the first autographed copy!
The story is both entertaining, highly readable, and chock full of valuable information.The content is largely a verbatim account of my day to day experiences at Odyssey House covering a period of 17 months in my journal. It is fresh, passionate, and intense. My agent had me add dialogue and flesh out some of the characters. I will look for Zinsser's book. Thank you for your support and helpful advice. P.S. I have been told by a number of readers that my account is a page turner. A director of plays has sent my manuscript to Paramount pictures convinced it is a sure bet to be a movie. {In my fantasy life I have Meryl Streep playing the mad/genius psychiatrist/lawyer who was my boss at Odyssey. I am stuck on a thirty year old male actor who will play me.
Do you have a personal website? If not, consider putting one up and post your first chapter as a Free Read. Add: If you would like to be notified when the book is available for purchase please sign the Guestbook and leave a comment.
Then, email the web link to all the people on your eighty five page marketing plan. Include a few compelling sentences you think will grab readers by the throat and invite them to the Free Read.
Google "libraries by state" and send the link to each library, too. There are thousands of librarians reachable by email. If you don't know the easy way to create a copy / paste email contact list and how to send to multiple recipients as if each is the sole receiver, let me know.
When you start getting sign-ins, comments and email addresses, pass them on to your agent, who will let the potential publishers know there is a market hungry for your book. Page turner raves could be the key to a contract and a fat advance!
I very much appreciate your sage advice.
One other question I dod have a web site :
gibbsonline.com. Does it make since to put this book material on this site or make an entirely new site?
In my opinion, a possible publisher would be impressed with your promotional accumen, but I'd ask your agent. I'd opt for a new web address more likely to identify the purpose of the website. Just for fun, I did a domain name search for what I'd consider if I were in your shoes. readfree.com and all the good permutations like that are gone. Surprisingly: readchapterone.com is still available. You can buy it (or anything you like better that isn't taken) from www.godaddy.com for $6.95. They also give you a free three page website. Once you've listed all the great meta tags (like substance abuse, smack, psychological thriller, etc.) you think search engine web crawlers will look for Go Daddy will submit it to hundreds of search engines, four times a year, for $29.95. Starting from scratch, following the suggestions in Go Daddy's huge (about 70 page) Traffic Blazer help section, my www.limerickcontests.com has links on page one of all the major search engines when one types in: limerick contests.