My post last month, The Place Where Literary And Commercial Fiction Meet, generated just a couple of comments, but a ton of emails. In fact, it seems really odd that so many people would email but not post a comment. I asked someone about this and she said she didn’t want her agent or editor to see what she was saying. 
Anyway, today is a difficult day. I’ve come to accept that the new novel is going to be a trunk novel. This is really sad and unfortunate because we had at least two different editors at major publishers who wanted to make offers, but they were vetoed by the marketing department or someone higher up the food chain.
In the end, this is a tough decision to make because my agent and I both think this is a much better book than the ones I’ve already sold, but we don’t think it’s going to be a good fit in the current marketplace. The story isn’t what editors are looking for, especially with their jobs on the line.
And unfortunately, although there are editors left we could try, they’re not editors who could really shepherd the book through the publication process in a positive and effective manner. You need a really strong advocate for your book, someone who can defend it at every twist and turn, someone who will kick the marketing department in the butt when needed, someone who will fight for an extra $2,000 in advertising money to get your book advertised in the right places, etc.
Essentially we had reached the point of diminishing returns with our publication options. They were still places that could publish the book, and editors who might love the book, but would the end result be a career killer? Probably.
These things happen. All you can do is move onto the next manuscript and try again, applying the lessons you’ve learned…
…except I probably haven’t learned the right lessons because, if you refer back to The Place Where Literary And Commercial Fiction Meet, my new manuscript blurs those same lines.
I had an idea for a straight-up thriller and, from a career standpoint, I probably should have gone with that, but the idea just seemed so common and so “been there, done that.” I bet it would be an easier sale than the book I decided to dive into, though.
Maybe I’m a masochist or something, but the book I’m trying to work on right now just feels more like the type of book I’d like to read — and I think that should be your primary deciding factor with the limited time and resources we writers usually have.
So tonight I’ll be taking this manuscript down to the basement — where I don’t have a trunk, but I do have a closet full of old manuscripts — and maybe I’ll look at it again some day.
Actually, I know I will… I rarely let a manuscript languish down there too long. I hate the idea of all of that work going to waste. So this will see the light of day again, one way or another.
But for now, it’ll sit and it’ll wait. That’s the nature of the biz, after all.
If you enjoy what you’re writing, I say that’s what you should be working on.
Ah that’s kinda depressing, but at least you seem to have a good attitude towards it.
Well, it’s the nature of the business. I was just talking to an author who is much more established than I am and he shared a story with me that I had never heard before. About 10 years ago, he wrote a book that his agent — who is one of the BIGGEST agents in the game — thought was easily a “million dollar book.” She was super excited, something she rarely is, and she took it out to auction, convinced it was going to make her author rich and famous and push his career into the stratosphere. Six months later, every editor had passed. So here was a great author with an established career, and here was an agent who is one of the best in the business because she always finds “big books”, and they couldn’t sell it. These things happen. That’s why you write the next one and keep plugging away.