Traditional Frustration - Sour Grapes 7/30/2005 4:09:39 AM
To get into the club, I need to be in the club. Facing another rejection from a tradtional publisher for a professionally edited book, I feel frustrated that it seems traditional publishers will only look at established well-knowns who, even if they have put out self-admitted trash, will be slipped into the publishing schedule.
What is even worse is the wait - you would expect that if the rejection is inevitable solely because the author is unknown, the reply would be swiftly meeted out. But the wait is still six to eight weeks for a scribbled note from a gatekeeper saying "Sorry, not for us, we're too busy for you."
I decided to follow through and "check references" from my latest rejection. "There is already a book that we published about your topic" fired me up, since it seemed every day I scoured the inet, and every weekend I fumbled through new book stacks at the bookstores to be sure my idea hadn't been stolen (Actually more afraid some big author would put out some related story then I would be guilty of copyright infringement). So I found this book and it was nothing like mine - even the query letter showed the difference between the two books. (Oh, sorry, mine is not a REAL book - it will be one of those PODs).
So, unless by some miracle, when the last rejected query comes back , I will not endure three years of begging to break into the club with protracted rejection after protracted rejection (can I charge interest on SASE cost?), and go POD, and bear the prejudice from the bookstores that I am not a real author and we don't carry "those" kind of books.
Thanks for reading - More on "Convergence" to come in the near future.
