Episode 16: What you need to remember about rejection in the publishing industry
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Danikka: Hey there, welcome to the Snailed It podcast with Danikka and Erin, brought to you by Authors Own Publishing.
Erin: Hi everyone, welcome back to the Snailed It podcast with Danikka and Erin. Today we are talking things that you need to remember about rejection in the publishing industry.
Danikka: Yes, because we were originally going to do a different episode and then we kind of decided that we weren't vibing with that topic anyway and probably if we weren't vibing you guys definitely aren't going to vibe with it. But then also, it's been in the back of my mind for a while, it's something I get quite passionate about and we all apparently, I've had a few messages recently where people were like, we love it when you go on a rant. So I was like, okay, cool, I can do more of that.
Erin: Let’s go
Danikka: And Kristie talked about it when we did the episode with her where, you know, when she was submitting A Queen's Glory to writing competitions and she got that quite harsh feedback on A Queen's Glory and then, you know, submitted it to Mullabugger Books afterwards and got, you know, the complete opposite feedback that they absolutely loved it. And then I, you know, you see it all the time on reels, it's a little bit clickbaity sometimes but not always. It's like, you know, I, you know, got however many rejections and, you know, then I landed this and this is how I did it.
And then I saw one this morning that was a bit more specific. It was, you know, I got rejected by this agent because my prose was too flowery and, you know, was using too much, I can't remember what she said, but it was like my language was too flowery and basically they just didn't like my concept. But then, you know, I decided to back myself and didn't change anything, rejected all their feedback, kept querying and then a few agents in the country and now I have a publishing deal with HarperCollins.
Erin: Which is incredible
Danikka: So, absolutely incredible.
Erin: And did they take them on because of all of the things that the other person didn't like?
Danikka: Well, I don't know for sure because I didn't read the caption, it was just like I was scrolling through reels and it was like text on the reel. But I do know that they would have taken, like, she didn't change anything, like she made a point of saying she didn't change anything. So, like, they obviously liked what she had as it was without that feedback, without changing anything with that feedback from the previous agent and the agent that she got would have taken her on with that. There would have been some tweaking, like there's always tweaking when you get taken on by an agent. But yeah, so obviously whatever she had when she stuck true to what she, that was like what got her the deal. Like it's kind of implied, I feel like, in what she was saying was that she didn't take that negative feedback, she backed herself and stuck with what was true to what was hers. And then
Erin: And then
Danikka: And that's what got her in. And it got me thinking a lot about rejection in the publishing industry. And, like, you and I have been feeling this a lot, like we've been dealing with imposter syndrome quite heavily this year, we've both had a bit of burnout. And one of the podcast episodes we've got coming up in, like, our lineup that we have been meaning to talk about is, like, dealing with burnout and creative hobbies that you can kind of and on, like, kind of true form, I suppose we've been pushing it back in the list of recordings, probably because it is a bit too close to home at the moment.
Erin: Little bit too close, yeah
Danikka: But I feel like the rejection one is good, because I've seen this kind of message around a lot. And maybe it's because, like, some windows, because I don't really follow trad publishing a lot, because I work with indies. So it's not like something that I, and, like, I stopped doing for a while as part of my services when I was just working as an editor before I started Authors Own. I was doing, like, query audits and helping authors put together their query packages. So I did follow a bit more closely when agents were opening and closing their query windows.
Erin: Oh, yep yep yep
Danikka: But maybe it's that time of year where there's maybe been some windows opening and closing, and there's been some more rejection letters sent out or something like that. Because I've seen kind of that thread of rejection floating around a lot, a bit of, like, lacking of confidence, that kind of thing, floating around a bit more. So I just thought it was a good time of year for this episode to go out, because I wanted to just kind of bring a bit of perspective into that, like, rejection space and that, like, idea of what makes your voice as an author yours. Because also, it's quite relevant, because I'm in the process of trying to, like, translate my methods as an editor onto our new editor on the team, Henry.
And, like, he has his methods as an editor. And, like, we're kind of, like, talking about what is going to be, like, the Authors Own method moving forward. Because I've always been quite passionate about, you know, if I'm the developmental editor, I want to be the close editor, because I know your voice really well, and that's what translates. And that's what's been quite difficult for me this year, and part of, like, my, like, imposter syndrome, and my, like, how am I going to continue this? Because, like, I can't do the method that has, you know, I, like, just physically don't have the capacity. And so how can I make this true and authentic experience of, like, what I have said is the Authors Own experience real for the authors as I pass them on from a dev edit with me to a close edit with Henry.
And the author who's been the first one to kind of have that experience between me and Henry, she did say, you know, when she was going through it, she was, like, you know, what does make this my writing anymore when, you know, it's going through the close edit stage? Because there's just, like, a bit of, like, a busy period where, you know, the dev edit had been quite not as heavy a dev edit. Like, her book would have been really high quality. So she hadn't had to do a lot of changes. And then most of the changes were coming through with the close edits. And so I hadn't prepared her quite for that level of change. So there's a bit of, like, emotional support kind of happening there. And it just kind of led me to think about a lot about, like, the subjectiveness of the publishing industry as a whole.
Erin: And art, generally
Danikka: And art as a whole, like, and, like, what is your role as an editor? And what are your agent's roles? What are publishers' roles? What is your role as an author? And so I just wanted to, like, kind of just bring some perspective to the overall, like, what is a rejection in the publishing industry. I guess I'm going on a bit of a tangent. But people enjoy it when I do this, apparently. So I'm just doing the thing.
Erin: Well, and this is, it was, I feel like this is quite a broad topic as well. I don't think this was ever going to stay in one lane.
Danikka: No, not at all
Erin: Because it encompasses a lot of things.
Danikka: Yeah, yeah.
Erin: And when do we ever stay in a single lane, even when we intend to?
Danikka: So yeah, yeah. Because I think when you when you're querying to an agent, when you're working with an editor, it's a very vulnerable experience. You're showing them your book.
Erin: Yeah, every as soon as you have, like, finished, and you've done whatever you can in your own little cave, and you are then stepping out of your cave and handing a piece of your soul, essentially, to another person and saying, please tell me what you think. Like, it's always going to make you feel like you want to vomit on your own shoes.
Danikka: Yeah, exactly.
Erin: Going to feel shit.
Danikka: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Erin: Because it's just it is that, like, even if people like it, it's still fucking terrifying.
Danikka: Yeah, absolutely.
Erin: Yeah, yeah.
Danikka: And, you know, you can be as pragmatic about it as you want. And like, you can you can think that you're practical, but there's still always, you know, tearing your soul apart a little bit to get
Erin: 100%
Danikka: Any kind of perceived reduction, you know, like, you're always going to remember our brains are wired to remember the negative. So you can get six compliments in one, you know, critique. Yeah.
So this was just like, coming back to my original point. Of like, talking about that experience that Christy had when she was submitting A Queen's Glory that this author had when she, you know, decided to back her story and ignore that kind of harsh feedback from the first agent and then ended up lending a publishing deal is that the people who are rejecting your manuscript are coming at it with their own lens of what they are looking for, particularly agents, because they have their own relationships that they've built with publishers and they have an existing kind of like role of books and authors that they are already trying to sell. And so they have a specific slot that they are trying to fill a lot of the time.
It's like, even at Authors Own, we're at the moment working mostly with fantasy and romance authors, but because they're indies, we can, you know, as long as we have capacity to edit and help them produce the book, we can take on as many as we want. It's not that we have like a specific, we want this type of book to come out this year. So that's what we're looking for. It's like, if you've got a book and you are ready to produce it and we have the availability, let's go. Like that's, yeah. But it's very different for agents and tribe publishers because they, you know, they have a specific market that they're trying to sell. And so like that already, that lens is like super, super narrow.
Erin: And it doesn't feel like that as the author.
Danikka: No, absolutely.
Erin: Feels like my work is flaming garbage.
Danikka: Especially if they then have taken the time to give back some critiques that then bring in even narrowing the lens even more, their personal tastes.
Erin: Which is, yeah. And especially, I suppose, I never queried. So I have not received that kind of feedback on any of my work. I didn't have the patience for it. And I also knew I was a little softy and I just couldn't do it. So I didn't want to do that. But I imagine, and this is why I couldn't have done it, it would feel objective because it's someone in the industry. So you've sent it to this person as an expert, essentially, and they're telling you it's not right or not good enough or whatever. So that's going, it's not going to feel subjective to you, even though it is.
Dainkka: Yeah
Erin: I think.
Danikka: Yeah. And the thing is, it's, I think it's always subjective. Like there are
Erin: Oh, 100%.
Danikka: Rules within grammar when it comes to writing. There's rules within storytelling.
Erin: But even, I think, I feel like rules within storytelling are more flexible than grammar rules though.
Danikka: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, even grammar rules are very flexible, to an extent, within readability. And so like, there's a lot of flexibility in there. And I mean, like storytelling rules even are flexible when it comes to who your audience is that you're trying to reach as well. So like, I mean, if you were trying to think about, like, I mean, a really good example is the popularity of Japanese translations that has kind of surged with Murakami's, I think I've said his name correctly, popularity in recent years has really kind of come to the surface. And so then we've had more Japanese and Korean translations kind of coming through. And if you look at their style of storytelling, it's much more in the, like, leaning in the side of like magical realism and nonlinear and not explaining things. There's like not a lot of world building. It's just like you're in there and things are kind of how it is.
And generally, they're not explained. And they're quite often very short, crisp, like, you just, you get what you get. And it's left very open for interpretation, where with like Western storytelling, it's completely different to that a lot of the time. You want, readers usually want a lot more explanation, a lot more world building. They want things kind of spelt out a lot more. And it's a lot more linear. You're not having, magical realism is generally considered more high brow, I would say. I don't, I don't know. People are probably going to take that out of context. Yeah, I'm going crazy. I just, words are not like, I'm much better at writing than speaking as people will, who know me in person will know.
Erin: And yet we still decided to start a podcast too.
Danikka:I know, right. But yeah, it's like, it's considered more literary, I suppose, when writing from a Western perspective. At least in my experience, that's just my perspective. But yeah, so it's different storytelling, different audiences, but they're kind of breaking more into the Western market because we're getting more of a kind of taste for that type of storytelling with, you know, the globalisation of stories, which is amazing. So I'm trying to get back to my original point. I'm hoping everyone's enjoying this. But like, all I'm saying is that rejection is subjective.
Erin: Yes.
Danikka: You can get one rejection from one agent who says that your prose is too flowery, it's too purple.
Erin: What, and then... Hold on, pause. What is purple prose? I've seen this a lot and I've seen people talking about it and every time I see it, I go, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then I always mean to ask you and I don't. So what–Danikka, what is purple prose?
Danikka: So purple prose is when you're being just too flowery with your language. You're like going all in on your description. You're using like every word you can think, you've like got your thesaurus open and you're like, well, purple's not a good enough word. So I'm going to look up like the most fancy word for purple that I can think of and I'm doing that for like paragraphs on end. Yeah. Okay.
Erin: Okay. So we're waffling a little bit. Yeah.
Yeah. Pretty much.
Erin: But in a fancy way.
Danikka: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it's just kind of overwhelming to read when you kind of do it for a long time. Yeah.
Erin: But again, there would be people who love that.
Danikka: Yeah, there would be.
Erin: Because there is something for everyone in this bookish world isn't there?
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin: Yeah. And I think it's all subjective and even taking out the like personal opinion of it, especially in the chat industry, it's not even just subjectivity of whether or not they like it. It's the, oh, I don't have room on this for my books or I don't think I can sell this or whatever.
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin: As well. Yeah.
Danikka: And it's like the whatever corporate kind of background that there is going into that. And, you know, there's all sorts of stakes in the background that we're not aware of, but historically we can see the patterns. So, and it goes into like who they choose to hire in the agencies, in the publishing houses, all of that kind of thing. And so it's why self-publishing exists and why you see self-published books doing so well. And why you also see the ongoing trend of self-published books that do extremely well getting picked up later on and why that path, you know, when self-publishing first became a thing, it was said in the trad publishing industry, if you want your book to be trad published, don't self-publish it. That was like, when I first started editing, a lot of people were like, if you want to be trad published, don't self-publish.
Erin: Whereas now,
Danikka: Now it's the complete opposite.
Erin: So like proving that you have an audience and there's people who want to read it. So they're like, oh. Yeah.
Danikka: And I mean, now we've got like full on fan fictions being picked up.
Erin: Yes. Yeah. I saw a whole reel about all of the Dramani ones last week, who it was like, if you want to read these before they go trad, they're about to be taken off, whatever it was.
Danikka: Yeah, exactly.
Erin: There was three or four of them.
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin; And one of them, I was like, that sounds amazing, but I can't remember what it's called now. We'll have to go back and find that reel.
Danikka: We'll have to go find the reel. You sent it to me.
Erin: Did I? Okay.
Danikka: Yeah, you did.
Erin: Great. Thank God. I sent you a lot of reels though, so.
Danikka: Yes.
Erin: Waiting for all of the stuff to find it. But anyway.
Danikka: But yeah, so this is what you need to know about rejection in the publishing industry is that it does not mean that your work is bad. It just means that it was not the right fit for those people, but it doesn't mean that you won't find your audience and doesn't mean that you won't find people who are going to love it. And yeah, just back yourself and believe in what you've got. If you love your book, if you know that you want it to get out in the world, whatever that kind of pathway is going to look like for you, just because some literary agent who's been doing it for however many years says that they don't like it, that doesn't mean that it's not good because readers are going to devour it most likely. And we see that more and more commonly. I think that's the other thing about the industry as well is that it is, you know, populated by largely people who have, you know, literary degrees, who've been trained to think that a particular type of writing is the best type of writing. And, you know, I think that, you know, while I can appreciate that type of writing, I think that's not always necessarily what readers want.
Erin: No, I mean, there would be some who do, but...
Danikka: Yeah, there's something for everybody. There's a reason that fan fiction is as big as what it is, because people don't always necessarily want the most, you know, crystallized, pared back, you know.
Erin: They just want, yeah, do you want an entertaining story?
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin; Like, at its heart. Well, that's what I want.
Danikka: Yeah, exactly. There's a place for every type of story.
Erin: As we've seen. Monsters romance is a thing.
Danikka: Yeah, exactly.
Erin: I think, like, those things wouldn't be big if there wasn't a market for them. So, yeah. Yeah.
Danikka: Keep writing. Keep doing your thing. We believe in you.
Erin: Back yourself. And you obviously believe in your story enough that you've finished it and you've been like, you know what? This deserves to be published. If you've gotten that far, keep going.
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin: Don't stop now. You didn't come this far to only come this far.
Danikka: Yeah. And this goes not just for professionals that you show your book to, it also goes to other people that you show your book to. It goes to, you know, if you've done beta reading and you get really harsh feedback in beta reading that says more sometimes about the taste of the beta reader than it does about the quality of the book.
Erin: Agreed. And beta reading is trickier as well because, as we've talked about before, I don't know if we've talked about on the podcast, but outside, especially in the indie sort of community, readers have such a direct line to the authors that they feel like anything they say needs to be taken into account and that they think that that's right. And I'm not criticising beta readers at all. My books would not be what they are without beta readers. Beta readers are incredible. But if you have someone, you still know your book better than everyone else.
Danikka: Yeah.
Erin: You still understand where the characters are, what the characters would do. You still understand all of that better than your beta readers and your editor. So if there is something that you were like, that's really not, like, I hear you, I see where you're going, but that's not what the character would do or say or whatever, then you need, yeah, you need to back it. You need to be like, no, this is, I understand my character and my work and my world and this is what they're doing.
Danikka: Yeah. And the right editor, the right beta readers, the right agent, the right publisher, they will see all of that. They will respect you for that and they will understand because they wouldn't be with you working on your book unless they saw the quality of your work and the quality of you as an author as well. And yeah, that's, that's that. That's my, that's my soapbox moment for the day. Mic drop.
Erin: The mic has been dropped. Yeah.
Danikka: But yeah, back yourself, keep writing. Yes, getting feedback and critiques is important. It's a big part of the process and we love beta readers. I mean, I believe editing is the most important part of the whole process, but yeah, we just need to also remember that, you know, it's your work and you're writing in your book and as Erin said, you know it the best out of everybody.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah.
Danikka: Full stop.
Erin: Full stop. So if someone tells you that they don't like your purple. Yes. They don't like your purple. Well, even if it's not purple prose, if it's anything.
Danikka: I mean, it might be their opinion that it's purple prose. It could be their opinion. They could be using that industry term to describe something that is not actually purple prose. Considered in their opinion, purple prose.
Erin: Yeah. But it might be that they don't like, I don't know. I saw someone recently who said that they didn't like, oh no, that was, I saw a completely different, but I saw a reel of what the like pettiest reason you DNF'd a book and one of them was, I opened it and couldn't pronounce the character's name and I was like, no. Or no, she didn't like the character's name. She's like, no, I can't read a whole book with that character's name and she just stopped reading it immediately. So it's like, so that's not for her, but there would be someone else who was like, I love this. So just keep going, keep doing the things. Yeah. Yeah.
Danikka: Keep swimming as Dorrie would say. Just keep swimming.
Erin: Because you will find your fish.
Danikka: Yeah. Okay. And that's our podcast wisdom for this week and we'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
Erin: Yeah. Bye.
Danikka: Thank you for listening. Brought to you by Authors Own Publishing, the home of indie publishing, subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Authors Own Publishing. Music brought to you by Mikkel with more details in the show notes.
Episode Description
Rejection is a tough reality in publishing, but it’s not a reflection of your work. This week, Danikka and Erin dive into how tastes, trends, and biases shape the publishing process – sharing stories of authors who faced rejection stayed true to their voice, and found success in the end. Get ready for a candid look at the ups and downs of the wild ride of being an author.
Please note, this episode discusses topics that some listeners may find distressing related to trauma, women's safety, mental health, and the world we live in. Listeners should exercise personal discretion and prioritise their well-being when deciding whether this content is right for them.
Brought to you by: Authors Own Publishing, Danikka Taylor, and Erin Thomson.
Danikka’s Details:
Website: www.authorsownpublishing.com
Instagram: @danikkataylor or @authorsownpublishing
Erin’s Details:
Website: www.erinthomsonauthor.com
Instagram: @authorerinthomson
Intro & Outro Music by Mikel & GameChops. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of Authors Own Publishing. Thanks for Listening!
