Last week’s post probably left the impression that I’d completely capitulated and was giving up on options other than self-publishing my newly revised second edition of Alienable Rights, first novel in my Other Worldly series. Not quite yet, though there’s been no positive reinforcement when it comes to the traditional publishing or small press publishing routes. Because I’ve now actually submitted to some literary agents and small publishers, and unfortunately already got a response from one of the latter.
Which makes the timing of an online Writer’s Digest article I read yesterday from author Jonathan Edward Durham a tad uncanny. “The Space Between (the Shelves): The Importance of Writing Weird Stories for the Un-weird Marketplace” advised that we should write weird stories even if they’re difficult to categorize and pitch.
I don’t know if my Other Worldly series qualifies as “weird,” though Durham had me at “difficult to categorize and pitch.” But the sentence that really got me going was, “Maybe you’ve stopped telling anybody you’re a writer at all because you’re just so tired of trying to explain what your book’s about. Good.”
As my protagonist Rowan Layne would say, boy howdy. But, good? How so? Which is why I kept reading, but first, can I just say that I’ve noticed lately that when people find out I’m an author, it’s as if writing isn’t seen as an actual skill set, or even a profession. Maybe it’s social media or self-publishing that’s made folks think it’s easy to write and anyone can do it, and that’s why they respond by saying that they, too, want to author a book, or have an idea for a book, or have plans to write…It makes me more grateful than ever for those who instead show interest and ask where my books are sold. The latter are clearly readers of books, while the others, perhaps not so much.
And as for explaining what my books are about? It’s damn near impossible, because once folks hear aliens, it’s often all they comprehend. I mostly get, “I’m not into science fiction,” and I long to respond, “Neither am I.” But back to the WD article.
Durham said of the query letter hook, “Maybe you don’t even really know how to pitch it, because it’s just too hard to boil down to a few sentences, and it just sounds silly and disconnected without the nuance in your story to back it up.” Ya think? As Rowan would say. Plus, if the hook is required to be only one sentence, you simplify to your detriment.
I attempted to pare down to one simple sentence the entirety of Alienable Rights for a small press publisher that unfortunately wasn’t interested in the query letter I’d so painstakingly prepared over the past month. The response from their “Acquisition Reviewer Notes” was: This sounds interesting, but we have a full calendar, and it’s not compelling enough.
I suppose I should be glad I got any explanation at all, but when this so-called “consideration” replies like this in less than two hours, I think I’d rather just not know the details. And also maybe I shouldn’t submit to those who only allow a one-sentence description of a novel, because seriously? Or perhaps I could have provided a ridiculously long, run-on sentence that amounted to an entire paragraph.
Bottom line, however, is it weirds me out to be so blithely judged as not compelling when I’m writing about real-world shit here, not some pablum for the masses. Which is supposed to be what small press publishers like this one is looking for. I guess I feel too old for this, and maybe they think so too? At least I’ll never know that for sure. But it does feel like I’m pitching snarky reality to folks who have no real-world relevant life experience—because they haven’t lived all that long.
Durham’s article also said, “Maybe you feel you’re behind the eight ball because your story doesn’t ever seem to match any calls for submissions, and maybe it feels like there’s no audience for it.” Except no, because while I used to feel that way eight years ago when first pitching Alienable Rights, this time around I was hopeful when I saw literary agents and small presses seeking “speculative fiction.” And using spot-on descriptors like “edgy women’s fiction.”
I got myself all geared up to pitch to these entities, but fortunately read further to the fine print that really would have been more helpful up front and center: No previously published books. And then another disqualifier, this one through no fault of my own. Literary agents and small publishers who are only interested in submissions from LGBTQ writers with LGBTQ themes or stories from/about marginalized or unrepresented communities. There’s more than a few of them. There’s a lot of them.
And I get it, although who knew so many publishers would also get it? But I can’t help but want to scream into this narrowing void of opportunity: Females have always been marginalized and underrepresented in all facets of life, thanks to the effing patriarchy. And, yes, I know that too many (mostly white) women have aided and abetted their own subjugation, I just wish that those in the publishing industry wouldn’t perpetuate this—along with ageism that only seems to affect my gender.
It’s true that I’m not a member of the LGTBQ community, though I am supportive. Enough to have included, beginning in my second OW novel, Feeling Alienated, and beyond, secondary characters who are gay, bi-sexual, intersex, and lesbian. Because it’s representative of the real world, so why shouldn’t aliens also be LGTBQ? Although pitching that to someone who doesn’t want to hear from anyone who’s books aren’t entirely about, or for, that community is an exercise in futility.
But back to writing weirdness, because Durham said, “Weird is good. Especially right now. Weird is beautiful and necessary, and these days it’s more valuable than it’s ever been.” I sure wish Durham was a literary agent or a small press publisher. Because what was especially interesting was him referencing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to make his point. “A book that’s utterly unpitchable in every way,” he said, but “one of the most memorable books of the 20th century.” At the time it was published, Durham said, “It was everything the science fiction genre wasn’t.”
Talk about giving me hope! I now feel as if I should be pitching my OW novels as “everything sci-fi and fantasy genres have never fathomed.” Especially when it comes to having a feisty over-fifty female protagonist. As I once first described Alienable Rights, it isn’t your big brother’s science fiction. I just never thought to call it weird. A word I never spell correctly on my first try either.
Oddly enough, something I read on social media last week succinctly sums up this demoralizing book-pitching situation: You are allowed to be both grateful for your survival and tired of how much you have had to survive. These days I’m feeling like I’ve survived a lot, and somehow been able to carry on and write an entire novel series about it. Only to be judged by an anonymous entity calling my work not compelling, ostensibly based on a single sentence. You can see why I might want to stick to self-publishing.
As Rowan Layne inquires of a Homeland Security agent in Alienable Rights, “How old were you on 9/11?” The answer just might be relevant when it comes to anyone attempting to grasp the nature of my novels. That and, who won the presidential election in 2020? I’m paying attention to what’s going on in the world. Are they? Because I find cluelessness to be downright weird, and not at all in a good way.
Halloween is coming. Clearly my best bet is to don a costume that comes with a thicker skin.