THE ONE THAT GOT STUCK IN R&R HELL
Category/genre: YA historical fantasy
To fully understand the full scope of my submission journey, I need to begin with my querying experience.
It was Autumn 2017 and I had done what many before me have done: I had written a book. I had revised it. Once. It was a terrible and bold move to query with abandon, but that is precisely what I did. By some stroke of pure luck, I actually received requests. A lot of them. One of those requests was from a top tier agent. They requested my manuscript in 3 days, read it that weekend, and that following Monday morning, I received a reply.
It was an offer . . . for an exclusive R&R. The email included an edit letter that was long and detailed. They claimed to have “the vision to help bring out the best possible version of this story”. Their ideas really resonated with me. But ultimately, I turned it down the exclusive because not one person I spoke with liked the idea of an exclusive R&R. Especially this early in the game when I had such a ridiculous request rate. Besides, the R&R was still on the table and I had all those initial editorial notes already.
Days after I turn down the exclusive, this agent tweets out a MSWL thread. I thought I was being paranoid, but there were too many similarities. The thread included my comps, my weird genre wording, even the exact phasing from their “why I love this book” part of my exclusive offer was included in that thread.
Messed up, right? Still, I press onward.
As the weeks go by, I received more R&Rs, but no offers. Then I landed a spot in a mentorship program. Then I had a baby. And though I’m not sure when exactly I found the time to revise—it still doesn’t add up to me—somehow, with my mentor’s guidance, I worked through both their edit letter and the agent’s notes, making sure to follow the suggested revisions as precisely as possible. In the end, I essentially rewrote the book from the ground up. And by the time I was done, it was December 2019.
I curated carefully and ended up with a list of 14 agents (plus my R&Rs) and sent them out in one big WOOSH. That was all I was going to do. If none of them wanted it, it wasn’t meant to be. It was time to move on.
But how on earth could that R&R agent say no? I felt certain. Regardless of the weird sub-tweeting, they understood my book. I’d followed their notes and, as I’d emailed them a few times over the course of revisions, it felt like I had been working with them for so long already.
Ten days into querying, less than a week before Christmas, I get an email that makes me collapse on the laundry room floor just as I’m about to head out the door with my 1yo to Trader Joes. One of the agents wanted to talk. Now, everyone will tell you: hold your horses, it might not be an offer. It might be a R&R call. Which was what I feared.
We set up a call and the call went great. They offered and I was so excited about the idea of working this agent. I sent my nudges, still hoping in the back of my mind for that R&R agent. They email me back within 30 seconds of sending the nudge and say how much they’re looking forward to reading the revisions and will of course get back to me by the deadline. However, on the day of the deadline, I receive an email that made very little sense to me. Not because it’s a rejection, but because of the reasons for rejection. They said they didn’t “quite have the clarity of vision”. A direct contrast to their initial claims. And I am furious. Still am. It made me question my ability to revise. Do I just not know how to do it? (I do.) Do I suck? (I don’t.)
I ended up signing with the initial offering agent. It’s early 2020 and I knew THIS was going to be my year. I was READY. I was going to absolutely crush my agent’s edit letter. I’d be in sub with a shiny revised book in no time. Onward!
Little did any of us know…
Cue world-wide pandemic and remote learning. Dear god, I’m having anxiety just thinking about it.
I did nothing writing related for a long time. Or at least it felt that way. It felt similar to the last time I revised: I’m not sure how I did it or when I did it, but I ended up rewriting about 70% of the book and 15 months later I emailed my agent the new version. A couple weeks later I’m told the book is good to go on sub.
And so in May 2021, my little book went out into the world.
In less than a month we an email. Not an offer, but an R&R. However, unlike my querying R&R, my agent and I weren’t sure about the feedback, so we set it aside in favor of seeing how things might play out with the rest of the list.
Onward.
In came the passes. So many passes. Complimentary passes. Long winded passes, which I now know aren’t typical and certainly softened the blow, but boy it still blowed . . . blew? Whatever. Ultimately, the answer was always the same: No.
Then in late July we had good news. An editor loved it and was sharing it with their team.
Two days later we got another email from another editor. They were reading and loving it and going to share it with their team.
This book. This thing I almost gave up on was maybe going somewhere. I tried to focus on my new project. I didn’t want to hope, but hope is a thing that has a will of its own.
A couple weeks later, the second editor got back with us and the news wasn’t good. They loved the book but they just couldn’t get their publisher on board. Pass.
Onward.
A few days after that, the first editor got back with us. Their team loved my book. They could see its potential. They wanted it. It was going to acquisitions.
Cue: a spectacularly unproductive two weeks where I’m trying my hardest to focus on my WIP but thwarted by emotions ping-ponging between excitement and pure dread. Still, I was slowly, steadily making this new idea into a book and I loved the story. It was a similar genre to the one on sub . . . it could be a great follow up book.
Only, when we hear back from that first editor, it’s bad news. Sales and marketing said my story just wasn’t hooky enough. And the editor didn’t know how to go forward with the book without the support of sales and marketing. Pass.
Onward.
Then a month or so later something really weird happened. An editor loved my book but it was too literary for their list, so they asked if she could forward it to a colleague. This other editor worked at a very very small imprint. So small it wasn’t really considered. But they were starting to acquire again. The answer was of course “yes”.
My agent kept sending my book out to new editors as we were able but the passes kept rolling in:
“Too quiet to debut—send me the next book.”
"Sales will never get on board because a similar book very recently tanked.”
“Loved it and gobbled it up but I don’t know what to do with it.”
I started to panic. Not only was my book on sub really struggling to get the higher ups on board, the kind of book I was currently writing was a similar genre and vibe. Cue: author meltdown.
I emailed my agent.
My agent suggested we switch gears and that I send some pitches and we’d figure out what direction felt most viable.
So over the weekend I drafted up 20-some pitches and we landed on an idea we both loved and felt really promising. I got to work. And my agent—who likes to call this book their white whale—went back to trying to find a home for my sub book.
But it felt futile. We were getting down to the last handful of editors. There’s only so many editors in the industry. I began to build the funeral pyre.
This was it. It was time to move on.
But the book had other ideas.
In December, another weird thing happened. (I know, the weird just gravitates to me.) Two different editors finished the book at the same time and both loved it. The catch? They both wanted revisions first.
I had my editor calls. They all seemed nice and I was confident I could do the revisions they were asking for. But, remember my R&R querying trauma? Let’s just say I was hesitant about entering into major revisions with so few editors left. But my agent, who is whip smart, said that based on the calls and knowing one of the editors had the publishing purse strings, if I nailed this revision it was a done deal.
I abandoned every notion of chill and sleep and the concept of spare time and pounded out a rather significant revision in January 2022. My agent read it in a few days and loved what I’d done. A day or so later it was back off to the editor. Not both. But the one with the purse strings. The idea was to give them an exclusive window because it was such a sure thing.
They read it.
They loved it.
I was going to acquisitions the following week.
Except no, I wasn’t. Because two days before the meeting we got an email. There were some “unfavorable late reads”. If you’re asking “What the actual f—does that mean?” I will tell you what we were able to discern. This team that wanted to take my book to acquisitions shares a board with the other place I already went to acquisitions with. Still, it didn’t make sense to us. I had done extensive revisions and the editor was the boss lady.
Again, I questioned if I was maybe just terrible at revising? Or maybe the answer is this industry fundamentally flawed and constantly moving the goalposts just for shits and giggles? One of the two. Probably.
I was devastated.
My agent, however, was furious. It’s amazing how the fury of others can somehow dull the pain, if even just a little.
Still, onward.
Only there wasn’t anywhere to go on to. A few lingering editors reading, the two other outstanding R&Rs, but they trickled in over the next couple months. The last one being a gut punch pass of “Ack, this is a tough one because I love this book and I see where it could go but I worry it may be a tad close to a (yet-to-pub) series on my list.”
Ouch.
In the end, my book went out to 46 editors over the course of 17 months in 6 different submission rounds ranging from 3-16 editors. I received 3 editor R&Rs and spent over 190 hours revising it in 4 weeks.
This time, it really is it. It is time to move on. This book that I wanted to give up on time and time again, but was encouraged to keep at it. It was the little engine that could, fuelled by people who believed in it along the way. Now, it finally gets to rest in peace.
And it feels tragic. From the distance I am from the story I can say it really is a good book. It didn’t deserve to go out like this. But this is publishing. Where nothing makes sense and the points don’t matter. Having a good book does not guarantee a damn thing. Good books aren’t necessarily successful and successful books aren’t necessarily good.
Over the lifetime of this book I spent an incalculable amount of time doing uncontracted work that was specifically asked of me by industry folks and I got nothing in return. And it was so simple for them to shrug off all my effort with a no.
So where do I go from here, where onward isn’t an option?
Not onward. But on to the next.
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The stories on this blog are posted anonymously so that authors can speak candidly about their experience. If you have a sub story you’d like to share, drop me an email at: katedylanbooks@gmail.com
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