MORE PROPOSALS GOING OUT

It took a while with the break due to all kinds of "life activities," but the tweaking edit of The Race that Lies Before Us is done. I have returned it to my agent, Terry Burns, along with a slightly revised proposal. He is now targeting places for new submission, so proposals will be out to several more editors soon.

FIRST REJECTION FROM AN EDITOR

Last week, I received a forwarded message from my agent. It was a rejection letter from one of the publishing houses he’d sent a proposal for The Race that Lies Before Us. While I would love for every response to be a request for the full manuscript, I have to admit that I’m pleased with this response.

Before you decide that I’m headed for the loony bin, let me explain. In this rejection letter, the editor stated specifically why my book was being turned down—and it had nothing to do with the quality of my writing. While querying agents, the vast majority of responses I received were form rejection letters, so this rejection with an explanation was a nice change of pace.

A PUBLISHER REQUESTED THE FULL MANUSCRIPT

It's only been a few days since my agent sent out a few more proposals for The Race that Lies Before Us, and he's already received a request for the full manuscript! Of course, we're well into the Christmas season and editors are trying to clean off their desks, but the editor said she would be starting to read newly requested manuscripts after the first of the year.

While there is no guarantee that the editor will actually offer me a contract, I am celebrating the fact she liked what she saw. Writing is such a solitary journey, with so many rejections along the way, that it's worth celebrating any affirmation.

PROPOSALS GO OUT TO PUBLISHERS

In the last couple of months, my agent has sent proposals for The Race that Lies Before Us to four publishing houses, three Christian and one secular. I'm still very much playing the waiting game, as the average response time is three to four months. Still, it's exciting to see things move forward.

I have been so impressed with my agent's knowledge about each publishing house and the individual editors who work at each. He knows right off the top of his head which publishing houses are acquiring fiction at the moment and which aren't, which ones are willing to accept work from new authors and which ones won't, and which ones might be a good fit for my book and which ones wouldn't. Not only that, but he keeps in editors' good graces (among other ways) by keeping track of how many submissions he has with each so he doesn't overwhelm them with submissions from his clients.