Indie and Proud discussion

I've had my fair share of rejection letters. In fact, I've only had one promising reply by an agent that was helpful but ultimately ended in another rejection. I decided that i couldn't let my manuscript die on my laptop, so I polished it up as best i could and sent it out into the world. Please tell me all about your querying adventures and misadventures here.

Jessica wrote: "I've had my fair share of rejection letters. In fact, I've only had one promising reply by an agent that was helpful but ultimately ended in another rejection. I decided that i couldn't let my manu..."
I've only gotten one rejection letter--everything else was the silent kind! I'm no longer looking to be agented, though.

About ten years ago I started going through the rejection letter cycle. Then two of my books were held by two different publishing houses for over twelve months. One of them was Gingerbread Aliens. The publisher asked for a few re-writes and additions to the story, then held onto it again! I was getting very excited to say the least! Then all went quiet and evetually the reply came back, "sorry we can't fit your book in to our current marketing strategy." Gingerbread Aliens sat on my shelf gathering dust for several years, I was so disappointed. Then a friend suggested I self-publish and I haven't looked back.

Oh wow! That's a crazy story. I'm glad you self published. It would have been such a waste to not share it. And thanks for sharing the story :)

What a great topic! I queried many agents and received the standard rejections letter or nothing at all! I'm so glad that I didn't wait around and wait for someone to think my book was good enough to "maybe" represent. I decided that I would let the readers decide if it was any good or not and I am so glad that I did! It's so rewarding to know that people are enjoying my book,I've met so many wonderful people on this journey! I will never second guess my decision to self publish.

I didn't query for very long before I decided to self-publish. I received one request for my book. After that rejection, I decided my skin wasn't think enough to try again, though I do plan on doing it again for future projects.