Hi, I’m new to this website and have a bit of a dilemma.

I recently entered a writing competition and was shortlisted for my first full length manuscript. Although the competition isn’t very high profile, a small publisher is interested in it. The judges of the competition said they really liked my manuscript and were very gushing. But now I’m feeling confused because my manuscript is being rejected by agents who say it didn’t grab their attention or capture their imagination. So who should I be listening to when it comes to evaluating the merits of my novel? The publisher and comp judges who loved it? Or the agents that loathed it? Who knows best?

The competition judges and publisher have read the entire manuscript, and the agents have only ‘read’ the requested three chapters. Even though I’m happy that the small publisher has shown an interest, I would like to see if other publishers would be interested too, so that's why I contacted these agents. But I’m beginning to feel that what I wrote is a pile of rubbish and the feedback from these agents is so poor that I wouldn’t know where to begin with regards to making changes to it.

I haven’t heard back from all the agents I submitted to. I’ll be fairly upset if they all end up rejecting me even though I’ve had an offer from a publisher. It will certainly leave me quite baffled - is my story good or not so good?

At least I now know that competitions or publishing deals certainly do not mean automatic entry to an agent’s list.

Regards
Greta

It's a difficult question to answer without knowing the competition, judges or small publisher.
You say it's not a very high profile competition, and you should be aware that there are a lot of scams out there run by print-on-demand publishers who run so-called competitions and select a winner who's 'prize' is a number of copies at a reduced price. If you google the names you should find if there are any 'writers beware' warnings associated with them. Check out some of their publications and see if they are proffessionally edited. If they ask you for any money to help edit or print the mss, then run away.

As for Agents, presumably they are reputable names, eg, listed in the Writers and Artists Year Book. Agents take on manuscripts they like, so you can have the best mss in the world, but if the agents don't like it they won't take it on, so their rejections is not necessarily a comment on its worth.

If it is a legitimate small publisher/competition, then this can be a very useful foot on the ladder, and can help your future submissions of future novels, when you menion it in the covering letter to agents.


- NaomiM

<Added>

And it's worth bearing in mind that just because an agent takes it on, doesn't guarantee they'll find a publisher for it - it's estimated that only 10% of agented debut novels get published.

First, congratulations on winning the competition.
Second, commiserations on doing so during the worst economic down turn in at least a decade.
The sad fact is that the large publishers are reeling and in an attempt to retain their profit margins they are focussing on books that are most likely to have commercial success.
Of course, they always do this to some extent but have currently become extremely risk averse. Yesterday my agent told me that crime, romance and women's fiction is still in demand. There is also still a large market for children's books but the buyers are ever more conservative.
This has filtered down to agents who in turn are focussing on work they know they have the best chance of selling. This means their current stable of authors who sell well are the primary focus. Taking on someone new costs time and money, so they have to feel very strongly about both the book and the author to take that punt.
That's not to say they are not taking on new auhtors. They are. Just more conservatively.
Try not to be disheartened. There are anumber of auhtors on WW who had their published work shortlisted for some very prestigious prizes but their publishers have still declined to accept other work from them. The bottom line at the moment is very clear. You must either sell well, or you must be a name, bringing notoriety to your imprint. Perferably both.
That said, you should keep going. As my agent said yesterday, his opinion is only that. His opinion. Another agent might see you as exactly what they're looking for.
HB x

First, huge congratulations on doing so well in the competition, that's terrific! And welcome to WW.

I can see how confusing this is for you, so I'm going to have a go at unpicking what might be going on.

First of all, think about the judges. Who, not to sound snotty, are they? They may be brilliant judges of literary quality, but they many not know about the market, or they may not think that whether your book is saleable is part of how they should be judging the entries. They may also see their function as judges as encouragement of aspiring writers, as well as criticism. Whether a book is good in itself and whether it's saleable are two related but separate questions. Getting a book published isn't like getting a degree: talent and hard work aren't all it takes, and there are lots of reasons why it does or doesn't which are nothing to do with its quality.

The basic issue here is that even among agents (whose chief professional skill is learning how their customers, publishers' editors, think) it's still a subjective decision whether or not to take a book on. To do that, the agent\editor has to think not just that a book is really good of its kind (and remember that thousands of others of its kind fall through their letter box every year), but two other crucial things:

a) the agent has to believe that it's something that a publisher will want to buy because down the line readers will buy it. Think of yourself for a moment not as a writer but as a reader, wandering the aisles of Waterstones: your book would have to be able to shout from the shelves to tens or hundreds of thousands of people, for a publisher to feel they can gamble on paying out a lot of money and time to publish it (the author's advance is only a fraction of that money).

b) to have that faith in the gamble everyone along the line must feel that there's something really special about the book. The agent themself must love it so much that they can transmit that passion through to the editors, and the editors to Marketing and Publicity and Sales before they even acquire it, and then through the whole process. It's that passion which transmits to the bookseller telling a customer that your book is the one they'll love. And even with agents and editors, who are incredibly widely read, and trained to read as objectively as possible, it'll always be subjective what they just think is very good, and what they fall in love with. (Again, think about you and a friend as readers, one adoring a book, one just not, not really...)

Some agents are chaotic, and bad at getting back to you: three months is the norm. Some just won't feel that passion for the work even though you've been offered a contract, and feel you're not the writer for them - agents are looking for long-term relationships with their authors. If the publisher's really tiny then it may be below their radar (as most competitions are), and not mean anything to them: agents vary how far outwards from the big boys they're willing to look.

If you do decide to take up this offer of a contract, I'd urge you to get in touch with the Society of Authors and get them to run it through their legendarily fine-toothed contract-checking service. Competition contracts are funny things, and so are tiny publishers and, often through ignorance but occasionally through villainy, the deals they offer are sometimes non-standard, and even unfavourable to the author.

One last thought is that if you're getting solid rejections which aren't telling you anything more specific than 'we just didn't love it enough', then you could consider getting an editorial report done. It's not cheap, but the kind of close attention which a report pays can help you to make everything work better, brighter (or darker!), make the highs higher and the lows lower, and generally turn it from a MS which people like into one which they fall in love with...

Best of luck

Emma

It may also be worth looking again at your subbing package. A throw away comment about this win won't be enough to attract an agent if the letter, synopsis and first three chapters don't tick all the right boxes.
Revisit everything. Is your letter good enough? Is the synopsis clear enough? Do those first few pages tell the agent what the book is about, who the MC is, what tone the book will take?
HB x

I think you've had very good advice so far from WWers. I would second their comments and add that response to a piece of writing is always very personal. I've been astonished at the conflicting responses to various books that I've heard, from equally thoughtful readers. It is confusing to a writer, but ask yourself: do the criticisms that you're hearing from the agents ring true? If part of you winces in recognition when you read their comments, then maybe they are worth listening to, not to get discouraged by, but to act upon and learn from. Easier said than done, I know.

Well, what I can I say that hasn't been said already.

Only this - as an offering of some onsight into the market. I work for a major retailer in multi-arena products, though the primary bread and butter is earned from the sale of books.

The market is now very much a buyer's market. Think of your own personal buying habits - fancy reading a book - even a new release or best seller? What do you do? You RESEARCH for availability at the BEST price. Now how do the book sellers offer you the best price? They cut back on something to hit that price, often it may be the production cost, it may be the sales methodology or may be 'make on demand'. The latter is becoming very popular in the industry and this means the product has to be ready to print and saleable. New books aren't, so it's the regular products, well known authors whose publisher has done the pre-press and is charging the MoD unit for the privilege.

To sell some lines it is not unusual to see the profit margin being as low as a few pence, some even may be selling at a few pence loss. It's all about turnover.

What I want to come back to is this, whatever is said and/or done with your work, take heart that someone has bothered to read it and give it the accolade it deserves. If nothing comes from it the near future, do not be despondant, rather, take heart that when things pick up and new books are needed, you may very well be at the head of the 'new writers' queue.

Keep it up. Keep smiling!
:}

Steve

onsight? tch tch where is my brain today - I, of course, meant INSIGHT!!
You knew that didn't you ?