P.J. Murphy's Writer Site

It’s a long post today, so straight to business!

In the ‘You Win Some’ camp, I’m pleased to report that Yesterday’s Shadow was selected as the genre winner for contemporary fiction. This means that, while it didn’t win the whole prize, it was recognised – as was Dead Letters last year – for its merits. I have a fancy badge to show for it, so cause for celebration!

In the ‘You Lose Some’ camp, I’ve started querying agents for my next novel, Six Steps to Save Someone. It’s been many years since I last attempted this, and it’s now much easier, as you don’t have to pay a fortune to post your manuscript – it’s all done by email. Oh, the technology! This means I don’t have to include return postage to get the manuscript sent back to me with a rejection letter, either. Wonderful!

So far, I’ve received two rejections, and I expect to receive many more in the coming weeks. While I realise it’s important to not take them to heart, there’s always a moment when I start reading the email and think that maybe this is good news, up until I reach the word ‘unfortunately’. Maybe I’ll get more thick-skinned as I receive more, and remind myself that this is all part of the process. Every successful author has a drawer full of rejection letters to their name.

But it’s not as if I can file rejection emails in a drawer…

So, why am I putting myself through this? A big reason is that I regret not approaching agents or publishers for my second novel, Dead Letters. Judging by the feedback I’ve received, it could have been much more successful had a mainstream publisher picked it up. But I had already been working on the novel for 15 years and just wanted to be done with it. The thought of spending another six months looking for interest – and then potentially another year or two before the book finally hit the shelves – was too much to bear at the time. Combine that with some duff advice I received that publishers might want to pick up a self-published book (this is actually very rare), and it made self-publication an attractive option.

I regret it now.

So, here I go with Six Steps. Looking at calendar days, it took me longer to prepare a submission package than to write the novel. This is mainly because I wrote it while off work, but I still think this is an interesting statistic. The package consists of three things:

1. The cover letter (or email!)
2. The synopsis
3. The first chapter(s)

All these things are an art in themselves. I won’t go into details on them, as there are whole articles and writing courses covering them, but in a nutshell:

The cover letter exists to situate the reader, indicating the genre, length of the book, comparable titles, and a bit about you. It’s important to keep this concise and, obviously, well-written.

The synopsis (also known as the horror) is a one-page walkthrough of your novel. I call it ‘the horror’ because, for many authors, it’s the antithesis of what they’re trying to achieve in their writing. The main plot points must be spelt out in rather obvious detail. All subtlety is gone. You even give away the ending! The idea is that the reader can see that the book is well structured and spot any obvious issues.

And then the sample text. If you’ve got this far, you’ve done well (just like the cover image and back cover blurb on a published book are supposed to entice the reader to start reading the first chapter). For both purposes, the first chapter must be as polished as possible, and it needs to have a hook – a compelling reason for people to keep reading. Now, that IS a whole other article in itself…

Get any one of these wrong, and a trapdoor opens up, and your manuscript goes into it. Well, maybe not that exactly, but if you think that agents receive hundreds of proposals a week, they have very little time to spend on each – so effectively, they are looking out for little indicators that this one isn’t a goer, just as much as they’re looking for something that entices them.

That’s why my missing a typo on the first sentence of my cover letter was probably not a good thing.

Equally, it’s important to remember that you can get all these things right and still get a rejection. A lot depends on being in the right place at the right time, proposing something of interest to an agent just when they’re looking for it. All this is about making sure that you get to play in that lotto – that you don’t get rejected at the door. After that, it’s a game of luck.

And that’s what I need to remember as I open Outlook to look at my emails. Wish me luck!