Nothing fills my writer’s soul than hearing other author’s road to publication. Or their road to not being published yet. It reminds me that while writing is something we do on our own, our experiences are shared. One for all and all for one.
Today, Phoebe Fox shares her journey to publication with us. She uses words like REJECTION and PERSISTENCE. Words every writer can relate to.
Please welcome Phoebe to WFW and share your own stories of persistence in the comments!
Amy xo
Persistence On The Road To Publication
by Phoebe Fox
Long before I was published or even had an agent, a dear friend of mine, multi-published, ridiculously talented author Sarah Bird, revealed this authorial secret to me: that only one thing separated her from all her unpublished writer friends.
Persistence.
Being the type A overachiever that I am, I greeted this news with delight. “That’s it? Persistence? Shuh, I can do that all day long.” I used to be an actor, for god’s sake; I knew all about handling rejection.
When my first manuscript made the agent submission rounds to a resounding lack of interest, I reminded myself that the way to win the game was just to stay in it. Undaunted, I wrote a second story, polished it up, and sent that sucker out.
This time I was rewarded with more action: lots of requests for partials…requests for fulls… And then, invariably, the painfully polite form letters.
I got rejections. Then more. Then dozens and dozens more. On what was literally my hundredth rejection, finally my determination started to falter. “That’s it,” I said to my faithful critique group, to whom I’d been trumpeting my “persistence” theme for years. “I guess I’m putting this one in a drawer too.”
But this is the problem when you tell people about your personal mission statement: They remind you of it. They hold you to it.
One of my writing partners exhorted me to keep going, not to give up—to persist. And because I generally hate to accept defeat (and even more to have my own damn proclamations thrown back in my face), I reluctantly agreed.
I kept submitting–and on query 113 it finally happened: I got the offer. Superagent Courtney Miller-Callihan of the Sanford J. Greenberger Agency was marvelously enthusiastic and encouraging. She loved the story, loved my writing, and wanted to represent me.
I will admit to feeling a certain amount of gleeful vindication here: I was right all along! All I had to do was persist and there was no way I couldn’t succeed.
Courtney submitted my manuscript and I waited excitedly to find out which pub house would snatch it up—or whether, as she hoped, we’d be lucky enough to go straight to auction.
We got amazing feedback. Editors loved the original idea, my “fresh voice,” the clean, tight prose.
We got some of the nicest, most positive rejection letters you’ve ever seen.
And not a single offer.
This was a much harder blow. Like a lot of authors I assumed that getting an agent was the toughest part of the journey, and once you had been thusly anointed the rest of the path to publication was a sure thing. And it was especially painful because the feedback we got from editors told us that we’d been frustratingly close.
But I gritted my teeth, put the story in a drawer (beside the first one…) and grimly started plodding the path again. This time it was harder to start over. But I reminded myself of Sarah’s words. All right, dammit. I’d persist. I finished another manuscript—my third, if you’re keeping count.
But I kept thinking about my near-miss with the last one. That story had merit, I thought, and I’d never been able to get the characters and the storyline out of my mind.
This was right when the digital publishing world pretty much exploded, and I realized that there were other avenues open to me now if I really wanted to usher my stories into print.
I did a heavy revamp of that rejected manuscript and told Courtney that I’d decided to publish the story myself. At which point she whipped out some persistence of her own: “We came awfully close last time,” she told me. “Will you give me one more crack at it first?” (I’m telling you, every author wants a Courtney Miller-Callihan in her corner.)
And so for an unheard-of second time she shopped it around to publishers—more than a year after our first round of submissions.
And this time…we got the offer. That story became my first published novel, as well as the eponymous first title in my Breakup Doctor series, of which I’m now writing the fourth book.
In hindsight it’s easy to see that The Breakup Doctor is a much better book than it was the first go-around. I needed time to “season” it, as well as to season myself as a writer. And in the intervening time Henery Press, which has turned out to be the perfect home for it, had hit the ground running with a roster full of USA Today bestsellers and award winners, and had created an impressive reputation in the business.
To me, my convoluted journey to publication is not unlike the story of The Breakup Doctor itself—something really, really good came out of what at the time felt like nothing but rejection and heartbreak.
But if at any point I’d given up, or accepted defeat—been less persistent—I never would have gotten any of it—an agent, a publisher, a series contract, nothing.
After I signed a multi-book contract I thought the hardest part was done—and then I got to learn all about promotion, marketing, reaching your readers, and embarked on yet another difficult lesson in persistence.
Over and over again I have found persistence to be the most important trait any writer can have, and I’ve never received better advice.
Persist in writing. Persist in querying. Persist in trying to get published, to market your book, to write another book…and another. There are so many people and reasons ready to convince you that you shouldn’t—you have to be the number one voice always reminding yourself that you should.
You must be the person who always believes in you, who never gives up faith.
Keep moving forward.
Persist.
Phoebe Fox is an author, a columnist for major media outlets, and a close observer of relationships in the wild. Her latest in the Breakup Doctor series, Heart Conditions, will be released February 2016. You can find her at www.phoebefoxauthor.com.
Yep, gotta have the persistence of a pitbull and the skin of an armadillo. You’re proof positive that it can be done and with amazing style.
Thanks, friend! It’s an ongoing lesson, for sure. 🙂
Persistence is most surely the one biggest thing writers need. Thankfully WFWA provides a support group to push us through. I also recommend Jordan Rosenfeld’s book “A Writer’s Guide to Persistence” to get you to the page.
I haven’t read that one–I’ll pick it up. I adore WFWA too! Such a wonderful resource and support network for women’s fiction authors. Thanks!
Phoebe tells us how it’s done and with style. Gotta have the persistence of a pitbull and the skin of an armadillo.
Persistence is key. That and a sense of humor. I used to threaten to paper my office if I ever got a real one, as opposed to the corner of the kitchen where my desk stood, with the rejection slips I’d piled up. Or, if all else failed, stick my head in the oven which was only a few feet from my desk. Thankfully I was published before either of these threats was carried out.
Ha–I love the wallpaper idea! I got to the point where the started making haiku out of the rejections… It got so funny hearing these insanely kind phrases saying nope, and making silly poems out of them at least let me laugh. Congrats on getting published! I figure it’s sort of like childbirth—after you have the baby the pain recedes a little…
Yep, you gotta have the tenacity of a pit bull and the skin of an armadillo. Phoebe shows that it can be done and with style!
Sorry for the repetition. I kept trying to comment and it wasn’t showing up. Now all three are there!
Densie, if you show half as much persistence in your writing as you do in your comments, you’ll go far!
Ahahaha! Awesome way to illustrate the point, Densie! 😀
Phoebe, I love this post because your journey is so similar to mine–except that I DID finally decide to self-publish my first novel, because I’d been trying to publish fiction for over 20 years without success. And then, guess what? My agent sold the manuscript he’d been shopping around about a week later, so I ended up publishing a book myself AND publishing one with Penguin within the same year. I’m still with Penguin now, publishing a novel every year, but each one seems to be just as hard to write as the one before (or worse, even), and yup. Couldn’t get through this process without persistence. Thanks for the reminder.
It’s true… With each title I feel I get a little better, but it doesn’t necessarily get easier. (Sometimes it actually feels harder.) I love your story! Like the woman who conceives right as she finally decides to adopt. And I think hybrid is the way forward for authors these days–I’m planning that path myself. Thanks for your comment, Holly!
Your series seems like a lot of fun. I just downloaded Bedside Manners. All the best with your February launch! 🙂
Thanks, Carol! Hope you enjoy it. I have to admit the Breakup Doctor books are a ton of fun to write. (Usually…)
Glad to have bumped into you. Your persistence is admirable! 🙂
What a wonderful story. I’m so happy when perseverance pays off. I trot these stories out at my writing group all the time.
I tell every single author I know about Sarah’s quote–seriously the best advice I think any author could ever have. Thanks for the comment!
Love this post! The publication journey of Phoebe’s mirrors my own! Queried more than 100 agents for my first ms! I’m a believer in persistence and once learned from a smart author that it takes TPT to get published. ….Talent, Persistence and Timing!
Yes! Timing and talent are also so important. Congrats to you–after 100 it became REALLY hard for me to keep faith in myself. I tell everyone about it, though, because it could so easily have gone a different way if I had (if my friends had let me, anyway–another great argument for creating a support network as a writer). Thanks, Stephanie!
Way to go, Phoebe! Your story is inspiring (and I’m going to check
out your books – they sound like a fun read).
Thanks, Grete! That’s the rainbow at the end of the crap cloud of all my rejection–not just finally getting published, but that the story helps other authors hang in there. I tell it ALL THE TIME. 🙂
I think it’s a much more realistic story for most of us, and it’s what keeps me going. My first novel was published by a small press, and a good experience, but I am still hoping to get an agent and GO BIG for my second and subsequent novels! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your story, and best wishes to you. Your books are next on my “to read” list. They sound exactly like the kind of stories I like to read (and write).
I keep my hopes super high too–always! While I doggedly, ferociously persist… 😉 Thanks for adding the books to your TBR, Grete–hope you enjoy them!
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