Friday, January 30, 2015

A Good Reason Not to Submit

A publisher announced they wanted mss. I had one of just the right genre. I looked at their details. My ms was too long by 20 k words, too many to revise. I was relieved. I didn’t have to send it.

I know, I know. Submitting is part of the process. So is getting rejected. So is marketing once you get published, and maybe before, “building your platform,” which sounds more like preparation for diving or ski jumping. Come to think of it, ski jumping is a good image for submitting manuscripts.

I know a short story writer who says he gets published more than other writers not because he’s a better writer but because he’s a better submitter. “I have the next periodical or publisher cued up from the moment I have submitted to the last one. On the same day a rejection comes, I submit to the next one on the list.” I admire that. I hate doing that.

I like writing. I like having written. I like getting published. I like people telling me I’m a great writer. I just don’t like that step in between the writing and the accolades. Maybe I’ll write about that so I can put off having to submit...

John Robert McFarland

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ In Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

A PLUG FOR ONE OF MY OTHER BOOKS:

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…


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