Dear Ms. Rehm,
Thank you for querying us about your book project.
We have evaluated your materials and regrettably, your project is not a right fit for our agency. We currently have a very full clientele and must be highly selective about the new projects we pursue.
Thank you again for thinking of us. Please know that we wish you much success in all of your future writing and publishing endeavors.
Kind regards
It's nice enough, I suppose. They were kind even if they spelled my name wrong and decided to not make all my dreams come true. I knew that handling rejection would be one of the baby steps I had to go through in order to get my book published. I still sat in my car and cried for a little bit.
To be fair: I was traveling for work this week and Don is still working 15 hour days, so all domestic responsibilities stay with me. What with the day job being overwhelming and the house job feeling onerous and the nagging sense that I should be doing more to get this book published, it all came crashing down after too little sleep and not enough healthy food, and so I had to cry a little. I met some friends for dinner, though, and we had a highly entertaining conversation over whether or not I should feel like I missed out in my youth for not having played Dungeons and Dragons. I maintain that I did miss out. That nerdy regret notwithstanding, I felt better.
I hope to send out 20 or so more queries this week, but I'm beginning to wonder if I should incorporate some more baby steps by trying to get some stuff published that isn't a book. What do you think? I got some other stuff I could write about. I'm toying with an essay about Laney's adoption that plays up the ridiculous and hilarious.
I say yes to trying with shorter/smaller pieces. My writing teacher says building up 'pub cred' that way is a good thing to do and that you should keep track of every publication credit no matter how small because taken as a whole they make you seem like less of a risk or something like that. JD
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