Concerning the novel guidelines

[Therin of Andor]

I've written a lot of fiction over the years and none of it has been professionally published (yet), but I've had an excellent track record with non fiction, often thrust upon me. (Except for the book I took some long service leave to write up as a proposal, which was initially accepted.)

Weirdest circumstance, though: I helped an interstate TV chat show with some research and, during one phone call, suggested a humorous segment that might support the chat show's theme. I ended up having a go at writing how I envisaged the segment to unfold, posted them the script on spec - and suddenly they rang to say I was on the show. As a guest! Nothing more was said about my skit idea, though. Got flown to Melbourne, wined and dined, luxury hotel room (which was bigger than my own residence), all cab charges covered, free drinks with the cast.

During the show, just before I was brought on stage to be interviewed, they did a live cross to a comedy segment - and there was a celebrity comedian doing his improvised version of my skit! (Now, they probably should have paid me for it, but hey, I was already getting free air fare, amazing accommodation, and being treated like a celeb on TV, drinks in the star's dressing room... It felt a bit embarrassing to say, after all this glitz and glamour and free airfare, "Can I also have some cash for the skit which the comedian just improvised his act from?")

You don't always know which bit of writing will lead to which bit of paid success.

 

[Greg Cox]

You're a tougher guy that I am Greg. If I had been rejected by the writing staff of Voyager I would have hung myself. I mean it's Voyager!

I pitched piles of ideas to them--and have been cannibalizing them ever since.

(I sold another of those VOYAGER pitches as a FARSCAPE story. It was surprisingly easy to turn Seven of Nine into Aeryn Sun!)

 

[Therin of Andor]

If a story is turned down after you submit it, is that it for it, or can you try again after you've gotten other stuff published?

If you're pitching to different editors, how would they ever know, unless you announced it had already been rejected by someone?

 

[Greg Cox]

If a story is turned down after you submit it, is that it for it, or can you try again after you've gotten other stuff published?

If you're pitching to different editors, how would they ever know, unless you announced it had already been rejected by someone?

At Tor, the policy used to be that if a submission was rejected by one Tor editor, it was rejected by all of us. The idea being to keep us from having to reject the same damn ms. sixteen times.

But, yeah, if you're submitting to another company, it's never a good idea to mention to reveal that your submission has already been rejected x number of times. You don't get brownie points for honesty--and no editor wants to hear that he or she was your fourth choice. Or that five other publishers were unimpressed by the manuscript.

You'd be surprised how many people used to begin their cover letters by revealing that their submission had already been rejected by Bantam, Del Rey, and Baen . . . !

 

[RookieBatman]

Here's another random thought I had. If someone were to hypothetically submit multiple proposals in a short time frame, would the editor's opinion of the first proposal be prejudicial about the later submissions, or do they try to take each one on its own merits?

 

[Greg Cox]

Here's another random thought I had. If someone were to hypothetically submit multiple proposals in a short time frame, would the editor's opinion of the first proposal be prejudicial about the later submissions, or do they try to take each one on its own merits?

You probably want to wait until one submission has been rejected before firing off another one. If you bury some poor editor in proposals, you're likely to annoy them.

Beyond that . . . it depends on how good the first one is, and why it was rejected in the first place. If it was well-written but just wasn't what the editor was looking for that week, no problem. Give it another try.

But if you send in one bad idea after another ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

 

[RookieBatman]

But if you send in one bad idea after another ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

Oh boy, I guess I'll scratch that one off my list.

But seriously... here's a question you've probably heard too often. How long does it usually take to hear back about a submission?

And if you send a SASE, will an editor usually write back with a rejection, giving some comments on why, or is that only if they're feeling particularly charitable (or they see some particular potential?)

 

[JoeP]

But if you send in one bad idea after another ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

Oh boy, I guess I'll scratch that one off my list.

You too?

 

[RookieBatman]

But if you send in one bad idea after another ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

Oh boy, I guess I'll scratch that one off my list.

You too?

Hey, if we all three had this idea, it must actually be pretty good! I think we just need to throw in the Borg and Seven-of-Nine...

 

[Therin of Andor]

... ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

Damn. It's been quite a while. Was it really that bad?

I was thinking maybe it got lost in the post.

 

[Greg Cox]

And if you send a SASE, will an editor usually write back with a rejection, giving some comments on why, or is that only if they're feeling particularly charitable (or they see some particular potential?)

Honestly, I haven't worked full-time as an editor for ages now, so I don't know what the standard time frame is any more. Tie-in novels tend to take forever to get approved, though, since even after the publisher decides they like it, they still have to run it by the licensor for approval. And there's almost always a backlog of submissions in front of you.

Add more time if they ask for revisions.

It took about ten months to get my most recent CSI proposal approved . . . .

 

[RookieBatman]

It took about ten months to get my most recent CSI proposal approved . . . .

But then, if a proposal was approved, I suppose I wouldn't need to send another one. Should a rejection be expected to take less time?

 

[Lonemagpie]

But if you send in one bad idea after another ("Geordi falls in love with an alien clone of Yeoman Rand!"), you can't blame an editor for starting to remember your name . . . .

Damn, this plot's supposed to be a secret!

 

[Greg Cox]

It took about ten months to get my most recent CSI proposal approved . . . .

But then, if a proposal was approved, I suppose I wouldn't need to send another one. Should a rejection be expected to take less time?

Hard to say. Depends on how overworked the editor is, I suppose. I'm not sure what's standard at Pocket these days, especially after all of the recent staff turnovers.

 

[Christopher]

Should a rejection be expected to take less time?

Usually (speaking of publishing in general, not Pocket specifically). Rejection generally comes pretty quickly. If the response is slow in coming, it's a good sign that the editor may be giving your story or proposal serious consideration -- though of course that's no guarantee of success, and it could just as easily be due to a big backlog or other obligations occupying the editor's attention.

On the other hand, my most recent original-fiction sale took just over six weeks from submission to acceptance, which was very fast for an acceptance and eleven days less than it took a contemporaneous suggestion to another magazine to get rejected. So you never know for sure.

 

[Greg Cox]

Indeed, it's a very variable. That CSI outline was a long process, requiring plenty of patience, but my TERMINATOR proposal was approved in record time. There really isn't any hard-and-fast rule. Sometimes it just depends on what else is going on at the publisher, and how urgently they need, say, a new VOYAGER book.

In the case of TERMINATOR, there was an obvious incentive to get the book out in time to cash in on the new movie. CSI or STAR TREK, on the other hand, are long-running franchises that aren't going anywhere, so there's no rush.

The trick is to get the proposals into the loop while you're still working on some previous projects. You never want to sit around waiting for a job to be approved. You start thinking about the next book before you even start writing the new one.

 

[RookieBatman]

The trick is to get the proposals into the loop while you're still working on some previous projects. You never want to sit around waiting for a job to be approved. You start thinking about the next book before you even start writing the new one.

I'd say that's very good advice, I might have to write that down. I remember reading in Louis L'amour's biography, he said something about how he never let himself get disappointed with rejection letters, because he always had another project or submission going on.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

You're a tougher guy that I am Greg. If I had been rejected by the writing staff of Voyager I would have hung myself. I mean it's Voyager!

I pitched piles of ideas to them--and have been cannibalizing them ever since.

(I sold another of those VOYAGER pitches as a FARSCAPE story. It was surprisingly easy to turn Seven of Nine into Aeryn Sun!)

With respect it's their loss that they rejected so many of your ideas. IMO Voyager was one of the most idea-free series in television history. Why tell new stories when you can just rewrite old TNG episodes? I don't mean to be a douche but Voyager was seven long years of wasted potential. Maybe if they'd listened to you I wouldn't have been sitting there grinding my teeth into dust for so long.

 

[JD]

And if you send a SASE, will an editor usually write back with a rejection, giving some comments on why, or is that only if they're feeling particularly charitable (or they see some particular potential?)

Honestly, I haven't worked full-time as an editor for ages now, so I don't know what the standard time frame is any more. Tie-in novels tend to take forever to get approved, though, since even after the publisher decides they like it, they still have to run it by the licensor for approval. And there's almost always a backlog of submissions in front of you.

Add more time if they ask for revisions.

It took about ten months to get my most recent CSI proposal approved . . . .

Is it common for a tie- in idea to get past a editor and publisher, only to be turned down by the licensor?

 

[Greg Cox]

And if you send a SASE, will an editor usually write back with a rejection, giving some comments on why, or is that only if they're feeling particularly charitable (or they see some particular potential?)

Honestly, I haven't worked full-time as an editor for ages now, so I don't know what the standard time frame is any more. Tie-in novels tend to take forever to get approved, though, since even after the publisher decides they like it, they still have to run it by the licensor for approval. And there's almost always a backlog of submissions in front of you.

Add more time if they ask for revisions.

It took about ten months to get my most recent CSI proposal approved . . . .

Is it common for a tie- in idea to get past a editor and publisher, only to be turned down by the licensor?

Sure. Ordover and I wanted to do a "Kirk meets Q" book, but Paramount vetoed the idea--as was their right. And don't get me started on all those aborted FIREFLY novels. And it took me three tries to come up with an original UNDERWORLD plot that the movie people would approve.

As long as they get rejected at the outline stage, you can't really complain. Writing outlines for projects that never pan out is simply an occupational hazard. It comes with the territory.

But that doesn't mean you can't cannibalize them for ideas later on . . . .