Change? We Fear Change!
One of the working definitions of insanity runs along the lines of "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results." In a nutshell, this represents my own swimming upstream struggle in the publishing world. Ergo, it's time for a change in the game plan.
I started doing this "troop down to the book store and sigh deeply into the current copy of the Writer's Market" thing way back in 1991. As of this posting, to date I have received three semi-personalized rejection letters, one highly personalized rejection letter (which I prize like a gold bar, or a lump of kryptonite, take your pick), two near-hits and a couple dozen highly impersonal "go fuck yourself" letters. Yeah, they didn't literally say that, but rejection is still rejection and at the very least, you like to be told you were at least an okay kisser.
It's painfully obvious that scanning the publisher index for the appropriate genre, weeding out the ninety-six percent of houses that don't take unsolicited/unpublished/underwhelming authors for the six or so choices left and then sending out the good old "Dear Editor" letter is going to get me nowhere but a step closer every year to the boobyhatch. Maybe back in 1995 this would have worked, but the world is changing and that hoary old tome hasn't given me anything good since the last time the Oakland Athletics were a threat in the playoffs.
Using my Google-Fu, I have picked out a new agency purely from the online world, and I won't be printing their name here since I don't want to throw a hex on things. What the hell; can't hurt to change that part of the process too, right?
Tomorrow I hit the post office. Baby, I'm back.
EDIT: Not only did I find a likely landing place (he hoped devoutly) for the Ring Of Fire books, I'm also looking very hard at a place to send off The Final Nine. My Google-Fu is strong.
I started doing this "troop down to the book store and sigh deeply into the current copy of the Writer's Market" thing way back in 1991. As of this posting, to date I have received three semi-personalized rejection letters, one highly personalized rejection letter (which I prize like a gold bar, or a lump of kryptonite, take your pick), two near-hits and a couple dozen highly impersonal "go fuck yourself" letters. Yeah, they didn't literally say that, but rejection is still rejection and at the very least, you like to be told you were at least an okay kisser.
It's painfully obvious that scanning the publisher index for the appropriate genre, weeding out the ninety-six percent of houses that don't take unsolicited/unpublished/underwhelming authors for the six or so choices left and then sending out the good old "Dear Editor" letter is going to get me nowhere but a step closer every year to the boobyhatch. Maybe back in 1995 this would have worked, but the world is changing and that hoary old tome hasn't given me anything good since the last time the Oakland Athletics were a threat in the playoffs.
Using my Google-Fu, I have picked out a new agency purely from the online world, and I won't be printing their name here since I don't want to throw a hex on things. What the hell; can't hurt to change that part of the process too, right?
Tomorrow I hit the post office. Baby, I'm back.
EDIT: Not only did I find a likely landing place (he hoped devoutly) for the Ring Of Fire books, I'm also looking very hard at a place to send off The Final Nine. My Google-Fu is strong.