THE ONE WHERE THE OPPORTUNITIES WERE A TRAP
Category/genre: YA speculative
Publishing wanted me to win.
Now, let's not get crazy. They didn't believe in me, they didn't like my books, they didn't like my genre and they definitely didn't think I could sell. However, within my first round of rejections came the first of many…"opportunities", some would call them. I'm more inclined to call them "trapportunities."
Let’s rewind.
I got an agent in 2020, nine years after I wrote my first novel, four years after I sent my first query. It was my eighth book—the one I wrote in anger after my seventh one got over a hundred rejections. The eighth got over fifty before receiving one single agent offer.
You could say it was an anticipated moment.
Sure, I went from a bright-eyed artíste with love for the craft to the human embodiment of a lone, soggy McDouble sloshing in chunks against a litter-covered rain gutter.
But I had an agent now! "How fulfilling," as Diahann Carol would say.
Disgustingly, I had hope! Submission started off as if it were a turning point in my career where things—which, yes, had been going slow for the past nine years—would go quickly and splashily. Finally, I would be recognized! Finally, I would find my audience!
What actually happened was that I finally looked as goofy as I was.
Sure enough, ahuk, a few months later, the inevitable sludge of rejections started rolling in from our modest round of editors. We went out to fifteen total, not all at once, and five of them I had already contacted before I was agented. It was a timid start to submission, and I appreciated it after my extravagantly negged querying journey. But those first few submission rejections didn't mean there was noise—I mostly faced silence afterward, and went into silence mode again for the next six months or so. After a year, I had spent so much time in the quiet it was practically a writing retreat—had another book ready for sub and we sent it out.
But what makes this a Sob story and not a Sub story is what set the tone in my first round of rejections: all of the "trapportunities" they gave me. All the straight up free labor that was expected of me to fit a mold I never promised, never even proposed.
Vague R&Rs with very little guidance and huge asks (think of a note like this for Twilight—"Can you take out the whole werewolf thing? I think I might be able to sell it then!"). IP proposals for industry professionals who subsequently left the industry. Solicitations from editors who don't work in my genre. Opportunities everywhere! For someone who was like me, I guess.
It was like publishing wanted me to win…because I was butt ugly. Publishing was my cousin's hot friend that was guilted into taking me to prom because nobody asked me. It wasn't embarrassing per se, more frustrating. If you like me enough to pity-date me, why not just give it a real shot? I was getting post-nasal drip opportunities, and when all the scraps you get are what falls through the cracks, you really start to see how disorganized the industry is. How informal.
It's not a straight line of query, get an agent, go on submission, get a book deal—there's zigzagging and heartbreaking and handshaking behind closed doors that will never see the light of day. Some emails fall in your inbox, and only you're around to hear it. And then, eleven months later after you turned it down, you're still on sub, still getting rejections. And you wonder if you made a mistake.
The aforementioned book, the eighth book I ever wrote—the book that got me an agent, after over fifty agent rejections—died on sub with a fizzle and a "aight now you ain't got to go home but you gotta get the hell outta here." I did not take the vague R&R (it kind of seemed like my agent might have wanted me to, but they hid it well enough that I'm not so sure) and it haunted me. Like, I felt the note in the R&R was a racist note (Racism 201 at least, so it wasn't blatant bigotry), and here I was eleven months later still wondering if I should have considered it. I did do the IP, which fell through (which it obviously would—the person in charge of it left!).
My other book on sub was dead silent—it'd been eight months since I went out, and we had even fewer responses than the other one had had around the same time. Since I didn't get enough ahyuks in my first few months, I decided to explore another IP option. Of course that fell through. It was a pattern at that point—go out on sub, hope like a dumbass, get a trapportunity, fail on all sides.
I get the email from my agent at 11AM that this second IP was falling through, and that we probably should move on…so, how odd, when I get another email from them at 2PM.
After eight months of silence, my other book on sub is going to acquisitions.
So far, my journey had been rejections and zigzagging like a drunk rat in a slippery maze and here I was, twenty months after I first went on sub—having the publishing thing happen. The regular old, straight line kind of way where you query, get an agent, go on submission, and get a book deal. I had every trapportunity offered to me and I shoved each one away, hating myself every time I did. Why must I be the Goldilocks of handshake agreements and messy contracts? These people were nice enough to give me a chance. Take one of them, ahyuk!
I thought that having people believe in me meant those people were my doors in. I was so preoccupied with how long it took for the line outside the club to move, I was looking at back windows I couldn't even fit through. A part of me knew that they weren't right for me, but another part of me was so concerned with getting published quickly that every opportunity seemed like one I should have taken ahold of.
I got an official offer on the seventh book I ever wrote—yes, the one that died in the query trenches after over a hundred queries—after eighteen months total on continuous sub (eight months for that particular book). It was the only offer I received, and the only opportunity that didn't fall through.
And because publishing is a joke, my notice of offer went out and I received two more trapportunities: one was an offer to go to acquisitions with the book in a few weeks, for a different format; and another was just "okay, lemme know how it goes because I'm interested" (but no offer).
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The stories on this blog are posted anonymously so that authors can speak candidly about their experience. If you have a sub story you’d like to share, drop me an email at: katedylanbooks@gmail.com
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