THE ONE WITHOUT AN ENDING

Cat/genre: Adult/YA Fantasy

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m still on sub.

In fact, my book is about to go out to a new batch of editors. This will be round 3. The MS originally went on submission in July 2020—over 13 months ago. A year isn’t that long, in the grand scheme of things. But a year of waiting in doubt—a year spent worrying whether your dreams will come true or erode before your eyes—can feel like forever.

A few more facts before we dig in: after receiving three agent offers in April 2020, I signed with a well-respected senior agent at an agency that’s widely considered top tier. My agent is impressive—name brand clients, major Netflix deals, plenty of six and seven-figure book sales. I mention this not to brag (although, yeah, I’m bragging a little), but to combat the common misconception that good agents always sell (good) books fast. People often assume that if you’re on sub for an extended period, you must either have a bad agent or a bad book. In my experience, that’s not true.

My first round, I went out to 11 adult fantasy editors, all from Big 5 publishing houses. I had one early response after about two weeks. The other responses rolled in between 34 and 281 days. Quite the spread. The feedback, too, was all over the map. I received some praise, and also some “not right for me” indifference. Three responses included critical feedback, mostly focused on world building. I had one editor in that round who never responded.

After six months of rejections, my agent and I took another look at our strategy, as she had gotten some informal feedback that I might have more luck with the YA market. When she first floated the idea to me, I had a lot of complicated feelings. I’ve always considered myself an adult writer, and this book, in particular, wasn’t written for a teen audience. It features a female MC in her early twenties—not a teen, but not married with kids either. However, I’m aware that the voice, the world building, and the heavy romance subplot do give the book—what publishers consider—a YA feel.

I did some soul searching and finally decided that so long as I was allowed to preserve key elements of the MC’s personality and relationships, it couldn’t hurt to age her down by a few years. I could live with that compromise. And let’s face it, I really, really, really wanted to sell this book, by almost any means necessary. I’ve made my peace with that decision, but I still feel weird about it. I don’t like the way fantasy publishing treats stories about women, and especially stories by women. Maybe that’s a battle for later in my career.

So after months of revising and cutting over 25k words (thank you YA word count norms), I went out for round 2 in early 2021, to nine YA imprints and one adult imprint (we also sent the revised MS to two adult editors from round 1 who hadn’t yet responded). Again, I had one early pass after about two weeks, then the rest came in somewhere between one and six months. I still have four editors who haven’t replied. The feedback from round 2 didn’t give me much to go on, other than some editors felt the MC was too adult-like (surprise, surprise). I did get one very positive R&R from an editor who loved certain aspects of the plot, but I didn’t end up pursuing that because, again, the editor felt my MC was too adult, and the character traits she pointed to aren’t something I’m willing to compromise on.

In July 2021, after a lot of reflection, tears, and frantic calls with my agent, I decided to do yet another round of revisions, this time focused on world building—the critique most often cited in my rejections. That took me about a month.

Which brings us to now. Round 3. Where the book will, once again, be going out to both YA and adult editors. It’s kind of trippy when I think about it. I don’t even know what age category my debut will be—if this book sells at all.

It’s hard not to obsess over the why. Why me—or rather, why not me? Why not my book? Why can no one agree on my age category? Why do some manuscripts sell in days or weeks while I’m still groping for answers in the dark? More than once, I’ve wondered if I simply wrote a bad book. Or worse, a mediocre one. The painful truth is, I’ll probably never know why. You can only glean so much insight from vague editor rejection letters and your agent’s placating assurances that “things are just slow right now.” That’s half the battle of sub—getting used to sitting alone in the dark. You might be there for a while.

But the hardest part? Not knowing when it’ll be over. This may come as a shock—it did to me—but editors ghost on full requests, too. You can’t hold out for the day when you have a “yes” or “no” from everyone. That day might never come. You can only hope that you’ll be able to tell once you’ve reached the finish line—that it won’t fly over your head, escaping your notice entirely. You hope it hasn’t passed you by already. And you cling to the things that are certain: your support network, your new WIP, your own beautiful, stubborn resilience. Because writers are tough as f***ing nails. They have to be, or they’d quit on day one. Always remember, regardless of the outcome—no matter how long it takes, whichever way it turns out—you never, ever gave up. You fought until the end. It’s not much, and some days it may feel like nothing at all; but it’s real, and it’s yours.

No amount of uncertainty can take that away. 

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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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