Three months till my deadline. At this juncture, it’s become clear my book won’t find a home with any publisher. As we speak, I’ve given up on publishing houses and started to submit to magazines who publish novellas in installments, and even that road looks dim at best.
Self-publishing isn’t the end of the road; it’s just a fork. Either you put your work out there or forget about this manuscript and concentrate on your next one. I can’t just throw this one down to the oubliettes. It’s a story I’ve been working on for a long time, and I believe there is an audience out there for it.
What’s more, a few agents and editors have said the story does have potential, but it was not to their liking for so and so reasons. Therefore, I believe that my story isn’t awful if it sparked people’s interest.
So, these last few submissions will be my last, as many of these online magazines have a response time of twelve weeks. I’ve already started to format my manuscript to publish it online in October.
According to Erica Verrillo, a writer who helps other writers get published, manuscripts between 40 000 and 60 000 words are deemed “unmarketable” by agents and publishers alike. So if you’ve written a story whose word count falls into that godforsaken bracket, Erica Verrillo has done the work for us and searched quite a few places which might be interested in your novella or short story, or whatever you wish to call it.
Here’s to us, mavericks!
My Foolish Quest to Get Published 