(Thanks in part to a blog post by Cal P. Logan, which inspired me to get this written down while it’s still stewing. You can find the post in question here:https://calplogan.com/blog/2018/12/27/why-i-turned-down-the-only-publishing-contract-ive-been-offered ). Not that his and my situations are similar, other than we both broke ties with a publisher.)
As some of you might know, I was offered a publishing deal about a year ago. I didn’t tell a lot of people in case things went wrong, but for those of you who knew about it, you’re probably wondering whatever the fuck happened to that?
Here it is.
I’ve been thinking about writing all this out for quite a while. Since it all came to a head a few months ago, anyway. I always found one reason or another to put it off. Why write this when I had “real” writing to do? Family stuff. Kid stuff. Netflix stuff. Always something else to do.
The truth is probably closer to the fact that I just didn’t want to address it. Too raw to look at directly.
Well, no more. Better to get it out now, when it still means something. Both to gain some personal clarity and to hopefully help other writers trying to navigate the nightmare labyrinth of the publishing world.
I’d been spoiled. Except for a pitch for a Call of Cthulhu sourcebook that was rejected when I was in my early 20s, I was a writer who’d never faced real rejection before, outside of a couple of agents who never got back to me. In collage, I wrote my way into two different classes I had no prerequisites for. The first short story I ever submitted anywhere was a contest entry that won 3rd place (“The Catalogue,” found under Short Fiction on this blog). That was followed by a series of shorts submitted to the First Line Magazine, which were rejected as shorts, but which the editor and founder David LaBounty liked enough he asked me to make them into a novella. They became The God Machine, my first, and as of yet, only book (which, in a shameless plug, you can still find here: https://www.amazon.com/God-Machine-Robert-Fisher-ebook/dp/B006XZ9NHW/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1 ). The only “rejection” I faced was not winning the 3 Day Novel Contest—probably because I hardly ever submit to contests so I can lose more of them—but in any case, not winning the 3DN didn’t bother me.
This absurd string of successes in no way prepared me for the reality of rejection. It’s one thing to know in my mind that writing fiction is 99% getting turned down, but with every success the wall I’d carefully built around myself with such knowledge crumbled a little more, leaving me woefully exposed when things inevitably went south like they do for every main character.
And it all began not with rejection, but another resounding success.
Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, after extensive research, was where I decided to send Book 1 of the Tides Trilogy, The Kalis Experiments. (In yet another shameless plug you can read the prologue and first chapter on this blog, too). Edge isn’t huge, but it’s the biggest dedicated science fiction/fantasy genre publisher in Canada. Small, but not tiny.
After the standard three-month wait they got back to me. Positively. A publishing deal with the first publisher I approached with my manuscript was one of the high points of my life, even if the offer wasn’t perfect. The fact that it crumbled, painfully slow, over the next eight months has been hard for me to face until now.
I say the deal wasn’t perfect because it was an offer for their “lite” imprint. To be released first as an eBook, then progress to print-on-demand, and then to full publication based on sales. I am a new author. I get it. It was certainly something I was willing to look over, obviously, so I gave the acquisitions editor, Michelle, a “yes,” and she told me she’d forward it on to their legal department and I’d see the licensing agreement “in the coming weeks.”
Great.
For the next few months I stayed in regular contact with Michelle, who would periodically tell me my project was “still in the queue.” It was taking longer than I thought, but no matter. The publishing industry as a whole is slow, and can be even slower than slow. Finally, after a couple of months, she told me she expected I would reach the top of the queue and receive an agreement to look over around the end of October. This would make it around three months after my initial acceptance.
The end of October came and went. With it came a subtle change in tone. When I asked Michelle yet again when I could expect to see an agreement, she told me she had “no information about my place in the queue, other than I was still in it,” and any other queries should be sent to Brian Hades, the head editor, since that was his department. She began CCing my questions to him, and I began to include him in my emails, but not once received a reply.
My concern grew. I began posting questions on writers’ forums. They all confirmed what I already knew: That Edge seemed to be a legit publisher, but five, six months was an absurd time to wait for a contract. Several people advised me that I should just break ties with them, but I was reluctant. After all, I was “still in the queue.”
I reached out to a personal friend of mine, the editor of The Kalis Experiments, and a fantastic short story writer in her own right, Jennifer Wortman. She was as supportive as could be expected. She agreed that she would also be reluctant to push too much and alienate them, but still suggested I should think about giving them an ultimatum.
I agreed in theory, but there was that voice in my head that said once I signed with them, if I chose to sign with them, I’d be one of their writers. I’d be “in.” It would be in their benefit to work with me.
I waited.
In the meantime, the communications from Michelle became less regular. Often, she wouldn’t even respond, so I’d send another email a week later, only to be met with the same “It’s Brian’s department. It’s still in the queue.” And from Brian, who was included in every one of these: Nothing.
I continued to dig, more and more distraught as the idea of a publishing deal became more and more farfetched. I would scan the initial acceptance email, looking for some “if” or “as long as” clause I’d somehow missed the first fifty times I’d read it, but it was an unambiguous offer.
As I dug for any information on Edge that would give me some insight on to what the fuck was going on, I came across the organization Writers Beware, a group within the SFWA. Their website is a fantastic resource, and I encourage any writer with questions about publishers, agents or anything else that might be dodgy to contact them. Whether you’re a genre writer or not, they help all comers. https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/)
Victoria Strauss, one of the founders of Writers Beware, was prompt, thoughtful, and helpful. Unfortunately (actually fortunately), there is a strict confidence policy with WB so I can’t go into detail about what she told me, other than:
Edge is indeed a legitimate, traditional publisher.
She’d heard They’d had communications problems before.
Mine was worse than usual.
And,
I was not the only having issues with them, nor (I am extrapolating here) was my problem the worst.
And she told me, essentially, the same thing Jennifer and several other writers had said: “You should consider whether you really want to sign with them.”
I couldn’t hide from it anymore. I sent one last email to Edge. Give me a timeline on when I could expect to hear something concrete or I would reluctantly pull my manuscript. I gave them a week, which, conveniently, would be exactly eight months from my initial acceptance.
Nothing.
And so here I am. Since then rejected by two more publishers and fifteen or so agents. Each rejection, at first, stung more than it should have. For the past few months I was bitter at both Edge and myself. Bitter that they didn’t just reject me outright. Bitter that I didn’t take the first advice given and break ties with them sooner. Eight months of not submitting elsewhere. Eight months of not working on The Kalis Experiments. Four months of not working on the revisions of book two in case the editor at Edge asked me to change something in the first that would influence it.
But I got tired of being bitter, so I made a blog. I joined Twitter to shamelessly self-promote, and accidentally found other writers who are genuinely helpful. I’m rewriting some bits of The Kalis Experiments to be full-steampunk, since it was already two-thirds of the way there, and it’s already made some aspects of the plot stronger.
Fuck it. I want them to regret it. Yes, I also want them to treat their next would-be authors more professionally than they treated me, but mostly I want them to say, “damn, I remember him. I wish we hadn’t dicked him around.”
It’s petty as hell, but I’ll take it.
I wrote this in part because I’m hoping other aspiring authors will find it and be better informed than I was. I am not telling anyone not to submit to Edge. They are, after all, a legitimate publisher who accepts unsolicited manuscripts, and many writers have found success there. I hope they continue to do so. This is just my side of my experience with them. I’m sure they have their side. Perhaps if they had been even marginally more communicative with me, I would be more understanding of it.