Chapter 3. Rejection Letters

Dear Author,

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to read your submission.  We appreciate you considering us for representation of your work.

Unfortunately, after careful review, we have decided that the . . . Literary Agency might not be the right agency for this project. This industry is incredibly subjective, and there are many agencies out there with many different tastes.  It is for this reason that we strongly encourage you to keep submitting elsewhere, in the hopes of finding an agent who will be an enthusiastic champion for you and your work.

I've decided to leave out the name of the agency for privacy reasons.  


To be honest, I wasn't even expecting a letter in return for when we get rejected. Most agencies state on their websites that they don't have the time to reply, so getting even some word from one of the agencies I sent letters to was nice.

And note that I said when we get rejected. No, this isn't the low self-esteemed Ellie you saw in my New Year's Eve post, but the realistic Ellie who knows that not everybody is ready to jump on a series written by two 22-year-olds with no substantial backgrounds in writing. 


You can't go into the writing world, expecting agents to just flock to you because you've finished a manuscript. You have to go into it with patience. You'll be rejected. You'll get letters just like I did. Hell, J.K. Rowling was rejected many times before she actually found a publisher, and the company who published her at the time was a very small firm. 


You never know what's going to happen. So we have to just keep trying and trying until there's no agents left to send letters to.

Chapter 2. The Query Letter and Our Hook

I haven't had much a chance yet to go into full details as to my process of attempting getting published or anything on my and Libby's novel, so we'll start out with the first step after the manuscript is all completed.


The query letter. 


First, don't let me deceive you. Libby and I are not at all experienced in this. In fact, Google was our best friend and the only way we figured out how to do any of this. I'm just trying to help you out here by explaining the process we are currently going through. 


Now then, the letter. What exactly is a query letter? One website we found that was extremely helpful, AgentQuery, describes it as

A query letter is a single page cover letter, introducing you and your book. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a resume. It’s not rambling saga of your life as an aspiring writer. It’s not a friendly, “Hey, what’s up, buddy. I’m the next John Grisham. Got the next best selling thriller for ya,” kind of letter. And for the love of god, it is NOT more than one-page. Trust us on this.

So, we trusted them. We followed their general guide on how to write our letters, which you can read for yourself linked above.


But the hardest part for us was definitely the first part of the letter. The Hook.


One sentence to describe your entire novel. One sentence that's supposed to capture the attention of the agents you're sending it out to. One sentence is supposed to determine whether you get published. 


That's really fucking intimidating. But we managed. So, let me provide you all with the first taste of what our novel series, Windows, is all about. 

When souls are combined into beings called Spirits, Alex Pierce will come face-to-face with these seemingly immortal creations that have turned her once happy life into sixteen years of hell.

And there you have it. That sentence alone holds all the weight of our future. So far, we've sent out letters to only three agencies but plan on more in the future. 

Another useful tool I stumbled upon to help find agencies to send to was the AAR Website. The page I linked here is a complete list of all agencies on the website, most listing what specific books they are looking for from fiction to non-fiction. 

If you need help with any of this or want more advice on writing the Query Letter, feel free to ask. I don't view the world of fiction writing as a competition and would love to befriend other aspiring authors as well out there.

Chapter 1. New Year's Resolution

I'm not the type to make New Year's Resolutions. In fact, I haven't made one since I was maybe 12. But I think after ten years, I'll break that. 


So what's my New Year's Resolution? To never give up on my writing aspirations again. 


I'm a girl of little self-esteem and plenty of self-doubt. I'm the type of person who, if I don't get it right, I'll work for hours and hours, but never become satisfied with what I'm doing and, ultimately, throw it away out of frustrations. 


So, for awhile, I quit. I gave up wanting to go to college for Creative Writing and took a major instead in Graphic Design. Even in my designs, I have little confidence, but that's another story in itself. I stopped writing poetry like I used to and gave up writing after Libby and I grew apart for a year or two.


This is why I'm happy I have Libby again. We have been writing stories together online since we were eleven. More than half of our lives. But she lives in the southern end of the United States and I in the north, so we've only met four times. So, we're forced to write via instant messenger programs. But, if anything, that only motivates us further and causes us to accomplish more in a day than either of us would by ourselves. 


When it comes to my frustrations with stories or art that I'm working on, I have nothing to keep me on track. I don't have that confidence to look at my piece and go "I like this." But with Libby there, she provides that voice. We assure each other when things are going great in our storyline or when things are wrong or lackluster. When we write, it's a perfect environment and we're both comfortable together. 


So, for this upcoming new year, I'll have better confidence in my work. I'll work hard to get my and Libby's novel an agent. I'll finish our trilogy and finally be proud of something I made. 

Happy New Years

The Prologue

I'm not very good at keeping a blog, nor do I ever really know what to do with them once I get them. I see a lot of people out there with a massive following and think to myself, "Golly gee, Ellie. What can I do to get a readership like that?"


"Maybe I should make drabble drawings like Hyperbole and a Half?"

Who am I kidding? I'm way to lazy to do that and look at that scribble mess! Hard to believe I'm a Graphic Designer when I doodle things like that in MS Paint. And even that took longer than it should have. 

"Maybe I should post pictures of myself doing fun, outrageous things?"

Nope, too shy for that one. Plus I wanna keep an "air of mystery" about myself anyways. I chose Ellie Marc as a pen name, after all. If I'm going to show my face freely, I might as well have just wrote under my own name, right? 

"Maybe I can post a ton of animated gifs that will draw people's attention to me because we share similar tastes?"

Okay. This one might not be too bad of an idea. BUT it's not really unique or interesting. 

So what am I supposed to do? Win them over with my charm and charisma? Give up without even trying simply because I can't form an idea?

No. 

I got it.

I'll win them over with my story.