七転び八起き (Fall down seven times, get up eight)

Lesson #4: 七転び八起き (Fall down seven times, get up eight)

So, you've sent out your query letters and waited.  And waited.  Then the replies start dribbling in.  None of them good news.  But why?! 
Don’t they see how charming your characters are?  How engaging the story is?  How rib-ticklingly hilarious your writing style is?  Why don’t they get it?  Is there something wrong with them?  Or, could it possibly be, there's something wrong with me?  Am I, in actual fact, a deluded, talentless idiot...

Don't let rejection get you down

Stop that right now!  Don’t be so hard on yourself.  You're not alone.  There's a whole host of us out there in the ether.  It really is a tough market out there, unless your name happens to be Julia Donaldson.  And, even for her, it wasn't instant success - The Gruffalo (her second book, so it really should have been a lot easier) sat on a publisher's desk for a year before she sent it to Axel Scheffler, who had illustrated A Squash and a Squeeze, and the rest is history.  But, just because the agents can’t see how you can make them a profit, that doesn't mean your story belongs in the bin.  Don't forget, because book royalties are split 50:50 between the author and the illustrator, it also means 50% less commission for the agent, too.  So, they REALLY need to believe in your story.  And that belief can be hard to summon up after a long hard day in the office, when you've got piles of submissions to work your way through and all you really want to do is catch up with the latest episode of Game of Thrones that you missed at the weekend because you were at a book fair, touting the wares of the X number of authors you've already got on your books.

What most agents want to come home to, rather than huge piles of submissions

If YOU truly believe in your story, then don’t let anyone else's lack of vision stand in your way.  It is possible to self-publish a picture book.  A darn sight harder than self-publishing a novel, for sure.  And much more expensive.  But, maybe not as expensive as you might think.  You certainly won’t find out until you get yourself up off the floor, where you've been crying bitter tears over that last and final rejection letter, brush yourself down and get started.  Because there's a lot to be done...

That’s what I did when I found myself in the exact same shoes you're wearing right now (or are they slippers, I can't quite see from here).  I set out straight away, with no self-doubt, knowing absolutely everything there was to know about commissioning illustrators, typesetting picture books, print-on-demand publishers and how to market the final product...

Erm, well, alright.  Not quite.  At first, I tried sending out the manuscript to a few more agents and publishers, before finally calling it quits.  

But I couldn't call it quits.  Sir Nibbles wouldn't let me.  He kept nagging away at me saying it wasn't over.  So, I started asking people I knew with a talent for drawing.  When that didn't get me very far, I tried to forget all about Sir Nibbles.  Again.  But I still couldn't.  And so, I finally accepted that I was going to have to bite the bullet and go for it...

Know exactly what I mean?  Well, hopefully, over the next few weeks I can help you get a bit more organised about it than I was when I first started out...