Hello all of you out in the blogosphere! Been a while. I'm sure you've all missed me. It's ok to admit it. Your secret is safe with me!
I've probably mentioned it before (I'm too lazy to go back through my post archive and check) but my Urban Fantasy novel that should be coming out this spring has been around for a while. I'd finished it sometime last spring and let it sit for a while before I pushed it on, I mean, asked some people if they'd like to read it. It was in the hands of a few friends when I caught a blog post by the awesome Kim Harrison on FB. She's published through Harper Collins and as it turned out, their e-book division, Harper Voyager, was having some type of 'unprecedented' open submission event. Basically, it was open to anybody and everybody who's either self published or not published yet but felt they had something to put out into the world. The guidelines were pretty simple: you had until October 15 (I think? Can't remember the exact date) to send your manuscript to them at which point, they'd have editors look at your product and ultimately decide if it was good enough for them to publish. The deal wasn't a golden ticket. There was no advance and it was only for ebooks, not physical copies. But still. Published? Discovered? Not having to pay for editorial services, cover art, formatting, AND having their advertising department behind your work? It was worth a shot.
The friends who'd read it got it back to me about three weeks before the deadline with comments. I decided that I was going to bust a gut to clean it up as best I could based on said comments and send it in. What's the worst that could happen, right? So, I fixed it and submitted it on October 13, 2012.
NOW, in the FAQs section, one of the questions was 'Will I hear back if my book has been rejected?' Their answer was no. "With the volume of submissions we expect, we simply will not have time to reply to every applicant. Therefor, if you haven't heard from us in about four months, you can assume that your manuscript wasn't what we are looking for at this time." Or something to that effect.
It's now roughly five months after-the-fact. They haven't called me or emailed me saying that I blew the editors' knickers off and they would lie, cheat, steal, and kill to have me in their bullpen. I sort of expected it. The way they made it sound in the guidelines, it almost seemed as if they wanted super duper uber polished products that they could hit the ground running with. Being I relied on a handful of comments from buddies and myself to fix any issues, I assumed a couple months ago that it wasn't for them. That of course is why I sent it to more betas and went over the whole thing again, making it much more awesomer (I wish I could rewind time and send them the book as it is NOW back THEN. But what can ya do?)
K. We're all caught up!
Anyway, last night I was talking to a buddy of mine who's an author. She'd also submitted her self published book to HV during the open event. Somehow, we got on the topic of it and she told me that they ARE sending out rejection letters. I was like 'say whut?' and she was like 'like, really!'. Turns out, despite what the guidelines said, they are sending out rejection letters and have been for a while now. Something to the tune of 3200 or so have gone out.
Guess who hasn't gotten one yet. ME! Here I was thinking that no news is bad news, based on what I inferred from their website (it was pretty explicit, so I don't think I misunderstood) and it still may very well be. I forget the exact figure but my buddy said the latest HV update said they still have about 700 that are in the process of 'not having been read yet or already read once and are to be revisited'.
So, what does this mean for me? I'm sure they're going in the order the novels came in. Not sure where I fall in there. I got it in only a couple days before the deadline so it could just be a matter of mine being near the bottom of the stack. If there were a lot of Johnny Come Latelies, it could be that they've already read it and are still considering it. Either which way, it's nice to know that I WILL hear from them eventually, either way. As of now, it's on the periphery of my consciousness, but I'm still moving forward with the betas, my cover guy, and the editor I hired to look at in about a week and a half from now. My book WILL see the light of day not too far from now, that much I promise. Whether it'll be under the HV imprint or self published on Amazon and Smashwords is another story.
In the meantime, I ain't banking on it but it's nice to know that out of those 3200 or so rejection letters, I ain't been one of them. So, no news is just that: no news. We'll see what we'll see ;)
As an aside, I almost pulled an April Fool's joke on my author page in which I screamed from the rooftops that Harper Voyager liked my novel and brought me into the fold. (I didn't do it because I thought it would be kind of mean to those still waiting or who've been rejected. I'm not that much of a dick, although it probably would have been funny to poke some fun at myself when I revealed I was just spouting bullshit. )
Coincidence?? Most likely. Self fulfilling prophecy? A jinx on myself? I don't believe in that shit, so I'll go with coincidence.
Ok, you're blinded by my babble by now so I'll stop right here and now. As always, thanks for dropping by!
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