Writing Blog

20220216 New Rejection!

February 16, 2022, 11:00am
So…

Rejections…

I have already mentioned a recent rejection, and they really are par for the course. If you’re a writer who submits, you are going to be rejected at some point. Sometimes it’s because the editor/reader just does not ‘click’ with the work; sometimes it’s because the story does not quite fit in with the rest of the anthology/magazine; sometimes it’s because there were so many harsh cuts had to be made; and sometimes it’s because the writer is not very good (either realistically or in the opinion of the editor/reader). I have gone through all of these.

Well, last night, I did the rejecting. For the second time.

Some months ago, a company “liked” my book – a comedy space opera about intergalactic corporations killing things – and they sent me through an example of the edits they would do on my book. They removed every joke, changed the language, took away my voice. In ten pages they made more than 500 changes.

Now, I am fine with editorial changes. They happen all the time. But this was beyond fixing and cleaning things up; this was wholesale change. So, I said no, I was not happy, and would not be going through with it. I would not be signing the contract and would be withdrawing my book from their company.

Yesterday, they re-sent the manuscript with a different series of edits. This time they added jokes. Silly jokes, pop culture references, stuff that made no sense in the context of the longer work. I emailed back saying I was still not happy, but that I had also withdrawn my work and so they should not be working with it. They said they wanted it, and were trying to come to an agreement with me.

I rejected them. I told them to not contact me again. They had also accepted 2 short stories for 2 anthologies, and I said I was withdrawing them as well (fortunately, I had not signed the contracts for them, as I was debating what to do about their editing policy). They tried convincing me to re-consider, I contacted two of my US publishers, and they said it would not affect my reputation amongst the community, so I told them to not contact me again.

Yes, I have now done a complete rejection of a publishing company. Turnaround is fair play.