Long time, no see.
I am, I admit, kind of embarrassed that I haven’t posted on here in literally two years. I hadn’t meant to go AWOL for so long, but the truth was that I had no news to report.
I had a book die on submission to publishers. And then another.
And now…I’ve parted ways with my agent and will be back in the query trenches again, as soon as I finish my current manuscript.
People don’t talk about these kinds of publishing journeys very often. I know that when I was reading about other authors’ experiences, I usually heard about authors getting an agent -> selling their book to a publisher -> living happily ever after. No one talks about what it’s like to die on submission, or to part ways with your agent before you’ve even sold anything.
There’s a sense of shame in it, I think. Feeling like you haven’t progressed in your traditional publishing journey—like you have, in fact, gone backwards.
I’ve been telling friends that I’m trying to finish my current manuscript as quickly as possible so I can get back into the querying trenches, and many of my friends are puzzled as to why I feel like I have to rush. It’s totally due to a sense that I need to work hard in order to at least get back to where I was in my career, so I don’t have to feel like a total failure. And it’s also, for me, a feeling like I’ve already spent so much time trying to get a traditional book deal already—2019 was the year I started prioritizing publication over other things in my life, and it’s been almost 5 years since then—and I can’t bring myself to stop until all that time has finally been worth something.
For the record, I’m not saying this is necessarily a good or healthy approach to trying to get published; those are just my honest feelings. And I’m sure I would be in a very different headspace right now if I hadn’t been in the middle of a new manuscript already by the time I parted with my agent. (I probably would’ve taken a break from publishing altogether.)
But part of the shame, I think, also comes from the fact that querying is the most “transparent” part of the publishing process to most writers trying to get published. Getting an agent is everyone’s dream, and so the idea of parting ways with an agent seems unfathomable.
Yet now that I’ve seen more of the publishing industry—now that I’ve had the experience of watching a book die on submission to editors, not once, but twice—I know that getting an agent is only a very small step in breaking into the publishing industry.
I dearly, dearly wish I could talk more about what the experience of being on submission was like. I hate the fact that authors generally refrain from talking about submission out of fear of being blacklisted by the industry, because that’s how publishers can continue to get away with racism, queerphobia, ableism, etc.
Make no mistake, authors of color/marginalized authors do NOT have an easier time breaking into the industry.
I am very visibly an author of color who writes books about queer characters of color (who are sometimes also neurodivergent). I’ve had two books die on submission, in two different genres. I have no more patience for people who whine that “all publishers want is books by authors of color.” It’s not true. And even if that’s what some publishers say, there’s a very big difference between saying that and actually acquiring books by authors of color.
I’m not going to lie: I am feeling pretty bruised and exhausted right now. It is rough, believing it when publishing says they want diversity, only to have your books shot down over and over again. Whenever my friends ask me what keeps me writing, I half-jokingly say, “Masochism.” Really, though, if I didn’t love the craft of writing and storytelling this much, I would have given up long ago. It’s hard to say whether anything else is worth putting yourself through this much constant rejection. So often, I hear other authors say their books that died on submission weren’t ready yet, in hindsight. But I don’t believe that about my books. They had solid, commercial, hooky premises. The writing was there. Yet no one was interested in them.
If there’s one (extremely faint, barely visible) silver lining, though, it’s that knowing all of this has given me a different perspective on querying. Form rejections from agents feel like nothing compared to form rejections from editors who said they were looking for diverse books, or all the “liked it, but didn’t love it” editor rejections I’ve been drowning in for the past three years.
So, anyway, I’m making one more attempt at this publishing thing. I’m halfway through a fantasy manuscript, hoping I can write the second half and revise it over the next few months, and then jump back in the query trenches. And then…well, we’ll see.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from this industry, it’s that absolutely nothing is guaranteed.
Hey everyone! Earlier this week, I wrote 
HUMAN ENOUGH is out in the world today!
E.S. Yu 