Bracing myself for rejection
- Karina
- May 6
- 2 min read
74. Wednesday 6 May 2026
I peaked way too early today. After feeling so sluggish and bleugh yesterday, I was full of energy this morning and went into overdrive. Before 9am I’d had ideas for how to write a basic agent letter template, I’d baked a loaf of sourdough, baked a rhubarb, marzipan citrus cake (BBC Good Food recipe, and it tasted AMAZING, especially hot out the oven with a rhubarb compote/mush), fed the birds and messaged a few friends. By 10.30, I decided to reward my good efforts by going for a walk. I made very little writing/editing/agenting progress after that because I had my walk, sat by the river in the sun, called out the AA for a burning wheel (long story), mowed four of five lawns, watched a film, ate dinner (and more rhubarb cake) and, at 21:30 I’m gazing out the window in amazement that it’s still not dark yet.
I wrote out four versions of a possible template (number 4 is workable), sent that one to Chris G for his thoughts (generally positive), didn’t manage to make it better (but it needs to be), but I thought about it. I now have to hand the printout I made from my previous two novels where I listed the agencies, agents, dates, if they replied and their timescale for no reply meaning a definitive no. I then listed the first ten agents I want to submit Crime Writing for Beginners to, by going through my previous list and choosing the right agent from their websites.
The plan then is to write a cover letter for each of them, having first reread their agent bios and found out what I can about them and their interests, and then wait … and wait …
For book 4, The Agency for Unusual Placements, I submitted to 18 agents, got six rejections, only one of which also had a personalised comment.
For book 5, Infinite Possibilities, which I know was a better novel than book 4, I submitted to 77 agents. I had 15 rejections, of which at least two (I’ve marked two but from memory there were more like four) were personalised and one was a request for the full manuscript. From one of my top 3 agents. I am almost dreading sending this one to her because I think I’ll be even more disappointed if she doesn’t snap it up this time. She even read two versions of the last novel. I really want her to love this book enough to take me on. So yeah, submitting to her feels like a big deal and I’m dreading not hearing from her. Ugh, ugh, ugh. To all the people over the years whom I’ve told that I’ve written a book, they’ve then asked when they can buy it … so many of us have absolutely no idea how long this process is and how writing it is almost the easiest, quickest part.
