Page 1 of 1

No Rejection

Posted: 12 Dec 2016, 22:12
by AMagnificentAmberson
Has anyone else submitted manuscripts to publishers and received no reply at all, whether good or bad? I know some don't reply, but the two I sent mine to said they would reply and within a given time frame. I waited double the time for one. When I sent the manuscript to another publisher, I almost immediately received a rejection letter. I was braced for rejection, but I didn't expect no answer at all and I don't see anyone else online talking about it.

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 31 Mar 2017, 14:25
by Christina O Phillips
I have not had radio silence, thankfully. I've had rejections that have taken longer than I thought they would to reply, but all places I've submitted to have answered.
Did you ever try to follow up and email them again?

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 31 Mar 2017, 14:45
by AMagnificentAmberson
Yes, with two of them. A third is now late responding, but I've been so busy I haven't asked them about it yet. Perhaps it is because I'm sending it to only one at a time and/or waiting so long to send it to another?

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 31 Mar 2017, 14:47
by Christina O Phillips
I hate waiting. I try to either start new projects or have multiple things out there at the same time so that I can not just focus on waiting for one reply.

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 01 Apr 2017, 09:36
by Amagine
It happened to me once. I sent a manuscript to an agent and never heard anything back. I don't like harassing people so I didn't bother trying with them again.

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 19 Jun 2018, 10:52
by Sushan Ekanayake
you cannot expect to be successful at the very beginning. yet, if your problem is being rejected, try Amazon self publishing, where no one is there to reject your work

Re: No Rejection

Posted: 21 Aug 2018, 20:47
by H0LD0Nthere
This is very, very common.

I have been querying agents like crazy. Many of them have a "no response means no" policy ... "If you haven't heard from us in [6 weeks, for example], that means we are not interested in your manuscript." Some do try to respond to every submission, but most are so swamped that they just can't. Even if they do try to respond, they are often so swamped that they are "behind" and don't get to you until well after their stated response time.

It is quite the emotional roller coaster submitting queries to agents or submissions to publishers, waiting for responses, and getting rejections, either explicit rejections or default ones by silence. The only thing I can compare it to is proposing marriage to a new person every day, and most don' t answer you for 6 months. :) However, it is something everyone goes through.

Even if they do reject, it may not mean your manuscript is bad. There are so many possible reasons, like they just accepted something similar, or they like it but can't imagine that they could sell it, or even that they are just too busy to look closely.

To find where I got all this information, and tons more helpful stuff besides, I recommend this agent's blog: jetreidliterary.blogspot.com

Keep on keeping on, my friend!