I hate them. Straight out, just hate queries and submissions. It has nothing to do with the almost inevitable rejection – I’ve never really taken the rejections too personally. No, it has more to do with the work and the effort involved.
For one thing, there are often hours and hours involved in searching for the right agent or house to submit to. Which often involves keeping up with the latest news, shifts, moves, trends, etc., within the industry (an exhausting proposition in and of itself).
But then there’s the query letter, the synopsis, the submission guidelines, the brief biography, etc., etc., etc. You have to watch your spelling, your word count, your paragraph length. Make sure you have the name right, the email right, the proper subject line. …. it’s enough to exhaust you. And remember, before all of this (or sometimes after), you’ve written a novel.
So yes, I hate querying and submitting my work. I would much rather spend my time writing, or reading, to be honest. But in order to get published, you have to query and you have to submit.
The thing is, I feel like this whole submission process is almost like the twelve labours of Hercules. Writers jump through all of these hoops for even the chance of getting their work glanced at, let alone considered. But the publishing industry would be nothing without writers (and yes, writers are nothing without the industry). But if that’s the case, shouldn’t the process be a little more even-handed, and not writers struggling so hard to be found, only to get scammed, cheated, lied to, misrepresented, or shafted monetarily? Granted it’s not always that bad, but there are enough of those types of stories out there to really make you question the system of how we get stories into the hands of readers.
Sheena Lyn 