My experience on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme: Month 10

Hello again. Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month Ten is all about getting published via the traditional route. All routes under this umbrella expect some form of submission package: a query letter (more likely an email), a one-page synopsis and an extract of the beginning of your manuscript – often the first 3 chapters. 

So, all I have to do is take my years of writing — the head-in-hands moments, the hours spent staring into the middle distance, my constant, chronic fear of the delete button — and package my story into a nice, easy to ‘get’ product statement. Simples, yes?  

No, not really. But bear with… because it really is important that we learn to approach the publishing industry with our eyes and hearts happily open. 

I’ve been honing my writing craft for over ten years now. My last-but-one completed manuscript collected sixty-three submission rejections (I stopped sending it out because I’d run out of suitable ‘open to submission’ agents). The manuscript currently doing the querying rounds is up to over twenty ‘thanks but no thanks,’ responses. I plan to give it a total of at least sixty-four chances of rejection.  

I have also entered many book competitions over the years and driven myself mad with hope that this one will see value in my writing. On longlist announcement days, I was not easy to live with. I stopped counting the competition entries, having eventually wrangled my hopeful heart into more of a ‘think of the entry fee as a donation to the writing community at large and forget about it,’ approach.  

At various moments in these ten years, whilst crafting and sending my stories out into the world, I have felt incredibly foolish, laughably ridiculous, beyond ‘past it’, alienated from the latest ‘in crowd’ and somewhat demoralised by the whole process.  

Which, I think, simply proves I’m a rational human being. Even seriously accomplished writers find the packaging of our artform somewhat grotesque. Take my Ultimate Novel Writing Programme tutor, Andrew Miller, a twice Booker Prize-shortlisted author. When we talked about elevator pitches, he placed his tongue firmly in his cheek, and said what I reckon every single novelist throughout history has thought at some point: if I could summarise the whole novel in just one sentence, why did I bother to write the novel? It was wonderful to hear a respected author speak aloud the market’s strangeness – the nigh on violent act of having to compress a novel into just one or two sentences. 

But art has always lived inside markets, whether I like it or not. All serious writers have engaged with this reality and endured it with their eyes open. This need to package, whilst it feels antithetical to ‘art’, does sharpen the work and is a vital necessity. 

The often-unspoken truth about The Submission Package is that the elevator pitches, synopses, and comp titles aren’t actually about the book. No: they’re about helping tired, overworked humans decide where to place their attention. That doesn’t make submission packages very noble beasts, but it hopefully makes them more understandable. It’s not about ‘selling out’ your hard artistic effort. It’s about translating it so it can intrigue.  

So, though not easy, embracing the task of distilling my book forces me to be clear on what the story is about. Naming its core ethical and emotional question strengthens my commitment to that question on each page, within every sentence. Choosing suitable comparison titles situates my story within a living conversation – the same kind of useful shortcut to deep impact that simile and metaphor offer within prose. Working on my submission package means my book knows itself better, and its artistic impact can only grow because of that.  

Pulling together a whip-smart submission package, finding the right agents, and choosing the best route into traditional publication are all vital, pragmatic actions that authors have to take.  

Over the years, I have had the great fortune to be exposed to the wisdom and expert advice of other writers in all guises – not least, peers who understand what receiving hundreds of rejections each year feels like. I have had conversations and practical support which has kept me turning up to my writing, even when the vast silence from ‘Publishing Land’ has made me doubt my sanity.  

If I may, therefore, I’d like to leave you with one further thought: publication is a deeply uncertain thing, but community never is.  

Rachel Davidson was a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers, prior to joining our Writer Support Team. Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.