I Am Not Alone

After my recent rant about the death of publishing as we know it, I read the following rejection letter that writer Mark Terry posted on his blog on Sept. 18:

"John passed along to me HOT MONEY by Mark Terry. I liked it a lot, but ultimately, I couldn’t get the kind of support that we would need to successfully publish it. I found the pace to be very quick, and I had to force myself to put down the manuscript when other things came up because there was always a new twist to keep me glued to the story. I also really loved Austin’s voice, his debonair sense of style, his camaraderie with BB and Shelley, and his dry wit. Unfortunately, though, the Sales Department thought this was more of a caper than a political thriller, and they haven’t sold very well for us in the past. And without the layers of novels by bestselling authors such as Flynn and Baldacci, I just couldn’t convince them to take a chance on HOT MONEY, so I reluctantly must pass as much as I enjoyed reading it."

Substitute Something About Barbaro for Hot Money and you might be reading the type of rejections I received for the proposal. In fact, as my agent told me repeatedly, not a single editor at both big and small presses, did not like the work. It was the sales department that had the final say and they always said "No" based on the elusive fact that "horse books don't sell."

Just wanted you to know that I am not making these things up. They happen across the board to published and unpublished writers and give you a clue about who is calling the shots in the industry.

So maybe what has to happen is for both Barnes and Noble and Borders to go under on the same day with nobody to bail them out......