Rejection - Jewish Lights

April 19, 2007

We regret that we must reply by form letter, but we have received so many submissions that it is not possible to reply to each of them individually. We hope that you will understand the problems involved in being a small publishing house.

We will not be able to take advantage of the opportunity to publish your work. In addition to considering the merits of each work, we must also consider it in competition with all of the other materials submitted to us. As we only publish about 25 new books each year, the competition is intense and the decisions are difficult...

Very truly yours,
Stuart M. Matlins
President & Publisher

March 2, 2007

Yesterday I crashed.

Over the past month I've been pushing myself very hard, trying to make as much progress as I can on both the book and my business, the HR Forums. And of course there's the rest of my life that I try to stay present for and current with, things like my marriage, friends, spiritual community and family.

Do you ever get caught in an updraft of activity where something's very important, you're excited, you jump in all the way, the adrenaline is flowing, and you feel -- wow, this is great, I'm really making stuff happen!!? That's how I've felt the last couple of weeks. The thing is, it's extreme, it's unsustainable. It's like a speculative frenzy in the stock market, it can only go so far, until one day some bad news arrives that triggers the crash.

My bad news yesterday was an email from the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. It was a form note, boilerplate, sent by Jim Greenberg's assistant:

Dear Author:

Thank you very much for your query. However, at this time we don’t feel that our agency could represent this work successfully.

Remember that this is a very subjective business, and we wish you the best of luck on your quest for publication. Please feel free to send us any additional projects you may have in the future.

I checked on the web site for who wrote this. She's about 25 years old and "loves all things related to feminism, beads, and black licorice."

It's not like I'm not expecting rejection notes. In fact, I've half seriously set myself a goal of collecting at least 100. I ought to collect them all and post them on my web site. But when I read this, I just crashed. It's like someone turned off a switch inside me. I became like a zombie, totally disfunctional, complete depression. I had a meeting I was supposed to be at, but I didn't go. Instead I took a walk near the beach, looked out at the skyful of stormy clouds reflecting the sunset colors, and let my mind spin like a giant flock of seagulls in crazy circles.

Holy Beggars is the story of 40 years of my life, the lives of dear friends, and I believe an important chapter of both Jewish history and spirituality in America. It's about the heart and soul of my journey in this world. Up until now, having a manuscript and working to get it published has beeh fun, like a game that's challenging, but where you know there's a happy ending.

Now the game has become rough. What if no one wants to represent the book, and no one wants to publish it, and no one wants to read it? I've never had this thought before.

Do I really have the toughness and faith to keep believing, to keep going forward, to stay joyful and positive no matter what?

February 26, 2007

I got a another rejection note yesterday, by email, from yet another literary agent. It came while Wendy and I were watching the Oscars. Ellen DeGeneres was talking on the the screen about honoring all the nominees, not just the winners. Then she made a bunch of jokes about pretending it wasn't all about winning, when it really was. The note I received said:

Thank you so much for contacting me. I read through your website and I think you have a very valid book. I'm just afraid that I don't think I can be helpful. I think that this is a book that will probably work best and be of most interest to a smaller house and that simply isn't my area of expertise.

I wish you the best,
Alice

On the one hand, it's very nicely stated, and Alice sounds like a nice person. But what do you mean, "of most interest to a smaller house?!!" That's what people keep telling me. Be realistic, this is your first book, you haven't paid your dues yet, you haven't established a name for yourself, be modest in your expectations, don't aim too high, self publish. Yeah, yeah, they're all right, but what about my dream, of getting this story to millions of people? How am I supposed to keep the dream alive without becoming delusional?

I felt a little like those losers in the Oscar ceremony. Yeah, I got treated respectfully, and that's nice. But what I really want is to get the book out.

The thing is, as a spiritual person, I know it's in God's hands anyway. So what I have to do is to do what I can each day to get the story out to millions of people. Then let go and turn it over.