At Least I Tried...
Why I went from querying to betting on myself.
Photo by Min An via Pexels
Like a lot of writers, I started out thinking the traditional route was the only way forward: write a book, query agents, hope for lightning to strike. Not just the only way forward, but the right way. The way you’re supposed to do it if you want to be taken seriously. So, I dove in with all the hope in the world.
I researched agencies, studied agent wish lists, and circled the ones that felt like perfect fits. I drafted queries, polished them, rewrote them, and sent them out with genuine enthusiasm.
Every time I hit send, I thought, Maybe this is the one. I tried to frame my story just right, selling myself as best I could.
And I really believed I was doing it right. I’d nail the query, attach the first ten or twenty polished pages, and feel confident. Then I’d do it again. And again. Dozens of times. I told myself, throw enough at the wall, something has to stick.
It has to.
But after a while those response windows opened. I had probably queried over three dozen agents by the time those first four-to-six-week windows closed and the rejections began piling up. And it got harder to keep querying. You have to though. You have to keep going if you really want something in life.
But each rejection made the next send button harder to press. It’s natural to have confidence waver in yourself after a lot of rejection. It’s a mountain every successful person must climb before they get where they want to be.
I get why it’s hard for me to gain traction. I’m new, I don’t have credentials, and I write in a style that’s a little niche. If I were an agent looking at my manuscript, I might pass too. Not because it isn’t good. I’m biased but I think I’m a pretty good writer. But because publishing is a business and safer bets are everywhere.
So, I asked myself: why sit in limbo? I wrote the dang book. I poured myself into it. Why shouldn’t I just put it out into the world on my own terms?
In the end, I think of Red’s line in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: ‘Get busy living or get busy dying.’ For me, that means stop waiting for permission and start publishing.
Self-publishing means I have to wear every hat: author, editor, project manager, marketer. It means investing in a cover artist, ISBNs, and all the little moving parts no one warns you about. But it also means I don’t have to wait years for someone else to tell me my work deserves to exist. I can make that call myself.
This isn’t about bitterness.
I admire the writers who make it through the gates, and I’m genuinely happy for them. I know several personally. All great writers and they deserve it. But for me personally, right now, the choice is simple: take the bull by the horns. As corny or cliché as that is, it rings true.
I can write the thing, so I can publish the thing. If it fails, at least I’ll know I tried instead of wondering “what if” while rejection emails piled up.
The truth is, I didn’t start writing because I wanted to sell a ton of books. I started because I love creating characters and worlds, because storytelling is an outlet I can’t let go of. Since I began, I’ve fallen in love with the creative process in a way that’s addictive. I have to keep building, keep writing, keep sharing. Obviously, I’m going to be elated if I eventually find an agent and a publisher who believes in my work and then I do in fact sell a ton of books but I’ll probably always write even if no one reads.
But I have to know—can I inspire and move people the way other artists have done for me?
Maybe readers will connect with my work, maybe they won’t. But I won’t know unless I put it out there. And that’s why I chose to self-publish Reflections in the Dark.
Because no one else is going to do it for me.
Like Chief Bromden says in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: ‘But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.’ To me, that’s what self-publishing is about: even if it doesn’t work the way I dream, the fact that I tried makes it real.
Thanks for reading.
To all the writers still querying, still waiting, you’re not alone. Keep going, however you choose to do it.
And if you’d like to follow along as I keep building Reflections in the Dark into the world, you can subscribe here. You can also follow me on Twitter: @JasonGWrites. I’d love to share the journey with you.