Video Transcript (computer generated - may contain errors)

Sara Gentry: Hey, writers, I am so excited to introduce you all today to Rebecca Dolence. Hi, Rebecca!

Rebecca Dolence: Hi, Sara! Thanks for having me.

Sara Gentry: So. I know Rebecca pretty well, but a lot of our writers here may not. So let me tell you all a bit more about Rebecca before we get into our chat here. So Rebecca is a writer and Author Accelerator certified book coach. She knows what it's like to put your heart into a story, and then feel the heartache of rejection coming from a family of coaches and teachers, and being a former athlete, Rebecca understands the impactful role of coaches. And now, as a book coach, she helps writers feel comfortable, putting their creative thoughts onto the page. Rebecca, as a longtime member of the SCBWI, and enjoys working with middle grade and young adult writers of speculative fiction. I did not realize you were also an athlete. That is another thing we share in common.

Rebecca Dolence: Well, and I have to say former athlete, because my body just clearly doesn't do what it used to do when I was younger.

Sara Gentry: There's that. But you know it still stays with you. I think so. Rebecca's come to us today to chat a bit about rejection. But we're not gonna let that be a downer. We're gonna talk about it, because it is something you just cannot be a writer and not experience rejection at some point or another. But you can learn how to grow from it and to move forward with it. And that's the approach we're going to take here today. So maybe let's first start about just why rejection is so rough in general. Why, why is it such a bummer?

Rebecca Dolence: I think I want to take you back, because if I recall not too long ago, you had let me know that being an athlete lets you fail in front of people and I think that as a writer you only fail really in front of yourself, and sometimes that can be a lot harder than to deal with, you know sad faces. Or if you're on a team, people can come around you and pick you up, we can pick each other up. But when you're a writer you're by yourself for the most part. And so we really have to work on lack of, you know. Have you ever heard of the term self? Imposter? Self imposter syndrome? We give ourselves such horrible thoughts and rather than do that we spent so much time on this book, years and years on this book that we want to show it to the world. But then we go back to that imposter syndrome. That's what it's called, sorry. And and we put all these negative thoughts in instead of relinquishing it and saying, You know I've done everything I can, but there's you're still not done. We have to work on the next part, which is part of pitching, which is part of rejection. You know, Sara, I have a good 150 rejections under my belt, and every single one of them hurts. You know it. It brings a tear to your eye. You want to open that email. You don't want to open that email. You're excited. You don't want to do it. So I really understand that pain of putting your heart and soul into writing, and then having that rejection. But the good part is, there's ways to at least not avoid it like you said. But we can. You know you're a number person, Sara. I'm sure we can. You can minimize the quantum something or other, you know. Use some mathematician stuff to, you know, just make it so it's an easier process. And it's like that athleticism that we were talking about. You have to practice. You have to prep. You know you're not a star athlete after day one, and I don't know who said it's not my 1st rodeo, because, seriously, even if I did, one rodeo, I don't think I'd still be good at it. Come, the second rodeo. So with music, you know, we practice music. You weren't an amazing pianist when you 1st started. I'm not a great guitarist, anyway, but I try really hard. Lot of people tell me. Please stop playing, but still I try at it. So I think that's what we're kind of talking about here today is really preparing ourselves. We spent so many years writing this perfectly designed manuscript that we've taken so much time. And we listen to programs like this to help us move forward to to find out where some, maybe some of those problems are. But then let's take it to the next step. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about pitching. I'm not going to jump too much into that, because I think it's Julie who is focusing on that. But there is a sense of rejection like you're talking about. And one of the things you wanna look at is, how are you being rejected when you see, when you compile all of your agent list hopefully do that. If you don't, then we're gonna talk about that a little bit about how to organize it and get prepared. But you send out these lists and you're gonna get some feedback back from agents, possibly from their associate agents. However, it's gonna be you're gonna receive that feedback. There's a couple of phrases. So, for instance, if you're seeing a lot of not connecting with the character - that's your narrative, you're not putting as much emphasis into that character to really bring it out. And with kidlit you, you gotta get to those kids fast, you know. You gotta make them feel something. And in order to do that. That narrative has to be right upfront. And if you only have 3 pages to do so, then you have 3 pages to grab the agent's attention to show that. Yes, you're committed to the emotional background of that character, and you're committed to move that character forward.

Sara Gentry: Right.

Rebecca Dolence: So I don't remember, Sara, if that was a question you asked. But I sure went on a tangent. Now, didn't I?

Sara Gentry: No, it actually leads me to the next question that I wanted to ask you. So we have these bad feelings around rejection, even though we know that we're supposed to expect rejection. So that's kind of funny in and of itself, but maybe we could talk a little bit about reasons why maybe our work has been rejected. So you've mentioned the one about maybe not connecting to a narrative. There are reasons we can be rejected that are within our control, such as writing a stronger narrative. There are reasons that are completely outside of our control, but we might not realize that. So I don't know. Maybe we should talk a little bit. Let's 1st start by talking about what's within our control.

Rebecca Dolence: That’s in our control yeah, or just starting out with research. So there's a couple of places you can go to. A writer can go to. The manuscript wish list, query tracker. There's a publisher's weekly. Publisher. It's a whole list of short stories that go out. That publishing, whether it's an agency or it's an actual publication, is looking for short stories. So, and those come out every month all the time. So that's the 1st thing is, find out who are these agents. And you know, Sara, I realized that I had this issue is, and I can look back and say that. So when I was looking at these agents, the manuscript wish wish list will have just the name, photo, everything. They're looking for. Different types of stories, you know a little bit about their background. You can capitalize on that. So you wanna take note. But I noticed that I would say, Oh, I don't like their tie. Oh, I don't like their sweater. There's kind of like an emotional bias there of, you know, maybe if it's a fear of being successful that it's actually gonna work. So you kind of put on almost like emotional blinders to say, No, I can only choose these types. So one, I do think that it would be helpful to have someone else help you like myself, or, you know, a friend. Anything to that effect to just read over who you're looking for. But you want to keep track of them. So go through that list of the manuscript agency list and look for 5, 10 people just to start out with. I have in the past done it a couple of ways, because I'm not the mathematician you are. So I really don't like spreadsheets. It turns out, it's valuable. But I would actually copy and paste their profile onto a word document and then go through it later to really break it down so the things that are in our control, finding the right agent, making sure their wish list matches yours.

Sara Gentry: Yes. Can we talk about that for just a quick minute before you go to the next thing? Because, especially in Kidlit, where it's common for agents to maybe represent certain categories within kidlit, but not all. I mean, you don't want to be sending a picture book to an agent who is only requesting YA.

Rebecca Dolence: You don't wanna send a horror manuscript to someone who wants contemporary romance.

Sara Gentry: Right.

Rebecca Dolence: Those again. Those are in your control. Make sure that what they're looking for matches what you have. And that's a really big thing about genres. Know your genre, know your target audience, you know. Who are you putting this book towards? Picture that kid sitting by, you know? Maybe in the cafeteria or by a swing set. What do they look like when they're reading. Picture in your head when you're trying to find that particular agent and look through what they're looking for versus that kid that wants to read your book. And how do you see them there? So that's gonna help again. It goes with positive overall feelings. You know that you're taking the next steps. So make sure to do your research absolutely. 

Sara Gentry: And then we also have, like just the sheer fact of knowing when it's appropriate to even go through the pitching process like. For goodness sakes, please do not send out your 1st draft.

Rebecca Dolence: Don't send out your 1st draft. Don't send out your second one.

Sara Gentry: That is also within your control.

Rebecca Dolence: That is within your control. These things are within your control of when an agent puts on their list, I want a double space. I want a synopsis. I want a query. I only want your 1st 5 pages. If the sentence cuts off of the 5th page, that's still all you send. So following guidelines is so specific, and by not following them will easily get you checked out. You know there's, what, some agents get somewhere between 100-300 unsolicited submissions a week. That means, yes. Do your homework, and be on the top of that list, if you can, and avoid all those avoidable mistakes.

Sara Gentry: Yep. Okay, so then, there are some things that are outside of our control, and those are a little bit harder to swallow, because we would like to think that we can control everything or maybe that's just me. But, you know, there are some things like you mentioned, you know, maybe not liking somebody's tie, or something like an agent might just say, like, I don't like dogs, and this is a dog story. Do you have any thoughts around dealing with rejection that comes from reasons that maybe don't seem very explainable?

Rebecca Dolence: Well, you know, this is a subjective industry. 1st and foremost, so just like what you're saying. I don't like dogs or the stories about dogs. Are they gonna put that in their profile? I don't like dogs, probably not. So that yes, that's absolutely out of your control. What other things are out of our control? Oh, they maybe they just picked up an author with very similar titles, storylines, that sort of thing. Theme? Well, if they just picked them up. Yeah, it was just bad timing, you know. That's why we make a list of 25 to 50 agents, because you might get a couple of those in there. I just got that.

Sara Gentry: Maybe we should explain that there might be some less experienced writers who don't understand why, that's a problem. For having somebody that's so similar. If if you're an agent and I've just signed up to represent this, I don't know, we'll go with the dog book, dogs at the park or something, and that's also the thing that I've just submitted. While they might appeal to everybody like the buyers within the market. When it comes time to publish them. It gets difficult for the agent to act in the best interest, perhaps, of both of those books, because they might be seen as competing with each other.

Rebecca Dolence: Absolutely, and I'm thinking that if if those are competing and you are not aware of that, there's not much you could do about it, I mean, honestly, there's just really not much you can do about that particular situation. But going back to there's plenty of things you can do. Go to writing conferences. I've met a lot of agents at conferences. So when you're filling out that query, you know, give a quick reminder while we're here, but going back to I don't like dogs. 

Sara Gentry: I do like dogs.

Rebecca Dolence: I think, you know, I had a woman. She loved horses, and her book had nothing to do with horses, but she had mentioned she loved horses, and I had helped her. We were going through the agent list, and the agent happened to mention that she's got a huge horse farm. I don't know if that's what it's called. I'm sorry I'm not an equestrian, but I said, hey, make sure to add that you know, capture, attention, have like interest. There's nothing you do about you don't like dogs, you know, and unless you're writing a book about killer dogs with their cartoons, and it's kind of silly then maybe that agent would like it. But that was just me going on.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Dolence: Tangent.

Sara Gentry: So we've we've kind of touched on agent research here just a little bit so far. Maybe let's talk about that a little bit more, because a huge part of what we can control is how we distribute our work, where it's gonna go, who we're gonna send it to. So how can we make sure that we're doing our due diligence in sending things to the right people? We've already talked about making sure we've got the right agent or the right genre and the right age category. So those are the easy check marks. But do make sure that you have checked them off, but.

Rebecca Dolence: Make sure that you know you spelled their name correctly.

Sara Gentry: Oh, gosh, yes. 

Rebecca Dolence: Don't send out one of those mass letters to everybody that looks generic. Really try to focus on the person you're talking to which, again, is a lot more homework. But in the long run that's absolutely gonna be worth it. To take that extra step, to make sure the names felt rightly that you're not just doing a blanketed query letter, you know. Get that query letter right from the 1st sentence. You know we write books starting with what if? And I had this idea? What if every time we turn left  we lost a year of our lives? It captures some attention. It's a little bit out there. It just came from the top of my head. But if we, if we use something like that just to start like that's a captured moment. 1st sentence. If you don't know anything about that agent you may not have the horses or the dog situation, but you can start out with something powerful that makes someone want to read a little bit more and you know that would be a great dystopian novel like. Don't turn left.

Sara Gentry: Yeah. So if writers want to figure out we've mentioned the manuscript wish list and Publishers Weekly, there's Publishers Marketplace. There are places where.

Rebecca Dolence: Query tracker.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, where you can find out. I think it's helpful to find out a little bit about the agent’s personal preferences like we were just talking about the horses or the dogs, or where they went to school. Sometimes they'll mention, or things like that if you have commonalities, but I think it can also be helpful to get some more professional references like, what books have they represented, you know? Like, do they have similar titles to the kind that I'm trying to query? Okay, writer, sorry for that little blip we had just a little Internet issue. But we're back at it now. So it's all good. I did want to ask you, Rebecca, about what you thought in terms of preparing the materials that we need to have ready to go. I don't want to go too far into the weeds about, you know, like making them, polishing them and and doing all of that, but just so that we can give writers a general idea of what you should have ready when you pitch.

Rebecca Dolence: Absolutely for the most part. You're going to need at least the 1st chapter for kidlit. You're gonna need at least the 1st chapter rear and ready to go that one opening sentence that just draws everybody in. Because, remember, we're dealing with young people and young people. They need to be captured quickly because there's a phone. There's the Internet. There's a playstation. You gotta get them right away. And that's with the agents as well, because they're busy people, too. So make sure that you have at least your 1st chapter really perfect. I mean, your whole manuscript should be near perfect. But you, you're focusing on just getting in the door at this point. The second thing you definitely want to have ready to go as a query. So you're going to be focused on getting that quick one liner out, maybe mentioning the agent. If you've met that agent or not, if not, maybe keep the personalized out. Talk about your bio and and a 1 paragraph that's gonna summarize your whole book. Isn't that easy? One paragraph for 80,000 words. And in that you just want to capture a quick attention of who the protagonist is and basically who the opposition is and how they're gonna move through the book. It's really going to take about 5 sentences to do that. And it takes a long time to perfect those 5 sentences, but it's worth it. You're also going to need your synopsis, which again, super simple, you have 500 words basically to talk about your 80,000 word book. It's but in this it sounds like, I know. But that's what we do is writers. So the idea here is to pick out your main points, you know, if you go through your chapters.There's going to be some just reaction to the action. But you really want to put forth the major events that push forward the opposition that's trying to stop them, and how they, you know and taken that protagon is about 3 steps back, and then pushing a forward, and that is your synopsis is 3 steps forward, 4 steps back 3 steps forward, 3 steps back. You're with me, and that is going to drive that storyline forward. That's gonna capture attention. And that's going to really, truly help you with that flap jacket. Cause you know at this point you're thinking you're seeing your name and lights. Now you gotta do that. So you gotta think about your flap jacket. What your covers gonna look like don't get too ahead of yourself. But you do want to make sure that those 3 items very in particular that you have a good query. Have someone read it over? You know a lot of us are part of SCBWI. I know that they have writing groups that you can join. Send it out to a beta reader. Hire a book coach. We can help you, of course. But either way, your query synopsis, and at least your 1st chapter is. And get you forward.

Sara Gentry: And even though you're not gonna send your manuscript right away, it has to be done.

Rebecca Dolence: Yes, yes. Have your manuscript done? Cause? What if? What if it's also perfect? And they say a week later, Oh, my goodness, I have to read this, and you're what are you gonna say? Oh, sorry I didn't finish it yet. No.

Sara Gentry: Months.

Rebecca Dolence: Have it ready to go. You know this is the final. This is the end zone.

Sara Gentry: Yeah. And I'll add something here for our picture book writers, because Rebecca works with writers writing in the older age categories. But picture book writers, you need to have several picture book manuscripts ready to go if you're gonna go query an agent. If you're querying directly to an editor, those circumstances may be different. But please do not query an agent if you just have one completed picture book, you'll probably want to aim for a half a dozen. So that would be another reason to be rejected, actually, if you only have the one.

Rebecca Dolence: And I commend picture book writers cause I, you have to be so smart to write a story in those few of words. And yeah. Good for you guys out there that do that good for you.

Sara Gentry: Definitely a different skill. Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for this conversation. I definitely wanna let the writers know how they can connect with you. So tell us how to find you on the Internet here.

Rebecca Dolence: On the Internet. You can put in radnotesbookcoaching.com. And I do have a link for resources. There's a bunch of free freebies on there. Some free stuff. Definitely about pitching like we just talked about rejections and how to get over it. And there's a couple of little sales in there to help. You know if any of your viewers would like help on how to write that query, how to write that synopsis. I have some fun little engaging techniques that I think will be helpful. So those are on that resources page.

Sara Gentry: Awesome, and we will have a link to all of that writers so that you can easily find it. And, Rebecca, I just want to thank you again for your time and for sharing your expertise with us.

Rebecca Dolence: Thanks for having me, Sara. I'm very grateful. Thank you.

Sara Gentry: Yes, absolutely alright writers. Thanks for joining us, and we will catch you next time. Bye.