I just wanted to post a quick update on my publishing efforts, which I know I haven’t talked much about lately. There’s a reason for that, though. For the past couple months, I’ve been working with a former publisher to re-acquire the rights to a manuscript that was edited and prepared for publication a couple years ago.
That process took longer than I’d hoped, but it went through and I tried to re-submit the manuscript to the same publisher that published “Passion Relapse” and “Rescued Hearts.” I did this knowing it was somewhat of a long shot because my last three manuscripts to this publisher had been rejected. I felt if I could get this through, we would be back on track.
Sadly, that didn’t happen. Earlier today, I got a rejection letter. It wasn’t the rude kind, though. The editor offered me a sincere apology that they would not be able to publish my work. She claimed that things have been rough for small to mid-tier publishers. Unless your J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, it’s just hard to get any major project off the ground. I can understand that, but a rejection is a rejection.
I believe that after this, I’m done with that particular publisher. I’m not entirely sure of my next step. I’m still sitting on several finished manuscripts and one that is already professionally edited and ready to go. I’m not sure where to turn to next. I’m thinking of giving Writers Market a chance, but this is the part of the business I still don’t know much about.
When it comes to writing a novel or a sexy short story, I know how to do that. When it comes to the business and marketing side of things, though, I’m pretty ignorant. I’ll keep feeling my way around in the dark, hoping I’ll stumble across something. For now, though, my publishing efforts are a bit on hold. I hope it doesn’t stay that way. If anything changes, I’ll announced it in between sexy short stories.
To everyone who has supported and encouraged my efforts, I sincerely thank you.
This post is a follow-up to both yesterday’s post on jealousy and another earlier post where I asked the readers for ideas. That request for other topics of discussion wasn’t rhetorical. I really do want to hear what readers want to talk about on this blog. It’s a good way for me to gauge the audience and adapt my work accordingly. Knowing the audience is among the first steps to becoming successful in any media, be it erotic fiction or clown porn.
One reader in particular, InsidousTemptation, read my post about jealousy and how natural/unnatural it may be and brought up an equally relevant topic. I’d like to talk about that topic because it’s closely related to jealousy. In fact, it’s the uglier side of jealousy, as if jealousy itself weren’t ugly enough. That’s right. I’m talking about rejection.
For this concept, there’s far less context to consider. Rejection feels awful in pretty much every form. Other than being rejected by a crippling disease, it’s one of those few things that every society and every culture can agree is universally bad. I’ve certainly dealt with it before. Recently, I announced that my manuscript for “The Big Game” had been rejected by a publisher. For this post though, I want talk about a more specific rejection.
Have you ever loved someone and learned they don’t feel the same way? Have you ever put time and effort into showing sexual or romantic interest in someone, only to be shot down? It doesn’t matter if it’s thoughtful, callous, or cruel. It still sucks. It feels like a gut punch, a slap in the face, and a pin to the heart all at once. It can even be worse in some cases. Just ask this guy who had his marriage proposal rejected in a very public way.
As an awkward teenager, I certainly had my share of rejections. I was not charismatic. I was not attractive. I was not confident. I had very little to offer the opposite sex. For me, every girl I showed interest in felt like a looming gut punch because they all had boyfriends. Every girl I liked was either dating someone, not interested in dating anyone, or didn’t know I existed. Being a teenager was hard enough. Adding rejection to it was like breaking a few extra bones along the way.
So what makes rejection so much worse than jealousy? What does it have to do with the concepts I discussed yesterday? Well, the difference isn’t only in degree. The difference involves sentiment and style. Jealousy mostly involves thoughts and feelings. Rejection is more active. Rejection is a tangible behavior with tangible effects that are fairly universal for the most part. It’s hard for rejection to be misconstrued or mixed. With jealousy, it is possible to feel and think things for the wrong reasons.
That said, there’s a case to be made that our culture and our approaches to romance and sexuality don’t just evoke unnatural sentiments of jealousy. They make rejection even worse. Why do I say this? Well, let’s go back to that primal mindset I call “caveman logic.”
I said in my article about jealousy that from a caveman’s perspective, jealousy makes no sense. We evolved to be a social, communal species that can work together, love together, and share intimacy together. Being jealous or upset about the romantic and erotic affections of others may make sense in some situations, but is overly arbitrary in most. It wasn’t until society developed concepts of property ownership and passing down assets through family lines that jealousy really took hold.
So how does this make rejection worse? Well, the fuel to the fire comes with turning sexuality and romance into a commodity of sorts. Keep in mind that for most eras in human civilization, marriages were arranged. They were loveless business arrangements whose sole purpose was to ensure that land and assets remained within a family. That’s why so many epic love stories involve forbidden romance because most individuals didn’t get a choice in their partner.
This callous commodification treats love and intimacy as something to be bought and sold. That’s bad enough, but popular culture in the 20th century somehow found a way to make it worse. How did it do this? Well, the media we love and consume sold entire generations on all these false promises. Think about every romantic movie. The hero is a nice, honorable, upstanding guy or girl (but mostly a guy). They fight and they struggle to win the love of a stereotypical beautiful partner and they succeed by being themselves.
Spoiler alert. That doesn’t happen in real life. There’s one scene in one movie that accurately encapsulates real modern life. It comes courtesy of Alec Baldwin and its this:
Is it harsh? Yes. Is it cold? Definitely. Is it accurate? Sadly, it is. This speech reveals something sad, but relevant. We, as a free and modern society, care about results and what others can do for us. If we’re not “closing,” then why should we be accepted? We aren’t entitled to all the love, sex, and satisfaction we want. We have to earn it.
This is why rejection feels so awful within our culture. When someone rejects us, we feel like we’re being denied something we’re owed. We want sex. We want love. We want it from this specific person. How dare they reject us! Say that out loud to a mirror and see if it sounds right. It shouldn’t.
So what’s the solution? I don’t like to just complain about things on this blog. I do like to leave some slivers of hope in the mix. In this case, I do hold out some hope that changes in technology will help us overcome a culture that makes rejection worse.
We’re entering a world where we can interact and inform one another more effectively than ever. Social media, online dating, and smartphones give us an ability to find others who share our passions. It gives us a chance to circumvent the worst rejection in some cases.
That said, technology can only do so much. For us to really minimize the pain of rejection, certain parts of our culture and our sexual practices need to be reassessed. What parts am I talking about? Well, that’s a discussion for another post.
Thanks again to InsidiousTemptation for suggesting this topic. I appreciate it. If anyone else has ideas on topics of discussion, feel free to let me know in the comments.
I wasn’t going to post anything today. I’m still recovering from a long week of traveling. I’m also working on a post exploring something I hinted at earlier this month, but I think this is worth mentioning, if only to provide an overdue update of sorts.
About a month ago, I completed my manuscript for my new BDSM-heavy story, “The Big Game.” I felt confident about this because it’s a simple, concise BDSM story that can give BDSM fans exactly what they want. I submitted it to two publishers that specialize in BDSM erotica. I thought I did enough to warrant at least a discussion. Turns out, I was wrong.
Of the two publishers I submitted to, one responded and sadly, it was a rejection letter. They didn’t provide specifics. They just said they discussed this manuscript and decided it wasn’t for them. It’s a major disappointment. Then again, this is the most typical response I’ve gotten from my work thus far. I like to think I’m used to rejection, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
As a result, I looked up a couple other BDSM and/or erotica publishers and submitted to them as well. It’ll probably take a while for them to get back to me, but I’m still going to roll the dice on “The Big Game” before I resort to self-publishing again. I’ll keep my fingers, toes, and whatever other body parts I can manage crossed in hopes that someone takes a chance on me. With Crimson Frost still not responding, I’m still in search of my first break. I believe it’ll come. It just may take a while.
When you think about it, it’s kind of like a great orgasm. You have to build towards it, but it’s so worth the wait.
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