Twenty Years of Self-Publishing: My First and Only Query
The year was 2004, and the book was Xronixle. Fresh out of the gate as a hopeful cyberpunk novelist, I reached out to Dalton Publishing, a local Austin publisher, with a query for my cyberpunk thriller about a boy who copies his girlfriend's mind in virtual reality. To my absolute shock and awe, they responded quickly and asked for the full manuscript.
What followed was a surreal month of updates that could have been lifted straight from my wildest dreams. Emails poured in with glowing feedback: great story, we think you're an up-and-coming author, passing to another editor. Every new message felt like a step closer to the finish line, and I started believing two massive lies:
- Querying is easy.
- I’m going to be a published author on my first try.
I was so happy. I forwarded the emails to family and friends. Look how talented I am! Validate my experience! Envy me!
The reality check came in the form of a curt email from an intern. No room in the editorial calendar, they said. Even now, two decades later, I have no idea what that means. Was it code for “this isn’t good enough” or just a polite way to reject me? At the time, it didn’t matter. I was crushed. I hadn’t prepared myself for the disappointment of failure after coming so close to success.
I didn’t swear off querying or anything. There were no dramatic declarations of giving the system the finger. I just... stopped trying. Fear and disappointment crept in and quietly took root. Each time I finished another novel, they whispered: Don’t bother. No one’s going to say yes. Save yourself the heartache. And I listened. For twenty years, I listened.
Only recently have friends and readers urged me to try again, to send my stories into the world the old-fashioned way. But even now, there’s a loud, insistent voice in my head that says my stories aren’t good enough, that no publisher will ever take a chance on me. Some people might say, At least you tried!—but that kind of new-age optimism doesn’t work on someone like me.
The cynicism is just too strong with this one.
So here I am, twenty years later, standing at the edge of the same precipice, wondering if it’s time to jump again. Am I finally ready to let go of my fear? Are my stories finally good enough? Is there a future where I can write full-time?
The answer to all three of those questions is likely no, but I'm getting much too old to care about rejection anymore. Twenty years of failing to market and sell multiple books will do that to a guy.
