Publishing fiction in English as a non-native speaker not living in an English-speaking country

Those, too.

 

@AgathaChristie,

I am in the same situation as you are, so I sympathize. I started querying confidently because I have gone through all the steps (short of having it professionally edited) to get my novel as polished as it can be. As the rejections keep coming in, my confidence is dwindling. Actually, I have decided that no one is going to request my manuscript, but I've been wrong before so I'll query all the agents on the second half on my list and then I'll move on to publishers... I am also working on a translation in my native language, which I plan to submit directly to publishers (smaller market, but as saturated I'm sure...)

Good luck to you!

 

If the rejections keep coming in, instead of querying the second half of your list of agents, you should look into your query to make sure it's strong enough, and then look at your first 50 pages, which is often the requested sample on which decisions are based. Are they both strong enough? Have you asked published folks or experienced folks to take a gander?

Because if there's some flaw in your query or manuscript and you don't fix those before moving on to the rest of your list of agents, you'll have wasted those contacts.

 

I've had my novel critiqued, beta read, proofread. In my mind, it is finished, though I know it is probably still flawed in some way or another, but who will tell me how so? In addition to her form rejection, one agent has suggested that I revise my novel to add 40k words to it. So, is it my word count? Is it my writing or the story itself?

I'm not sure what to do now that I haven't already done.

 

Depends on who gave you feedback, and how useful that feedback was, as well as whether you took on the feedback you should have taken and whether you implemented them as you should have.

Add another 40k words to it? If that was your feedback, my guess is your story is incomplete. There are many things that still need to be fleshed out. It's not word count - it's the substance of the story. 40k words is a lot to add. Have you questioned why the agent asked that of you? I'd heed the advice if I were you. Which areas need to be fleshed out?

I'm not sure how you may have changed your novel since, but I do remember the first chapter didn't capture me. It's the story about the artist teen who goes off to house-sit, and during that time she begins to get dreams when she never used to have them, and she dreams of this boy. And then this boy in her dream turns out to be the spirit of Nathaniel, I want to say? And N is a real life boy who's in hospital in critical condition. Am I right that was you? (and there's a black fox?)

I'm gonna assume I'm right, and if I am, then the premise certainly seems memorable enough. But that first chapter is gonna affect whether the agent gives you a chance or not as it's bound to be included in the requested sample. Has anyone given you useful advice regarding that first chapter in light of how the entire novel works?

 

I'm interested in this reply. How many miles does it have on the clock?

 

How long is the current MS?

Word count does matter in terms of marketability, so...?

 

My MS is 52,oo0 words. When I first joined, it was even shorter and you have suggested that I look at the smaller publishers and indeed, some of them are looking for relatively short works. My main goal in finding an agent was to have a chance with the bigger publishers, but I don't know if this is hopeless from the start because of that word count.
Maybe I should move on to publishers specifically looking for my genre/word count. I don't know...

I got my toughest feedback from my alpha reader and made a lot of changes then, modifying the plot and rewriting whole chapters. I got generally positive reviews from the workshop here, and I have been improving on style and wordiness issue as well as minor details. One of my beta readers is a high-school teacher and another one a librarian/teen counsellor and both are outspoken, so I trust that they gave me honest feedback.

@Mckk, you remember my story well enough and I have rewritten that first chapter according to your useful (and tough!) advice.

The agent has suggested that I revise up to 90K to fit the typical word count for fantasy. Then, her standard form rejection says that she isn't as excited by my project as she had hoped to be. She's only read the query and the first ten pages.

My story feels complete as it is. I'm sure there's still room for some expansion, but I don't think I could add a huge amount of words without doing another major overhaul.

I have added a new first chapter and one beta reader has had favourable comments about it, but this is just one opinion. I am able to appreciate and willing to heed the hard criticism. With all the work I have done on this on this novel, the positive comments lead me to think that I have done my job and made this story submission-ready, but I might be wrong.

 

I did like your premise and could give it another shot? I'll need a beta reader myself pretty soon (give me 1-2 more months probably) so maybe we could swap

 

Lol, what happened to this thread ?
Thanks for all the replies and a special hello to all those who are in a similar situation !

Anyway...as to the insinuation that there must be something wrong with my writing because I'm unpublished in my home country: well, as has been guessed, I never attempted to seriously write and get published in German.

When I decided to write this novel in English, I didn't think of it in terms of a decision which market is bigger or which one to target (maybe unwise, but that's how it was). I considered writing it in German but like I said I just feel more comfortable writing in English - in my head, I could 'hear' the sentences and chapter titles and everything in English.
Translating it into German and trying in Germany would be my VERY last resort, but since it would inevitably alter the style etc. I'm not keen on doing that anytime soon.

Oh, and yes, getting to London is almost as easy and fast as getting from where I live in Germany to Berlin. I also queried agents in the US, though. But US (and UK) agents sometimes even represent authors living in India, so...

My cover letter (and my email address) did show that I was from Germany, which I see in retrospect was a bad idea. I'll remove that and send my next queries off from an international email address.

 

I would like that. Get back to me when you're ready.

 

I write in English for the same reasons as you, but I'm feeling comfortable doing my own translation. The end product will be different from the original, but I get to control what changes I make and it doubles my chances of getting published.

It would be too bad if agents rejected your query solely based on your native language or location. Do you still think that's the only reason or are you going to look at other aspects of your query/sample chapters?

I am wanting to finish querying agents asap and be done with the waiting and disappointment, which for me is a strong indication that I need to pause and reevaluate, which is just what I am going to do. Thank you for starting this thread!

 

Of course own translations are preferable, but it's still a lot of work to do and the text won't be the same. It may be a good idea for you to do it but in my case I really wanna exhaust all English-speaking options first.

No, I don't believe this was the only reason for the rejections. I already drafted a new query and will definitely revise it some more before it gets sent out. Same for the opening chapters, I'll revise them a bit.

Pausing and re-evaluating is crucial, at least that's what I tell myself. It's what I've been doing for a while now, LOL!

 

You can post your query on the forum for feedback. There's also a site called Query Shark, where an actual agent pulls queries apart and explains exactly why something works and why something doesn't. She obviously doesn't do this for every query submitted to her, but it may be worth submitting yours anyway when it's ready.

Have you had people beta-read your book?