All the Dirt: Complete Editor Rejections on "Made for You"
or "A case study on the subjectivity of publishing"
I’ve been wanting to share these for a looooong time, you guys! We all hear it: publishing is subjective. But when you’re getting those “subjective” rejections that seem to contradict themselves, it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow them.
When I hadn’t yet sold a book, and was scouring the internet for anything encouraging (this phase lasted years, bwahahahahahahaha) (I’m fine), I came across what memory tells me was a blog post by Julie C. Dao, author of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. Again, if memory serves (because I could not find this post again to save my life, though she does have a Substack now!), Julie shared all the wildly contradictory editor rejections she received. Of course, her book went on to sell, and sell very well! I came back to that post more than once, and promised myself that one day, should I ever be lucky enough to publish a novel, I’d do the same.
And guess what—I have now published a novel!!! Made for You has been out in the world for one week now, so it’s time to pay up on that promise.
I’ve stricken the names and imprints—not burning any bridges today!—but here they are, in the order received. I went on to sell Made for You in a preempt to my amazing editor Leah Mol at Mira/HarperCollins in a 2-book deal, but keep in mind that, as these rejections rolled in, I didn’t know that was going to happen. Not to mention it took 10 months! During those months, each rejection felt like a death knell for this project, and as the weeks ticked past, I was moving all my hopes off Made for You and onto the next project, The New Year’s Party which, fun story, I finished writing before selling Made for You and will now be the 2nd book in my Mira contract, out October 2025!
Anyway, enjoy.
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