How I Turned a Common Rejection Story Into an Uncommon Success Story
It began with a story familiar to many aspiring authors: In 2020 I wrote a book I believed in, edited it, polished it, and sent it off to a handful of carefully-researched agents to the tune of several rejections.
This was a dance I’d done before. For a decade I’d been writing books—two, three years at a time—preparing them for submission, and getting back countless no’s. I’d gone through the works: cold querying, follow-ups on personal connections at a conference I’d been lucky to go to, now-extinct contests like pitch wars and pitmad, and binning whole pieces of my heart and starting up projects anew.
There were countless small successes over those years: partial and full requests, cherished advice from authors and industry professionals I admired, and a lot of self-fulfillment—writing what I thought were my best works each time I finished something new. And yet, nothing I wrote would land me what I was hoping for: a book deal in traditional publishing.
So, when I sent out queries for this new book I believed in and received that first volley of rejections, I was confronted with a familiar question, one I’d asked myself many times: Was I prepared for this book to go unpublished and unread—for only friends and family to see it?
This time, my answer was no. This time, I redefined what success would look like for me as a writer: Success would be having readers; success would be finally being read, even if only by a few people. And so, I decided to self-publish The Last Gifts of the Universe, a sci-fi story about hope and a cat in the face of impossible odds.
A common refrain I hear right around now is something like: Ah yes, self-publishing: the last resort, the second choice, and I’ll say here that at the time, it was my second choice (keyword: “my”)…because I’m a writer, not a marketing manager, social media manager, event planner, bookseller, book distributor, or any of all the other things one has to be when they decide to self-publish.
Self-publishing is not the easy path (or, at least it wasn’t for me), and I knew that going in. In fact, I think it is the second choice for many writers—not because it’s lazy or because it avoids the rigors of gatekeepers—but because doing it well is hard. Super, crazy hard.
Hard though it was, I knew that the right path forward for me and this work was to try, and decided that the cost and effort of attempting to self-publish (and *shudder* do all my own promotion) was worth it if it meant Last Gifts would have a shot at being read.
The book was published in early April 2022, but the work of releasing it began months before and wouldn’t finish for months after. Researching formatting tools, good editors, and ARC-distribution services as well as reaching out personally to reviewers and book bloggers led me to a number of friendly, hard-working communities absolutely brimming with aspiring and successful writers all willing to share their knowledge. It was in one of these communities, months after Last Gift’s modestly successful release, that I learned about the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (the SPSFC).
Run by Hugh Howey, the author of WOOL, and a whole host of incredible, kind volunteer organizers and reviewers, the SPSFC aims to find the very best in self-published sci-fi via a year-long reading and judging process. It was finishing up its first year and opening up submissions for its second, and I figured: Why not? It was an exciting competition with a lot of buzz around it, and a community of like-minded writers well worth joining even if my book wouldn’t make the cut.
Life resumed over that year. The excitement and buzz around Last Gifts predictably simmered down, and I was struggling to find my groove in a new project while balancing work, life, and—admittedly—nerves around the SPSFC. Last Gifts wouldn’t earn out until a few weeks after (spoiler alert) winning first place, and even though it wasn’t a rousing financial success, I loved hearing from every reader, reading kind reviews, and watching—impossibly—as the book gained fans and made its way first through the contest’s quarterfinals, then semi-finals, then finally (ha) landing in the finals.
This is where the seemingly cookie-cutter predictable story turns, because it wasn’t winning the contest that got the larger publishing industry’s eyes on my book. It was simply being in the contest—and the word-of-mouth that came with that—plus a hefty dose of luck.
Two weeks before the winner of the SPSFC would be announced, I received an email from Kate McHale, the Editorial Director at Del Rey UK. She’d found and read Last Gifts, and was curious to know if I was interested in selling rights and publishing more widely.
With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!
Part of me is weirdly ashamed that it wasn’t a hard choice for me—like there should have been some pride in getting to say ‘no’ to the traditional publishing industry after years of them saying ‘no’ to my work, like this would have made me morally superior in some way, or at least morally balanced (stay the chosen path, and all that). It would be a better story, maybe. But the self-publishing vs. trad “debate” and its list of pros and cons isn’t a monolith (that’s its own article), and the best path for any work is unique to both the work and the individual.
I’d learned that firsthand when I’d redefined my version of success almost two years prior, when I said no to single-path thinking and yes to relinquishing my need for permission and just putting my work out there. That choice led to a community of friends and writing peers, to my work—indeed!—getting read and reviewed, and to it being a finalist in one of self-publishing’s biggest contests. So choosing that path again—pursuing readers, pursuing getting read—made the choice to bring Last Gifts to the trad world quite easy for me.
I did want to see it published more widely. I did want industry support: professional book sellers and editors and campaign marketers to save me from having to study Amazon ad analytics ever again! It was the right choice for me and this work.
I reached out to some contacts I was extremely lucky to have made in those writing communities I wrote about up there: professionals in the industry and a couple of traditionally-published authors who’d read Last Gifts when it was self-published, who now cheered for my success and helped me set up interviews with agents looking for new clients. While I knew I was interested in pursuing traditional publication, I also knew I didn’t have the skill to negotiate with big publishers on my own, or the time and energy to do the due diligence of learning the ins and outs of rights and legalese. (And with hindsight being 20/20 I can say with utmost certainty that seeking an agent was the right call!)
In the end I got four offers of representation from people I can only describe as dream agents. This turn of events, going from a decades’ worth of rejections to getting my pick of four incredible career partners was, frankly, surreal. I felt so lucky and grateful and stressed. There are a lot of factors in choosing an agent to work with, but much like choosing a publishing path, the reasons do end up being personal and unique to the situation.
I chose an agent who was fairly new to agenting (but not to the industry!) and was looking for their first full-time client; I admired that she had practical experience in managing book events and working as an agency assistant, and it was clear from talking with her that she understood my work and saw a path forward for not just this one book—but for a career in an industry she had varied expertise in. I felt safe working with someone adjusting to a new role (much like I would be adjusting to a new role), and if I may use a colloquialism to sum up an aspect of my decision making, she passed the ever-important vibe check for a person I wanted to work with and who I could trust with my projects.
I think often, about how absolutely none of this would have happened for me if I had not decided to choose myself out of the slush pile, take my career into my own hands, and self-publish—and that even that first step was precipitated by re-examining what I actually wanted out of writing and publication. I think, in the end, what all writers want is for their work to be read. These days, the avenues toward that goal are varied, with so many examples of success; there are writers who traditionally publish, self-publish, serialize on Patreon or Substack or Royal Road—and many other paths I’m sure I’m not even aware of!
I don’t know if everything I write from now on will come out via traditional avenues, or if I’ll ever decide to jump back into the world of self-publishing. But I do know that the right choice isn’t always the most obvious, easiest, or the most popular—each book truly is a project with needs of its own (and it never, ever hurts to get lucky).
Check out Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe here:
(WD uses affiliate links)