I hereby end the rejection deathwatch for two reasons.
The first is simple, and users of Common Household Magic will understand completely. Just as the magic for making a friend call is to go do yardwork, and the magic for making your mother come into the house with groceries is to sit down to eat lunch, similarly the magic for making your agent contact you is to decide you aren’t going to hear from him until a week from now.
The second reason, though, is I am going to listen to that inner voice saying the publishing board didn’t meet. That when I was told this publisher only had one publishing board, it was in error. After all, last year, they had two. When I asked whether the book had gone to “the little board or the big board,” I was told, “This is ####, and they only have one.”
Except last year, my books passed the first board with great enthusiasm and got shot down in the interim between the big board and the little board. I also remember that in the past, this publisher seems to believe no news is good news, but we heard within 24 hours when the book got rejected.
Therefore, here are my assumptions (keeping in mind what an assumption makes):
- it passed the big board
- they saw no reason to update us, as if #1 were a given
- we’ll hear after the “big board.”
I could look through last year’s emails to determine the schedule by induction, but I recall they generally had little-board/big-board meetings a week apart. Possibly two.
So I’ll resume the Rejection Deathwatch at that point in time. Carry on with your lives. All is well.
