Ages ago I submitted my novel The Gates of Janus to Litopia’s Pop-Up Submissions, and yesterday it was finally included in their live YouTube show. The useful but terrifying idea is that you get to hear what literary agents and the like think about your submission, rather than just guessing when they send you a generic “not quite right for us” response. I have had many of those responses for The Gates of Janus so I thought this might be helpful – but I didn’t tell anyone ahead of time because I was afraid they would tear it to pieces!
Anyway, they didn’t tear it to pieces. In fact, it did rather well, so now I am telling you about it. You can see the whole episode here, and this link should take you to where my bit starts (my entry was last).
In a sense it’s unhelpful that GoJ did so well, because it doesn’t uncover the mystery of why it has been rejected so many times. However, it does give me the encouragement to go out and get it a few more rejections rather than giving up! Encouragement is something writers badly need, after all.
If you have your own project that you would like to hear literary types discuss then you can apply for Pop-Up Submissions yourself, although there is a significant wait. But what else are you going to do during the pandemic? Alternatively, if you have no idea how this whole submission thing works, then you can read my wee book How to Get Published, which is available free if you sign up to my extremely infrequent newsletter.
K C Murdarasi 