The results are in after pitching ‘Somewhere In Between’ to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Adelaide this year. I was rejected three times, but I take that as a positive experience. I stepped up, got some feedback, and now feel like a real writer. And I get to call myself an ‘emerging writer’ rather than an ‘aspiring’ one – my book exists and has been read by a real editor.

Here’s how the pitches went:

Harlequin Australia

The pitch went well but Harlequin weren’t interested. They aren’t currently taking romcoms which aren’t set in Australia. Mine is set in the UK then ends in Australia – and I’m not sure if it is a romcom, but I pitched it that way regardless.

Penguin Random House

Pitch went well again, and the editor said she wasn’t making a decision on the day, and she would email later. I found her email in my junk folder about three weeks later – I was surprised she emailed back at all even though it was a rejection.

And I got a bit more feedback. She felt that the story wasn’t high stakes enough, which is always going to be a problem with a book set in a meditation class. Also, one of my comp titles was Leonard and Hungry Paul which is a gentle story about gentle souls and probably put her off.

Pantera Press

My most successful pitch. The editor asked for the first three chapters which I duly sent a week later. Another rejection but I was delighted to get a paragraph of feedback from a professional editor. Super useful.

On the positive side – my style of writing was described as ‘charming, entertaining and very readable’. High praise indeed. On the negative side – the story was slow paced, and felt long, and being set in the same meditation class didn’t help the pacing.

Next Steps

I’m due to finish my ninth draft edits shortly. I was thinking the edits were coming to a close – but the slow pacing of the book remains an issue (and one that was flagged up months ago by the first wave of beta readers). So I’ll continue with the edits, and focus on trimming on the slow parts, and loosing up the structure so it doesn’t rigidly follow the (glacial) progress of a typical meditation class.

Photo by Jon Champaigne on Unsplash