As I mentioned in my last post, the agent has rejected In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. She mentioned that she’d be interested in it if I made some changes. One was too much dialog, not enough narrative. I can fix that, I believe. The other was one of what is or isn’t acceptable within the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association), the trade publishing group for Christian publishers.

But I couldn’t decipher her statement: “addressing the sex, drugs, drinking, and lifestyle at the end of the story is too late for a Christian publisher to accept….” I really don’t know what that means. I asked for clarification, and she responded, but the response didn’t provide any clarification. What does the position of the sex, drugs, drinking, and lifestyle have to do with it? I covered these in the mildest way I know how to do. If even the mild way disqualifies the book for the CBA, so be it. But I wish I knew what the agent meant. I tried to figure it out, and mentioned it in two e-mails, but as I said the clarification didn’t come.

So, after four months of waiting, the book is no longer under consideration by anyone. Rejection is sad, of course, but it is also freeing. I can do anything I want with the book. I can propose it to another agent. I can e-self-publish it. I can publish it as a paper book via CreateSpace. As I mentioned last post, I’m leaning towards e-self-publishing it as quickly as possible, and following through with a paper book soon after.

Right now I’m just waiting on beta readers. I have comments back from three, one of the entire book and two of about 2/3 of the book. I’m making some changes as they come in (typos, not substantive), and will consider substantive changes later. My own re-reading of it is drawing closer.

Rejection is hard to take, but less so with each rejection. To be honest, I expected to be rejected on this, if for no other reason than that rejection is more likely than is acceptance. Why get your hopes up only to have them dashed? Meeting with the agent back at the conference in June, and her wanting to see the partial manuscript, was the inducement I needed to complete the book, so that was good. It had been languishing incomplete for a long time.

So, I won’t say I’m giddy about the rejection, but I’m not unhappy. Whether this was a book that could be acceptable for the Christian market, or whether it’s more for the general market, will be decided by the readers rather than by agents and editors. And the readers can’t be wrong.

So full speed ahead. Let the re-writes begin, and the publishing soon follow.