Copyright © 2005 by Blake Charlton. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, reposting, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission of the author.
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 00:52:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Blake Charlton
Subject: "It came down to the wire"
To: My Peoples
So as one or two of you now know all too well, there's been a lot happening with me. Here's the scoop.
MONDAY: We get news from Jason (the Da Vinci Code guy), but it's not what we expected. He says that, yes, he'd love to edit the book, but because it is so far off the beaten path for Doubleday he has to show it to Bill, the Editor in Chief, first. This means that the MS has gone all the way up the line at a big five publishing house. Few things get shown to a house's EIC and it's wonderfully flattering to be one of them. I took the news in a calm and dignified manner: mostly by jumping up and down, yelling at high volume, and shouting "Whose your daddy?" at my bookshelves.
TUESDAY: No news from Doubleday, but my good friend, New York Times bestselling author, Tad Williams comes through for me and after reading the first ~100 pages of Spellwright comes up with a little puff to show the publishers. I'm very excited but I refrain from taunting my library.
WEDNESDAY: So, this is how it happened. The EIC finishes reviewing my MS and has a meeting with some number of executive editors, of whose number Jason is one. A debate springs up. Reportedly, Bill (the EIC) likes the book and thinks there's crossover potential with both mainstream literature and science fiction fantasy. The editors feel that Doubleday could market the book to the mainstream types no problem; however, they're more hesitant about the sci-fi side of things.
The debate lasts for nearly an hour. At last Bill comes to a decision and tells Jason. Jason then calls my agent and talks to him for roughly forty-five minutes. My agent then tries to call me, but I'm not there. I'm at the YMCA playing basketball and egregiously fouling Tad (remember Tad? See Tuesday's entry if you've forgotten). So it's nearly two hours before I get home and get the messages from Matt, my agent. So I call him but he's busy. So I have to pace around the house, wringing my hands, and apologizing to my bookshelves for question their paternal origins. Finally Matt and I get in touch, and he tells me what Jason said...and Jason's exact words were...
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well not exact, I'm going on what Matt told me...
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but anyway, what Jason said was...
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[wait for it]...
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Jason said...no.
He had to pass. Doubleday does not feel like they could adequately edit or represent the book to what would likely be its hardcore, sci-fi fan base.
But Jason was very lavish with his praise and said nice things about my plotting and prose style. He even asked Matt to show my first non sci-fi / fantasy novel to him!
So the answer was a 'no', but quite frankly I've never had a better rejection in my life. Matt's also super optimistic; he thinks the MS is 'guaranteed to sell'.
In fact, we are submitting to ten new houses (the top sci-fi imprints and a few more adventuresome mainstream ones) tomorrow morning. There's no saying how long it will take before we get a bite; could be just a few weeks, or maybe several months. So I'm settling down again for another long wait. I want to thank you all (especially Nina, foul-weather friend and late-night spellchecker extraordinaire) for all your friendship, love, and support.
Can't wait to catch up with you all!
--blake