“I considered giving up on this book, too. Clearly it wasn’t good enough. But something – that tiny, hopeful voice in my ear – wouldn’t let me.”
When she faced rejection after rejection, Caroline Bishop remembered one important truth: the only published authors are the ones that didn’t give up.
I think most writers start out with some hope of publication. It may be a naïve hope, yet to be discouraged by all the practice, learning and rewriting needed to get there; it may be unspoken, for fear friends and family may think you ridiculous, egotistical, or self-indulgent; or it may be hampered by imposter syndrome, but I think it’s there, in the background, driving you on.
It was for me, back in 2008 when I started writing a novel. It was fuelled by the fact that, several years earlier, when I was trying to get into journalism, I’d been contacted by an agent who’d read a humorous feature I’d written for a newspaper and asked if I was interested in writing fiction. Crazily, I’d turned him down, unsure, at the age of 23, if I was ready or able to write a novel. Now, twenty years later and after so many agent rejections, it makes me laugh that I once so quickly dismissed such a chance.
Still, that experience was in my mind when I started submitting my manuscript in 2010. An agent had liked my writing once before, so why not again? But none of them did. At least, not enough to take me on. Of the many agents I submitted to over the course of a year, some didn’t reply, most sent me standard rejection letters, a few added an encouraging comment and one, excitingly, asked to read the full manuscript – only to then reject it.
I suppose I did give up, for a while. At least, I gave up on that book. It lies on a usb stick in a drawer and I haven’t looked at it in ten years.
However, I still had hope when I began writing another novel in 2016. I rarely admitted that hope out loud – too worried people would think I was deluded – but it was there nonetheless, spurring me on to write and edit my new book, The Other Daughter. I felt I’d learned a lot since writing the first one, a feeling that fed the little hope daemon on my shoulder.
In 2018, I started submitting it to agents. Once again, the rejections rolled in. Once again, tumbleweed gathered when some of them didn’t reply at all. It felt worse than the previous time – not a single agent asked to read the whole manuscript.
I considered giving up on this book, too. Clearly it wasn’t good enough. But something – that tiny, hopeful voice in my ear – wouldn’t let me. I’d heard it said that the writers who are published are those who don’t give up, so I decided I wouldn’t.
Instead, I got some professional advice on my submissions package. I rewrote my cover letter and submitted to five more agents – within days, two had asked to read the full manuscript and shortly afterwards, both offered me representation. I signed with Hayley Steed at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, who in 2019 sold The Other Daughter to Simon & Schuster UK.
Was it the revised cover letter that did it? Undoubtedly it helped. But I also credit the little hope daemon on my shoulder who whispered in my ear to carry on, to keep submitting, to not give up on the idea that there would be an agent out there for me – if only I could find them.
And I like to think – I know, actually – that if I hadn’t found an agent with this book, if I’d eventually relegated it to that usb stick in a drawer, I’d have written another one, and another one after that, and begun the submissions process all over again. I’d have kept going, partly because I love to write, whether anyone is going to read my work or not, and partly because that little hope daemon sits on my shoulder, urging me on. Get one for yourself – they can be pretty handy.
Caroline Bishop is a freelance journalist and copywriter who moved from London to Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2013. Her debut novel, The Other Daughter, is published on 18th February 2021 by Simon & Schuster UK. A dual timeline story set in the UK and Switzerland, against the backdrop of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, it follows one woman in her search for the truth about her birth and another desperately trying to succeed in a man’s world. Caroline is currently writing her second novel, due in 2022. You can visit her website, or follow her on social media: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
About THE OTHER DAUGHTER: When Jessica discovers a shocking secret about her birth, she leaves her London home and travels to Switzerland in search of answers. She knows her journalist mother spent time in the country forty years earlier, reporting on the Swiss women’s liberation movement, but what she doesn’t know is what happened to her while she was there. Can Jess summon the courage to face the truth about her family, or will her search only hurt herself and those around her even more?
Keep getting rejected by agents? Don’t lose faith that there’s someone out there for you.