Not a Good Fit for Our List: Why I Gave Up on Traditional Publishing

By David Griffin Brown

The Long Game

I’ve helped hundreds of writers prepare their manuscripts for querying. I’ve also spent fifteen years trying to land a traditional deal myself. And what I’ve come to realize—both through my work as an editor and as a writer—is that a well-written manuscript isn’t always enough.

Early in my writing life, I assumed that if I could string together a decent sentence and build a believable world, I was halfway to a publishing contract. But after eight complete manuscripts, an MFA, representation from a literary agent, and multiple rounds of submission to publishers, I still hadn’t cracked the market.

So here’s the story of how I got close—and why I finally decided to go indie.

The MFA Rewrite

My first serious attempt at a novel was a YA portal fantasy called The Rippled Pond. I started writing it when I turned thirty. Back then, I didn’t know that “portal fantasy” was something agents and editors often avoid. I just wanted to tell a story.

After a single pass of light proofreading, I sent out queries. One kind agent told me it was 20,000 words too long and had way too much setup. The rest sent form rejections. I ended up shelving the project.

Years later, after getting into the UBC MFA program, I brought The Rippled Pond back to life. I rewrote it entirely from scratch—not one sentence preserved. I had input from excellent mentors, including Annabel Lyon and Maggie de Vries. By the time I finished, I thought I was ready.

And to be fair, maybe I was. But after more than a hundred queries, I still hadn’t gotten anywhere.

From Sailing to Sci-Fi

Before grad school, I hitchhiked across Canada, housesat in Panama, then spent six months crewing on sailboats across the Pacific. I turned that experience into a novel.

Sky to Sea is a YA spacefaring adventure about a girl named Mariana who escapes from a lunar prison and gets entangled in an international conspiracy. That one finally caught the attention of an agent: Valerie Noble at Donaghy Literary.

We did some solid revisions, and then she sent it out on submission. That was the breakthrough I’d been waiting for—or so I thought.

But no one bit. We came close with a couple imprints, but no offers. The rejections we received were vague. The most common: we can’t quite imagine a market for this.

Prose, Emotion, and the YA Shelf

I stuck with Valerie and sent her my next project: The Sparrow War. It was the first installment of an ambitious YA series set in the same world as Sky to Sea. Valerie said I’d leveled up. We were both hopeful.

But again, the rejections rolled in. One imprint told us their publisher had gone off science fiction. Another editor said it was a bit cerebral for YA. Again came the refrain: we can’t quite imagine a market for this. Valerie wondered if the problem was my prose—maybe it leaned too literary for the age group. She also suggested the emotional beats might be too subtle, too inferred.

This is something I encounter often as an editor. Many writers, in upholding the show-don’t-tell maxim with fervor, will pull back on interiority and melodrama. But in doing so, they can mute the emotion. Literary restraint can undercut character connection, especially in YA.

That was probably part of my problem too.

The Manuscript That Got a Grant (But Not a Deal)

My next manuscript, Sleeping Cutie and the Destruction of Southgate Mall, was speculative, literary, and semi-autobiographical. It follows a call-centre worker named Manny Gidden, whose life unravels inside a surreal work environment narrated by his cat.

I received a Canada Council grant for this project. I workshopped it extensively, did multiple rounds of feedback, and revised it until it felt airtight. Then I queried again.

Same refrain. We can’t quite imagine a market for this. A few small presses showed interest, but no contract materialized.

Querying as a Case Study

Through all this, I was also running the Darling Axe: building a team, working with a wide range of writers, interviewing agents for our Book Broker series. I talked to many indie authors who had found success on their own terms.

What I heard again and again: traditional publishing is increasingly competitive. The risk threshold is sky-high. Debut authors need a clean, obvious hook and a clearly defined market niche.

But that’s not the kind of work I usually write. My stories tend to be a bit experimental. Genre bendy. Not easy to pitch in one sentence. 

So I decided to stop waiting for the gatekeepers.

The Indie Pivot

I revisited Sky to Sea, rewrote and retitled it, and then took the leap. The new title is When the Sky Breaks, a nod to the story’s coming-of-age theme.

I hired cover designers. I created a launch plan. I invested in editing, formatting, and marketing. I’m still learning, still experimenting. But the difference is: I’m in control.

And I’m reaching readers.

Final Thoughts for Fellow Writers

If you’re on the fence between traditional and indie publishing, here’s my take:

• Trad is shrinking.
• The bar is getting higher than ever.
• If your stories don’t fit neat market categories, indie may give you more freedom and a faster path to readers.

That said, going indie takes work. If you want to do it well, you’ll need to assemble a team: editors, designers, proofers, beta readers. And you’ll need to learn the ropes of book marketing.

But if you're serious, it’s possible. Even rewarding.

For me, it took fifteen years to get here. Would I do it differently? Maybe. But I definitely wouldn’t wait another fifteen.

When the Sky Breaks is now available on Amazon 😊

David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his writing has been published in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review and Grain. In 2022, he was the recipient of a New Artist grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. He lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.