Okay, "we need to talk" means the same thing in publishing as it does in relationships. The publisher didn't like the idea. No writer likes to hear that his/her idea sucks, but I take heart from my days in theatre where I read mixed reviews of my plays. Critics at the same performance had completely different opinions of the show. I know this idea has potential and I just have to find a publisher who agrees with me. My agent just informed me that because of the battered state of the publishing industry, the days of selling fiction based on outlines are gone, and I'd need to develop this into a full manuscript before she can shop it around. Sigh. Not a great time to be a fiction writer. I'll have to figure out if I have enough time to invest in writing this novel on spec.
But not all is lost with this publisher. The good news is that he still is interested in working with me. He wants one-line pitches from which he'll pick one for me to develop into an outline and hopefully a novel that he'll publish. As rejections go, this isn't a bad one. If he rejects all ten of my pitches, then I'm in trouble.
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