The things I learned from the process, as well as from making the edits.

While I was away from Medium, I was still frantically writing like my life depended on getting words on the page. It’s virtually impossible for me to go a day without writing. I’d even venture to say that it’s impossible for me to go an hour without writing — at least most days.

I’ve written here about writing romance novels, and my experiences with the editing, querying, and submitting process. Those are all cornerstones of the writing process, at least if you are planning to be traditionally published, and involve a real learning curve when you’re working on your first book.

Last year, however, I jumped into my second (completed) book. I found inspiration in a sort of unlikely place — a writing contest at a publishing house — and found myself moving on to round two of the contest. Soon, I was writing on a deadline for a publisher, though not in the traditional sense. I had skipped over the querying process altogether in favor of writing category romance for an arm of a big five publisher, and it was an exciting change.

Once I finished that first draft, read through it a dozen or so times during editing, and pressed “submit” to round two of the contest, it was time to wait. I knew when I’d hear back, but that didn’t make waiting any easier. The whole time, I had a feeling that I would get a revise and resubmit request from the editor. I loved my story, and I knew that the editor did because she asked me to submit the full manuscript, but I had a feeling that there were a few things in my story that needed work, but I couldn’t put my finger on them.

Lo and behold, when I finally received an answer on my submission, it was, in fact, a revise and resubmit. I received that answer back in October 2022, and finally finished the edits and submitted the manuscript again at the beginning of 2023. While I still don’t have a final answer yet (hopefully I will soon!), I have a lot of thoughts about the process that I wanted to share here in case you happen to find yourself on the receiving end of a revise and resubmit letter. I know I was curious about what this would actually look like, so I’m here to help explain a bit — or at least explain things according to my experience.

First of all, what is a revise and resubmit?

When you submit your completed manuscript to either an agent or an editor, the outcome can usually go one of three ways: you’ll receive an offer, receive a rejection, or receive a revise and resubmit request. This can look different depending on whether you submitted to an editor or agent, and depending on each individual editor or agent’s methods.

If you receive a revise and resubmit request, you’re sort of in no-man’s-land. The agent or editor liked your manuscript and saw a lot of potential, but had some concerns with the manuscript that would prevent them from successfully taking on your project. A revise and resubmit request is basically a way to offer a potential contract to work together, contingent on changes to your manuscript before that contract falls into place.

What the actual process of receiving a revise and resubmit request looks likes will, again, vary quite a bit depending on the agent or editor. I’ve heard some people talk about what it looked like with their agent, and it included a phone call and pages of notes to help shape their manuscript. For others, I’ve heard that it was all via email and included the document they submitted plus lots of comments and edits. For me, the revise and resubmit looked like a response in Submittable with a detailed, several-paragraph letter explaining both the things the editor liked about my story and the things she thought I could change. That letter ended with a very kind and encouraging note to feel free to resubmit the manuscript to her attention if I made the changes, or to submit something else if I had another story ready.

The one thing any revise and resubmit process has in common is some sort of explanation from the editor or agent for why they couldn’t take on the manuscript as-is and what they would hope to see in revisions. And an actual request to resubmit. Don’t forget the actual request! If your letter or your phone call doesn’t end with something along the lines of “please resubmit to me if you make these changes,” it’s probably not a revise and resubmit. If you’re unsure, it’s best to check with the agent or editor rather than make an assumption (some publishing professionals are exceptionally nice and will provide a bit of feedback even if they aren’t actually asking for a revise and resubmit.)

What should you do if you receive a revise and resubmit?

This question has an extremely simple answer, and that’s to revise your story according to the editor or agent’s notes!

There is a caveat to this, of course: if you vehemently disagree with one (or more) of the agent or editor’s suggestions, you don’t have to follow through with a revise and resubmit. I’d suggest you talk to them first to see if maybe there’s a workaround or if they are flexible with some of their notes, but if you feel like the suggested edits would sacrifice the integrity of your book and you feel strongly that you wouldn’t be able to deliver on the revision suggestions you received, then it’s fine to decline to revise and resubmit. Just be polite and kind in your communications with the editor or agent!

For my revise and resubmit, I agreed with pretty much every suggested edit I received. As I mentioned before, I knew my book was missing something, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Having a seasoned publishing professional tell me how I could improve the story made it much easier to actually revise my book (for what seems like the fifth time at this point, but still.)

It helped that the publisher I submitted to had a few helpful blog posts about what you should do when you receive a revision request, so I had some advice to reference. The gist of said advice was simple: if you agree with the edits and implement all of them in your manuscript, there’s a very good chance that your book will be accepted. With such great encouragement, that made me even more certain that the best course of action for me (and for my book) was to get to editing!

What happens after you revise and resubmit your book?

Well, the first step is to submit your manuscript once more for consideration. Most agents or editors will specify how they would prefer you send the manuscript back to them, but if they don’t, your best bet is to either ask them how to send it back or submit it the same way you did the first time (i.e., reply to that email thread or log into your Submittable account again.) In my letter, the editor specified how to submit the manuscript through Submittable again and to address it to the editor who requested the revise and resubmit — so that’s what I did!

Then, after you’ve submitted your revised manuscript, it’s back to playing the waiting game again. Different agents and editors will have different timeframes for responding to submissions, and those timeframes can vary even more when you’re submitting a revision rather than a regular slush pile submission, but a general rule of thumb is that you can expect to wait for at least three months. After those three months, you can check in if you’d like, but I personally always give it at least an extra couple of weeks (or another month!) before reaching out.

Right now, I’m still playing the waiting game. I submitted my revised manuscript, so now I have to wait to hear back. Just like when I first submitted my book for consideration, it could be an offer or a rejection, and I suppose even a request for more edits (although I think that outcome is usually pretty unlikely.)

I’ll be sure to update here once I know more, but for now, I’ll relish in the fact that I received a revise and resubmit request in the first place rather than an outright rejection.

Have you ever received a revise and resubmit request from an editor or agent? If you have, I’m curious to hear how it went! Let me know in the comments.

Previously published in The Writing Cooperative