The Writer’s Guide to Bouncing Back — Rejected, But Not Defeated.
Okay, the truth hurts. The fact is, no matter how good a writer you are, no matter how persistent and devoted to your work, you’re going to receive rejections when pursuing the traditional publishing route. Naturally, we’d like to have all our writing recognized for the incredible gems that they are and published forthwith, but here’s where reality intrudes: it ain’t gonna happen. So, what to do? How to avoid becoming depressed, frustrated, and one of those writers who fall by the wayside and give up? Or one of those writers who’s nothing but a pain to editors and agents, leading to more rejections. Or even worse, one of those writers who spends all the time complaining to friends about the unfairness of it all.
In reality, this one is pretty simple if you can just get your emotions in check a bit (after your first blow-up of frustration, of course).
Take these steps and form a new positive attitude (I know, I know, all this ‘positivity’ can be a bit saccharine at times).
First, remind yourself of a few simple facts. Agents and editors are swamped with submissions by dabblers, those who pursue writing for amusement and not as their life’s work. This can be good news for the serious writer who’ll find that the more professionally he or she approaches an agency or publisher, the more seriously a submission will be taken.
Secondly, the bad news is that established agents get over one hundred submissions a week. Top publishers who still accept unsolicited manuscripts directly from writers are equally buried. Good news from the perspective of the professionally minded aspiring writer is more than ninety percent of the submissions received aren’t worth looking at twice. Make sure your writing is in the 10% category. How do you do this? Edit thoroughly. Use every tool you can get free or, if you can afford it, paid, for the first run-through to find spelling and grammatical errors. Read your text backward to find strange errors. Check out a couple of resources below. Many resources out there are aimed at Indie publishers (self-publishing), but no harm in using them to make your writing its best before submitting to houses and agents.
Consider how many writers (read dabblers) put out sloppy work filled with errors, typos, grammatical, or form. Others don’t give a thought to whom they are submitting.
Whether to an agent or a publisher, it’s the writer’s responsibility to know to whom he or she is talking. Know if the publisher publishes the kind of story you are submitting. Know if the agent handles the type of book you are proposing. If you send a science fiction book proposal to a publisher of romance novels, you can be certain that proposal will be in the trash can or zapped off email within moments. Same thing with an agent.
If you mail a query or proposal to several places at once, personalize each one. If they figure you’ve mailed your submission to every agent or publisher in the known universe, that, too, will land your submission in the rejection trash heap.
Photo by Gary Chan on Unsplash
If you do your job right, if you research markets and rewrite until you know to whom you’re sending your material and you know it is the best that it can be, then you’ll find you’re not competing with all those hundreds of submissions, but rather with only perhaps the ten percent who comport themselves as professionals as you are doing.
So, you’re doing everything right. Cool!
You’re still going to get rejections. Expect it. Simply put, the chance that what you write will be exactly what any single editor or agent is looking for today is usually very small. Remember, even big-name writers get rejections. Comforting, huh?
Don’t take any of it personally. Perhaps your piece just wasn’t the right thing for that publication at that time. Perhaps they have something similar in the works. Perhaps that particular editor is going through a very nasty divorce, is drinking heavily, and nothing would look good to him/her. It isn’t necessarily a rejection of YOU, nor is it a put-down on your writing abilities.
Develop a thick skin, ride it out, and when you receive a rejection, think of it as an opportunity, especially if e even the smallest notation on the rejection letter. Send a new query immediately. If it is a novel, send it to a new publisher or agent for consideration. If it’s an article, send a new query to the editor from whom you’ve just received the rejection, then tweak the original and send that out to a new editor. Oh, and just for the record, don’t call an editor or agent to argue how they’re wrong about rejecting your work. Won’t help, will only hurt.
So, ready to take those rejections and move on to something better? Or perhaps you’re going to choose to go the Indy publishing route. That’s good too. But you still need to edit the hell out of your work, in fact, it’s even more important.
Photo by Dan Dimmock on Unsplash
Resources:
Grammarly offers lots of editing help with a basic free plan and others with monthly fees (this is not an affiliate link).
Kindlepreneur — offers lots of help to the writer Lots of free help and offers some really great products.
I’ve heard good things about Fictionary There is a monthly charge.
List of Best Editing Tools for Self-Published Authors
** There are links in this article that, should you follow them and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. Yet another adjunct to a writer’s income so I can feed the dog!
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Want to learn from me? Check out Romancing Your Novel, my UDMY romance writing course.
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