Rejection in publishing is inevitable.
In fact, if a writer told me he/she had never received a rejection letter, then I’d say he/she had never submitted any work.
Yes, rejection is hard. Yes, it hurts. As writers, we must develop a tough skin so rejections don’t readily wound us. Further, we can’t let that rejection stop us from submitting our work somewhere else.
In addition to a tough skin, our attitude affects whether we handle rejection in a way that promotes our growth as a writer. We need a persevering attitude so we can overcome and reach our goals.
We all know our attitude toward anything in life makes a difference. To be successful we need an attitude that says “I’m going to do everything I need to do to reach my goal” (though, I don’t recommend breaking the law.) Often this means hiring a freelance editor.
We must be willing to learn and grow.
When you hire an editor, that editor is going to give feedback and suggest or make changes. Study that feedback, learn from those changes. Apply what you learn to your work in progress and all future work.
You’ve hired that editor to do a job for you, but if you ignore what he/she says, you’re wasting your money. If the editorial report you get is upsetting, lay it aside for a few days while you work through your emotions. Then respond with reason instead of emotion.
The same can be said for feedback we get from our critique partners.
Your skill as a writer will grow only in relation to how well you accept and apply feedback about your work.
When your work is ready, do your research and submit to the right places.
A rejection is a sure thing if you submit a sci-fi book to a pub house that doesn’t accept sci-fi. As you’ve seen many times before on this blog, before you submit, study the publisher/magazine and follow their guidelines.
These editors don’t reject your work because they’re mean people. They’re people just like you, working to make a living. They reject your work because…
- Your query letter didn’t pique their interest
- The topic of your article or genre of your book isn’t a good fit for the magazine/publishing house
- The topic of your magazine article has already been covered in previous issues
- Your manuscript isn’t well written.
If you get constructive feedback from an acquisitions or magazine editor, consider yourself fortunate and heed the advice. Editors are busy people. If they’ve taken the time to give you some advice it’s because they sincerely want to help or they saw potential in what you submitted.
Now write, revise, and submit!
How do you deal with rejection letters? Leave your comments below.
Hi Debra, I’ve always used rejection as a motivator, knowing that what one person dislike (or not a good fix for), others may like (and be a good fix for). You must believe in yourself at all times and in order to do that, we must understand that progress must take place first in order for us to reach our goals. Who would push if they had nothing pushing against them? Rejection should be received as a blessing, and you should give that blessing back to the R ejector in the form of a “Thank you for time” reply. By thanking the R ejector and blessing them, you receive power or boldness to go on. So I say, rejection and feedback is a must in order for one to grow. Roland
Roland, your attitude toward rejection is awesome. Often there is personal rejection in our background that we have to overcome. Rejection like “your story stinks” is hard to get past. Even the form letter “doesn’t fit our needs” is easier to swallow than “it stinks.”
You’re right, what one person likes, another doesn’t. Thanks for sharing your strategy on rejection.