Rejection letters.
Most writers dislike them. At least most of my writer friends do.
Rejection letters are discouraging and leave a nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach.
As the editorial director for CrossRiver Media, I can tell you I don’t like writing rejection letters anymore than I, as a writer, like getting them.
And, I will venture to say, most other editors don’t really care for this task either. (If they’re lucky they have an admin assistant who does it.)
We truly want to be able to ask for/accept the manuscripts that come our way, but there are many reasons why we don’t.
The Whys of Rejection
1. A Poorly Crafted Query Letter — No matter how fantastic your manuscript may be, if you’ve written a query letter that fails to capture our interest, we aren’t going to ask for your manuscript.
2. We Don’t Publish that Genre — Many publishers (and agents) handle specific genres. The genres they carry are often listed in the Writer’s Guidelines. If they aren’t, study their catalog or the books listed in their online bookstore.
3. It’s too Similar to Books Already on the Market — Let’s face it, there’s nothing new under sun. The angle on your subject needs to be unique, otherwise it gets lost in all the others out there about cancer survival, Amish vampires, or Harry Potters or whatever subject you may be writing on.
4. You Didn’t Follow the Submission Guidelines — Again, each publisher has their own set of criteria for submitting to them. Many accept manuscripts only through an agent. A guaranteed rejection letter (if you hear from them at all), if you send your unagented manuscript to one of these publishers.
5. A Poorly Developed Story — Perhaps you’ve written an amazing query letter and we’re excited about reading your story. We ask for your manuscript and start reading. After several pages we discover holes in your plot or no character arc or you simply failed to deliver on what you promised in the query letter. Say hello to a rejection letter.
6. A Poorly Written Story — Here again, you may dazzle us with your query, but when we begin to read your sample chapters we find passive voice, bad grammar, poor spelling, a multitude of typos, or any number of other items that tell us you need to spend more time learning the craft and developing your writing skills.
How to Improve Your Chances of Acceptance
1. Wow us with your query letter. Do bit of Google searching, buy a book, or read this post on writing queries: Do You Query Properly?
2. Study the publishers, and save yourself the heartache of a rejection letter by sending your manuscript only to those who publish your genre.
3. State in your query letter what makes your book unique to others on the market. The bigger publishing houses receive 100s if not 1000s of submissions every year. Small houses like CrossRiver see fewer, but we still need to know what is going to make your book stand out among all the others on the shelf.
4. Read and follow to the letter the publisher’s writer’s guidelines. They’ve established them for a reason. I want to avoid eye strain. And I do not have the time to reformat a single-spaced, 8 pt sans font manuscript into something much easier to read. It’s the same principle as following a recipe when you bake a cake. If you follow the directions, you’re more likely to get a tasty fluffy cake in the end, and vice versa.
5. A poorly developed story can be improved by studying books on the craft of writing, participation in a critique group, or by hiring an editor. Writers Digest carries excellent books.
6. A poorly written story can be improved by taking a writing course or two, studying books on the craft, participation in a critique group, or by hiring an editor. There are many excellent courses and books available.
Next time you receive a rejection letter, just remember the editor took no pleasure in writing it. If the editor gave specific feedback about your story (or article), read it carefully and take action on it. Few editors have the time to do that.
Start work on the next book while you continue to submit. If you’ve done all you can to make your manuscript the best it can be, PERSEVERE.
How many times did you submit before you got an acceptance letter? Leave your comments below.
Debra L. Butterfield © 2014