Acceptance/Rejection. Two sides of the very same coin. Welcome to the publishing world.
Please note: Not, “Welcome to the writing world!”
Publishing—Writing. Writing—Publishing. Two different words. Two different activities. Two different universes.
There is one guaranteed way to avoid literary rejection, and that is not to seek literary acceptance. It’s easy, simple, and honorable. Since we’re all writing for our own sakes anyway, there is nothing on earth more straight-forward than producing the work you want to produce and going directly on to further adventures.
My son has five hard-bound 200-page chapter books on his shelf that I’ve written for him every Winter Solstice for the past five years. There’ll be another one this year.
Why aren’t I out there peddling those babies to agents? Are they not well-written? Are they not designed properly for their audience? Do I not think anyone but my son would ever love them? (Which he does—he re-reads them in their entirety every few months.)
No. They’re great books! We all enjoy them, almost as much as we enjoy blowing the minds of his friends’ parents when they see them. Someday I might even think about selling them. (Okay, one of them is with a children’s literary agent right now, but I keep forgetting.) But the purpose of writing them was to give my son terrific reading material, and when I’d achieved my purpose. . .guess what? I went directly on to further adventures.
You know why? Because I know a secret. I know how little publishing authors really get paid.
So when you’re clutching your chest and staggering across the room with that rejection letter crumpled in your hand, remember—you got yourself into this game. You can get yourself out again. And if you decide to stay, take to heart the advice of the professionals you will be dealing with about how this game is played:
Dealing with Rejection, by Gabrielle Harbowy of Dragon Moon Press in San Francisco, lists seven points to consider when staring dumbstruck and heartbroken at that rejection letter you just got out of your mailbox. She also lists most of the following links, which I will reproduce for you below in case you skip that part at the bottom of her post—a common and dastardly habit of blog-readers the world over—because they really are that important and she really did track these down herself:
In Dealing with Silence and Rejection, witer/director Earl Newton responds to the letter you want to write, crying abjectly, “But why. . .?”
Investment, by thriller writer Joe Konrath, lists eight things to do rather than write that letter to Earl Newton.
In The Art of Reading Rejection Letters, literary agent Nathan Bransford suggests some good might come of taking a hard look at that rejection letter (assuming it’s not a form rejection, which of course could mean anything), along with a reminder that agents aren’t “STUPID. Most of the time.”
Why It’s Hard to Tell the Whole Truth, by literary agent Rachelle Gardner, admits the ugly, secret truth behind the agent’s end of the dreaded rejection letter.
Finally, I’ve written a post on rejection, myself, which I let Laverne Daley re-post on her site for freelance writers, Words Into Print, and which I will direct you to here because Laverne has been immensely generous to me with her professional advice, and you all should be reading her: Handing Rejection.
You’re going to notice a common theme running through these articles: agents are not editors. They do not get paid to tell you how to make your manuscript publishable. And they don’t have time to do it free because they have—what do you know?—real paying jobs that eat up all their time. I’m not going to get your work published for you, and an agent is not going to tell you how to fix your story.
I can’t tell you how vital this distinction is in the game, friends: agents are not editors.
You’re going to get along a whole lot better with them both now that you know.
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