Taking The Sting Out Of Rejections
Let’s face it: rejection is a fact of life. Whether you get passed over for that dream job or promotion, get shot down by the gorgeous girl you’ve been ogling from across the room that you just know is destined to be Mrs. Right (or at least Mrs. Right Now) or lose that dream home that you bid on only to have someone else make a better offer, it hurts. I can’t help too much with disappointments like these, but I’ve learned a few things along the way about dealing with rejections as a writer. Trust me, so many rejections.
When I wrote my first book, ‘Let the Truth Be Told’ way back in the Stone Age (in the publishing world), circa 2008, I had to look for potential agents and publishers by purchasing hard copy reference books and spending a lot of time doing research. Today, many writers use a great online application called QueryTracker to do the same thing and so much more. In 2008 not a single agent that I queried would accept an email (seriously??) and, heaven forbid(!), if someone wanted to send an attachment! The horror! No, we had to send our queries via snail mail and include a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) if we wanted the agents to respond with their own hard copy rejection letter via snail mail. Did I mention that this was 2008 and not 1908? Moving on….. Today virtually all agents accept either email queries or their own online form, often directly through QueryTrack.net, to make things much faster and easier. It sometimes also makes those stinging, soul-crushing rejection messages that much faster to reach you. Personally, I’d rather get that rejection message as soon as possible so I can keep moving forward with queries to other potential agents.
Most rejection letters are basic form letters, maybe with a small touch of personalization. The agent will usually add, nicely, that his/her opinion or preferences is that of only one person, so don’t get discouraged and keep searching; it only takes one person to say ‘Yes’, and that agent may be out there and looking for exactly what you’re offering. That is so true. You’ve got to keep plugging away; it’s not unusual for a writer to send queries to 30, 40, even 50 or more targeted agents (the key word there being targeted: make sure that the agents you’re querying represent works in your genre before reaching out to them).
The best advice I’ve received was from the writing group I joined, James River Writers (JRW). They emphasized viewing the responses not as ‘rejection’ but as ‘pass’. Maybe a subtle difference, but it’s important for our mental wellbeing. Simply, the agent ‘passed’ because it’s not the kind of book that they’re looking for at this moment, or maybe not a genre that’s creating a lot of interests from publishers, or maybe there’s too much competition. Whatever the reason, don’t feel rejected. Don’t follow my bad example: I always referred to the rejection letters as ‘you suck’ letters. Now I simply view them as just one more step on the journey to ‘YES’.
PS: Worst rejection ever? An agent sent a strip of paper with the words “Thank you for your query but not interested” via SASE. It reminded me of being punished in school and the teacher makes you write “I will not talk in class” 500 times. This agent had literally printed this sentence out on a piece of paper and cut it out with scissors so he could stuff them into envelopes more quickly. That’s one rejection I was glad to get, because they’re not someone I could imagine having a working relationship/partnership with!
