The most helpful post in the world!

Ever stop to consider that, in your heated enthusiasm for finishing that draft/query letter/synopsis, that there were a few things to think about before whizzing your manuscript into the agent- and publisher-filled ether?

By which I mean: rejection.

Before you send out your shiny words, make sure you understand the flip side. Rejection happens more often than not, as multitudes of published authors will attest, but it's up to you to process that there are certain reasons why. Some of these you can change, and others...don't even think about it.


So along comes this incredibly succinct and helpful post by blogger Jessica P. Morrell, and what she writes makes as much sense as anything else I've read on the subject. And so now, it's in your hands. Go forth and get acceptances!

The R Word

Need a new way to handle rejection? Barb Davis-Pyles’s latest post on The Mind’s Elbow has got you covered!!! Check out this inspiring post here. 


Thanks Barb!! Awesome post!

A possibly insincere book rejection

This comes from a blog called Futility Closet, and was sent my way by Craig Conley, author of One Letter Words (the strangest and most entertaining dictionary I own).

The following is said to be an exact translation of the letter sent by a Chinese editor to a would-be contributor whose manuscript he found it necessary to return: ‘Illustrious brother of the sun and moon: Behold thy servant prostrate before thy feet. I kowtow to thee, and beg that of thy graciousness thou mayst grant that I may speak and live. Thy honored manuscript has deigned to cast the light of its august countenance upon us. With raptures we have perused it. By the bones of my ancestors, never have I encountered such wit, such pathos, such lofty thought. With fear and trembling I return the writing. Were I to publish the treasure you sent me, the emperor would order that it should be made the standard and that none be published except such as equaled it. Knowing literature as I do, and that it would be impossible in ten thousand years to equal what you have done, I send your writing back. Ten thousand times I crave your pardon. Behold my head is at your feet. Do what you will. Your servant’s servant. The Editor.’

– The Literary World, March 23, 1895

From a Meg Cabot rejection letter

"The Princess Diaries ... just not suitable for children."

Hahahahahahaha!

Also, she keeps a bag of rejection letters under the bed of her apartment in New York (which is the sort of thing you say when you also have real estate in other parts of the country).

Read more of the collected rejection quotes from Meg Cabot at Debbie Ridpath Ohi's blog, Inkygirl.

On rejection

Here's an amusing post on famous writers and the blistering rejections they've seen.

And here's the blog of some guy who's racked up 11,000 rejections (and managed to sell 80-some stories).

I confess that I am both highly flattered and somewhat dumbfounded to
be the subject of such literary interest. I assure you that I don't
think of myself as particularly successful, from a publishing
standpoint, and I have received far more rejections than acceptances.
Since I imagine some of your readers are interested in hard numbers, I
have received approximately 11,100 rejection letters over the past
fifteen years--as well as one phone rejection (from the late,
brilliant George Plimpton at the Paris Review); since I've published
eighty-two stories, that's a decidedly low acceptance to rejection
ratio. I suppose the key to the limted successes that I have had is
perseverence. And a great deal of good old-fashioned dumb luck. And
the reason I keep doing it so simple that it may disappoint some of
your readers: I love writing stories.

I saw a few comments yesterday of the "oh, how inspirational" nature. I don't share this. He says he loves writing stories. Yes, don't we all.

To make a story great, though, you have to be willing to work on it. You don't send it off, still warm and bleeding, from your typewriter, your computer, or from the parchment you've made from your own tender inner thighs.

It's great this guy is writing so much--unless you're an editor who's received 200 submissions from him. I bet his success rate would go up if he chose the best story he'd written and worked on it for a few months, rather than sending an average of three queries a day.

My point, and I do have one, is that you shouldn't send anything out that you haven't polished to the best of your abilities, worked through with critique partners, read aloud, and pondered.

Write as much as you want. But send what's going to help you succeed. 11,000 rejections is a huge waste of time.