Got a rejection from Barron’s the other day. Nothing new there. I’ve gotten many rejections – hundreds – over the years. My very first book, The Chewing Gum Bookwas rejected by 75 publishers before it was accepted. Other works of mine have been rejected as much and never gotten accepted. That’s the nature of the publishing world: the overwhelming majority of manuscripts get turned down.
So yes, I am used to rejection. I use each rejection letter as a reality check. Okay, so this particular work is not right for Barron’s. Does that mean the work is not right for any publisher? Not necessarily, but it just might be. How will I find out? Keep sending it out. When I get to the end of all publishers, and all of them have rejected it, I have a question to ask myself: Do I have a need for this work to be published and available for people to read? If the answer is no, the manuscript gets filed. If the answer is yes, then I become the publisher. And the marketing director, and the promotions manager, and the sales team. Not the easiest route, for sure, but a way to assure that the book is born.
The letter I got from Barron’s was mostly the typical rejection letter: “we get a lot of submissions, we can’t answer personally, blahblahblah.” But there was a gem in the letter, at the bottom, waiting to be found. It was a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, a guy who knew something about the writing biz. “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat,” he said. This is a good quote to remember, for the writing world as well as the world at-large.
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