Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Yay, I Got Rejected!
Good people of Ricochet, please celebrate with me – I just got my first literary rejection!
Last April, I fulfilled a life-long dream and self-published my first book (I wrote about it here). In the following months, I finished up another project, and I decided that this time I would like to try the traditional route.
In February, I bit the bullet and sent my first query letter off, and thankfully I sent it to an agent who replies very quickly, so I had my answer in about a week. I expected to be rejected, and honestly consider it kind of a “right of passage.” Now that I’ve sent one query letter and received one rejection, as Michael Scott said, “I am ready to get hurt again!”
If you’re a believer in Christ, I would love to have your prayers – that I would persevere, respond correctly to criticism, and ultimately find the right agent and publisher if that is God’s will! I’m excited to continue my journey of being a writer.
Published in Literature
I will pray!
I want to convey that this is something everyone fears but has never ended anyone’s career in publishing unless they internalize that fear. Keep going! Nothing about what happened to you is unusual. Don’t let anyone stop you. Don’t let yourself stop you.
I say this because I want to be encouraging but also because I think about myself working on a paper for about 3 years (I’m going to go through with submitting for publishing soon tbh) and also because I’ve never put up a formal post on Ricochet because I’m just really nervous about posting.
I will pray. You’ve done a lot already. Don’t be discouraged. It isn’t unusual. It isn’t about you. Keep going and do make changes that are suggested to you.
Congratulations! Literary rejection is often a step to greatness.
You’re in my prayers! And I’m so impressed by your boldness and courage to take a big step into the unknown. Many people don’t even think to try. And now you’re one rejection closer to that “acceptance”. Cross each one off your To-Do List.
Congrats, I suppose. Keep writing.
I will pray for you.
Keep pursuing your passions and your giftings. I once got a flippant, dismissive email from a book buyer. I kept it
to someday rub it in her faceas motivation.Well done, and congratulations!
Obviously Melissa has no interest in empowering women. This is a clear case of self misogyny. Have you contacted a lawyer?
I was a very nice rejection letter, however. She even said she read your work.
Elon Musk is on his tenth BFR. Everyone of them is a new lesson learned. We learn more from our failures than our serendipitous quick wins.
Keep plugging, and good luck.
Allie, I am praying your desires on this do indeed align with God’s will. Certainly, one rejection is no reason to not persevere some more.
Praying, Allie.
I have a file full of rejection letters. Most of them say, “Not what we are looking for at this time.” I recommend self-publishing. A friend at work told me about Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon). I went that route, and my science fiction series has sold over 4500 books, not to mention borrowing through their lending library. My new women’s fiction series is off to a slow start, but hopefully sales will pick up. I depend entirely on word-of-mouth advertising . . .
Update: I either heard or read somewhere with the advent of digital self-publishing, traditional publishers are relying more on agents instead of cold submissions.
You’ve a great attitude.
I worked for a publishing company years ago. Most of the time things were rejected not because they were bad but just because they didn’t fit with the rest of the catalogue.
I’ve seen more than a hundred of those, probably, over the last couple years. Keep at it.
I hope you do not need to go through too many more of these rites of passage. The old saw was that you have to paper your room with rejections before success arrives. Good luck.
Congratulations on having an experience that probably every writer has had.
As a corporate patent attorney I have pointed out to countless inventors whose invention the company chose not to patent, that coming up with and submitting more ideas was the way to increase the chances that the company would choose to patent one or more of the inventor’s ideas.
Thank you so much for the encouragement!!! I just said a prayer for you about your paper, too. And I hope you will post something here on Ricochet!
Thank you, Jenna! ☺️
I appreciate that so much!
Haha, reminds me of the record company who wouldn’t sign the Beatles.
😂😂😂
It was! I’m glad I started with this agent in case future ones aren’t as kind. 😅
Good reminder, and thank you!
Thank you so much!
Thank you!!!
Thank you for all the advice – I did use KDP for my first book, and loved the experience!
I’m glad your first book series is doing so well and hope the second series does, too – I’ll have to look your books up!
That’s what I’m hoping, haha. And if there really is something major I need to fix, maybe one of the rejection letters will indicate what that is.
That’s a fun idea! Maybe I’ll print it off and post it somewhere.
Great analogy – thank you!