What To Do After A Rejection Slip

Tell Me A Story

So you’ve finished your novel, polished it until it gleams, sent it off, but it’s been rejected. Justifiably you feel hacked off with the system. What are you going to do next?

Well first off, read through the manuscript again to see if there's something you’ve missed. Ask someone you trust to check it over, or if you're feeling wealthy, try sending the first three chapters to a critique service. 

If you’re certain it’s okay, the next step is to send your baby off again - and again, and again, if you have to. A rejection means nothing. Live with it. A rejection is one person's opinion, nothing more. All authors suffer it, even the best. 

Take a look at some of these statistics taken from Online College – it might just give you heart…

1. William Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before becoming published.
2. Agatha Christie had to wait four years for her first book to be published.
3. Zane Grey self-published his first book after dozens of rejections.
4. John Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 publishers before finding an agent who eventually rejected him as well.
5. Richard Hooker, the book that inspired the film and TV show M*A*S*H* was denied by 21 publishers.
6. Madeline L'Engle's masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time faced rejection 26 times before willing the Newberry Medal.
7. In one rejection letter, Rudyard Kipling was told he didn’t know how to use the English language.
8. J.K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejected it.
9. Before reaching print, Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected 20 times.
10. Gone With the Wind faced rejection 38 times.

If it happened to these great authors, it can happen to anyone - and believe me, it does. Writing is not for the faint-hearted. Stick at it, and you might just find success. Give up, and you never will...

For an interesting look from the publisher's side read this
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David Bowman and his rejection slips

An acquired skill .

All writers collect rejection slips - its par for the course. I could have papered a wall with mine before I had my first story accepted. No one is born understanding how to produce piece of work that others pay to read. Writing to publication standard is a skill that has to be acquired. In acquiring that skill, there is pain.

David Bowman .

We all have our own way of dealing with it. Some writers never get over it and give up, some shrug it off. Novelist, David Bowman, must be quite unique in the way he finally expunged his demons.

David was apparently cleaning out a drawer when he stumbled upon some old rejection letters from agents and editors about his first novel, ‘Let the Dog Drive’ (1993).
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Revenge

“Some of the letters were nasty,” Bowman said in an interview. He went on to say that he scooped them up, tucked them between the pages of a first edition of the book and sold the injurious collection to the Strand, New York City’s famous used-book store. “It was very liberating,” Bowman said. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”


Way to go man….

• Next post on Tell Me a Story - Hot Spanish Days..

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End of post - David Bowman and his rejection slips.
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