When I was in college, I decided to submit a poem to the literary journal published by my university’s English department. At the time, I knew nothing about the world of publishing. I thought the journal was just a magazine that focused on publishing students’ works. I was crushed when I received a rejection for my poem, but I didn’t give up. I submitted another poem and a short story to the journal over the course of my college career. They were both rejected, too, and I couldn’t understand why.
Around the time I graduated, the library in my hometown invited a published author to speak. Since I couldn’t attend, my mom kindly went in my place and took notes for me. The author advised anyone hoping to have a book published to be prepared for rejections and mentioned that the Poets and Writers website has a database of literary magazines.
When I scrolled through the database, I learned that there are thousands of literary journals and that most of them accept submissions from authors all over the world. As I did more research, I also found that most of them only accept a small percentage of the submissions they receive, which meant that having stories and poems published was much more challenging than I’d imagined.
Almost all aspiring authors receive rejections. I’ve gotten them for short stories, poems, and novel queries I’ve submitted. The most common way to receive rejections is form emails, but I’ve also received emails with detailed feedback, a letter in the mail, and no response at all.
Regardless of the format, rejections are painful, and learning to handle them has been one of the hardest parts of becoming a published author. I used to get bummed out by every rejection I received. While I am by no means and expert now, I have learned a few things that help me deal with the numerous rejections I receive.
1. Never assume your work is a perfect fit and has a high chance of acceptance.
I have responded to several calls for submissions with stories I just knew were perfect. Only one of them was accepted. Editors all have different tastes, and there is no way to know if they will like your submission, though reading what they have chosen to publish in the past can help.
2. Try not to take rejections too personally.
Because I put so much of myself into my writing, I tend to feel like editors are rejecting me when they are actually only rejecting my work. As I mentioned before, everyone has different tastes. Just because one editor didn’t like your work, it doesn’t mean it’s bad or that another editor won’t like it. It just means it wasn’t their cup of tea, and that’s okay.
3. Consider constructive criticism, but ignore anything wholly negative.
I always have mixed feelings when I receive feedback from a reader or editor. On the one hand, I know it could help me improve my story, but on the other hand, it feels like someone is insulting one of my cats. I do my best to keep an open mind to anything constructive, though I don’t always follow the advice.
Occasionally, a reader or editor decides to give negative feedback that is altogether unhelpful. In one rejection email, a reader said, “I saw no point to this story.” Ouch. If a comment offers no way to help me improve my story, I do my best to ignore it. The way I see it, anyone who would say something that hurtful isn’t worth listening to anyway.
4. Find another place to submit the work that was rejected.
After I receive a rejection, I like to submit the story somewhere else as soon as I can, unless I decide it needs to be revised. For stories that have already been rejected multiple times, I sometimes keep a list of magazines that I plan to submit them to next. Submitting a story again helps me feel like there is still hope for it to be published. As I mentioned in The Beginner’s Guide to Short Story Submissions (Part 1), this is not always an option with themed submissions, so you might want to be selective with how many of those you write.
5. Never give up on a work you believe in.
I once wrote a humorous fantasy story on a whim to see if I was any good at writing that genre. As it turns out, I’m not. After receiving rejections from a few magazines, I decided to stop submitting it because I wasn’t attached to the story the way I was to my other ones. I figured if I didn’t love it, I couldn’t really expect an editor to.
With stories I believe in, though, I try to keep submitting them until they are published or I run out of places to submit them. In my post, The Value of Perseverance and Revision, I talk about a story that I received countless rejections for before it was finally accepted for publication. I think about that story any time I’m tempted to give up on one of my works, be it a short story, poem, or novel. It helps me press on.
Those are few things that help me handle rejection. I hope they help you, too. Fellow writers, do you have any advice to add? Let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to see more like it.
