Rejection Reality

There are few things as deflating as getting rejections. In the context of writing, it's a giant bash to the ego, when you've convinced yourself that what you've written is great.

Here's the truth: Maybe what you wrote was great. Maybe it wasn't  so great. There is an enormous amount of written material that has been published, most of it not great, some of it great, but all of it published.

You want to be published? Follow the 3-P plan: Persistence, Patience, Practice.


1) Persistence: How many times did you submit a single piece? How many pieces did you submit? How many do you have circulating at any one time? You improve your chances by constantly writing and submitting. Even things written years ago. You have to follow all that market advice, too - pay attention to submission requirements, word lengths, etc. By and large, it is easier to get shorter pieces published than long ones. Aim for 3,000 words or less, and then attack your markets persistently.

2) Patience: Often, stated response times in submission guidelines are out of whack. Editors can get inundated with submissions, and you have to be prepared to wait, sometimes for a long, long time. Generally speaking (although not entirely true), the longer it takes to hear back, the better. So don't go off half-cocked withdrawing submissions from one market just so you can submit to another. Submission periods vary with each market, and most do not want simultaneous submissions, so be prepared to miss the submission window on one market when submitting to another. That happens, and that's okay. Just be patient. It can take years for a submission to find a home.

3) Practice: Become a proficient editor, as well as a proficient writer. Learn to be objective about what you've written, by being coldly analytical. The best way to do that is to put away what you've just completed, write something else, and then come back to the first piece a couple of weeks later - before you submit it anywhere. Generally, it takes me 3 days to write a 3,000-word story. The first day, I write the story, setting the framework, the characters and the plot. The second day, I rewrite it. After a few days or a week, I come back to it again, re-read it, and then hack at it until it makes sense. Sometimes I miss the mark, and realize two or three weeks after I've submitted it that I've actually missed huge dramatic opportunities, and a further rewrite is in order.

It may take, as I've said, years for you to find a home for something you've written. There is no get-rich-quick, or get-published-quick trickery.

I wrote and edited for many years, then put aside fiction writing altogether. I started up again in 2007, and began submitting in 2008. Since then, here are some statistics on what I've done, as a part-time writer who keeps his day job:

TOTAL PIECES: 23

TOTAL SUBMISSIONS	TOTAL RESPONDED	AVG. DAYS
118	100	69.42
	TOTAL NO-RESPONSE		11
	TOTAL REJECTIONS		90
	TOTAL ACCEPTED		7
	TOTAL WITHDRAWN		3
	TOTAL PENDING		7
		TOTAL	118
	ACCEPTANCE/RESPONSE RATIO:		7.00%
	Acceptance/Properties Ratio:		30.43%
	Avg. Submissions/Property:	5.13

Two interesting statistics: nearly one third of the stories I've written have now been accepted for publication, or have been published. On average, it takes me five attempts to get an acceptance. Averages are deceiving. In some cases, I've had acceptances at the first market submitted to. In other cases, there have been a dozen.

Also note the average response time: nearly 70 days. The longest submission period to-date that ended in an acceptance was 290 days. The quickest rejection was in a matter of hours.

At any one time, I have between 5 and 12 pieces out for consideration.

So there you have it: keep at it, be patient, and keep writing.