The Art of Rejection

The Art of Rejection

I counted this morning, and the number is 125. That’s how many agents I submitted one of my two manuscripts to. Four years ago, while being prohibited from going to work during the pandemic, I had a novel idea (no pun intended). I thought about a story I told my oldest daughter and decided to see if I could capture it in a manuscript.

I’ve never written a book, so I was curious if I would be able to see one through. With inspiration, I created the original manuscript in about three weeks. It was short (only 63,000 words), but I loved the story.

Before you overthink this, it was rough. The grammar was horrible, some plot holes needed attention, and many things craved refinement… but it was my first manuscript. I’ve learned now that this is called a vomit draft: It is just something to write your thoughts down on paper for later editing.

I floated it to my wife the day after I finished the draft. She wanted to read it but was up to her ears in other commitments. She didn’t have time to give it her full attention, so I went to one of my friends at work and asked him to read it. Mike is a good man, and he read through the horrible grammar and other shortfalls, but he liked the book’s concept and bones. It was motivation enough for me to start editing it and clean up the hot mess that it currently was.

Over the next few weeks, I watched many YouTube videos on writing and pitching agents. I invested in a grammar checker and even got Mike to review the refined book. I also floated it to a few of my other friends. The feedback was feast or famine, but more feast than famine. With that input, I started preparing to submit queries to agents, researching them, and determining a good home for my manuscript. Let me just stop here for a second:

I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS GETTING MYSELF INTO

Here are a couple of things I learned quickly:

• Lots of people submit manuscripts to agents, and few are chosen
• I didn’t realize how humiliating and demoralizing this process is
• You rarely get usable feedback
• Your manuscript needs to be refined to perfection even to get through the first glance

For the first wave, I chose to submit to sixteen agents at once. After two months, I got eight rejections and eight no-replies. Here is an example of a typical rejection:

Dear DOUGLAS,

I'm sorry, but your project does not sound like a fit for me at this time, and so I will have to pass. I understand that you have put significant work into this submission, and I'm sorry that the volume of queries I receive doesn't enable me to respond personally to each author. Thank you for considering me, and best of luck with your future queries.

Sincerely,
AGENT’S ROBOT REPLY

There are a couple of things here. First, it is a pre-made reply. Second, there is nothing constructive in it. Also, it lets you know not to bother them with the manuscript ever again. Message received loud and clear.

One of the many things about this is you would wait for weeks to get this reply. Then, you would see that little blip in your email and read something similar to the above example. Your heart would go from anxious to disappointed in a matter of a few keystrokes.

Sometimes, you will get a human reply. It might be something like this:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for sending me your work. While I thought there was much to admire here, I’m afraid I just wasn’t quite grabbed fully enough to think I’d be the right agent for this. I’m sorry not to have better news, but do of course wish you all the best in your work and in your search for an agent and publisher.

All good wishes,
Human-Agent

What did they mean by what they admired? No idea! But it wasn’t all horrible.

I spent hours trying to read between the lines of replies like this. I was trying to be like Sherlock Holmes and gather clues as to why I failed to attract an agent.

On to the next stage: attending Writer’s conferences. Since COVID was in full swing, they were virtual, but I got to pitch agents face-to-face.

I was nervous and had no clue what I was doing, but I read a lot and thought I was prepared to give a pitch of my book. I got mostly favorable responses from these agents, so it was off to send out more queries.

Over four different workshops, I pitched and pitched and pitched. With each new wave of queries, I continued to hone my book. Taking tidbits from any agent who would give me something to help. Then I got a reply that started with this:

Doug,

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this project. I was so excited for this premise, but then I read the manuscript, and the writing and the development of characters aren’t as strong as I would have hoped…

I remember reading this note, and the tips of my ears burned in embarrassment. Yes, the note was rudely worded, and this agent’s grammar was ironically suspect in places. But I felt exposed like some kind of imposter posing as a writer.

The bright news is this agent went on to tell me why they didn’t like my book. It hurt, stung, and made me want never to see this person again, but it motivated me to hire a content editor (P.J. Hoover) who helped me in many areas. She loved the book and planted the seed for me to self-publish.

After modifying about one-third of the book (And growing it to 88,000 words), I pitched about fifty more agents. And many more rejections. By this time, I had written three books in the series (I planned to write six).

If I were to describe the pitching process, it would be like being in junior high school and needing a date for the school dance. No one taught you how to ask girls out, so you wrote some of your classmates notes. A few would reply with kind no’s, while others wouldn’t even bother. The problem was that you weren’t learning to do this any better. You might learn not to say something but weren’t learning what was good or worked.

As I got older, I want to say I learned to ask women out on dates better, but I’d be lying. I’m blessed with a great wife, but I assure you that my persuasiveness wasn’t a factor in getting her to agree to a date. It was probably more of a factor of many prayers and great and loving friends.

After three books in the series, I decided to write something completely different: A Science-Fiction, Psychological Thriller called Crying Wolf.

At the same time, I finished the book and read an article about using professional beta readers. Hmmm… let’s give them a try. I went to Fiverr.com and hired two beta readers: one for my original book and one for my new thriller. I feel like this was my Gideon’s fleece moment. I floated these two books out with the idea that if these beta readers panned them, I would put writing aside and focus on some other things for a while.

To my surprise, both books were enthusiastically loved. I kept giving one of the beta readers more of my material, and though some things needed attention, most of the feedback was resoundingly positive. It motivated me to finish out my series and continue writing. Since October of last year, I’ve written five more books, bringing my novel word count to just over 750,000.

One of the beta readers and editors (Danny Raye) is about to read my eighth book: I just completed book six of my time travel series. I can’t believe so much has occurred in such a short amount of time. She is as positive and uplifting as in the first book I sent her earlier this year.

I also wrote a life application guide on Evangelism that I’m really excited about. This guide will be my testing of the waters for self-publishing. I’m looking to publish it in late November. It’s kind of exciting.

My circle of friends encouraged me, and when things seemed unpromising, they were there to help me focus. Support makes a world of difference, and I’ve been blessed with a strong handful of wonderful people surrounding me.

What’s the lesson here? Rejections don’t define who you are unless you let them, nor are they the end of the line. It’s more like you are on a road, and the off-ramp to where you want to go happens to be closed. As long as you know where you’re going, it’s nothing more than an inconvenience. Don’t let rejection (or approval) eat away your identity or contentment. Glean what you can, and protect what’s been put upon your heart.