Being an author is not for the faint of heart. One of the questions I don’t see asked often enough in author circles: How high is your rejection sensitivity?
No path to publication is exempt from rejection. Traditional publishing rejects hundreds of thousands of manuscripts a year. First, there’s finding an agent. Then there’s hoping that agent can sell your hopes and dreams to someone who will print them. Finally, there are readers who will read the book … and not love it. They might even leave reviews discussing why they don’t love it!
Self-publishing skips the initial rejection for a lot of effort, or a price, you too, can see your book in print! What no one prepares you for is the amount of rejection that comes after. For every 10 bookshops or giftshops you query, hoping they’ll stock your book, maybe one is interested, and maybe one other will respond that they might be interested later.
It can hurt the soul to send out hundreds of emails into the void and hear only silence. A lot of my social media is filled with authors saying they are scared to approach their local bookshop or are concerned the bookshop with the available wholesale/consignment form doesn’t like their book.
This is unfortunate because a lot of them have great books!
So, if you’re early on in the process, ask yourself, which rejection can you handle?
If traditional publishing works for you, you can start your search for an agent today (step 1, once you have a manuscript) at QueryTracker.
If you’re in the self-publishing game, and struggling with rejection sensitivity (which I totally understand!) create your pitch email, set up a document with the usual answers to form questions, and set up a personal assistant email account. From there, you can pretend to be your own PA or you can hire one to copy, paste, and send emails.
Would I have changed my publication plans if I’d thought about how I handle rejection? I think I probably would have tried harder to find an agent. In the end, I’m glad this is how it all worked out. I wouldn’t have met so many wonderful people, Nella Lace wouldn’t have been illustrated to represent people I love, and I wouldn’t have learned how far I can push myself. Still, having some distance from the rejection and the silence might have been nice.
If you’re in the trenches, I see you.
This week, I sent out seven cold pitch emails and filled out three forms. One has already replied: thank you, but no thank you. The rest, I’ll follow up with in ten days. Hopefully, one of them is a “YES!”