Overcoming Rejection: How to Stay Motivated in the Face of Publishing Setbacks

The publishing journey is not for the faint-hearted because rejection is very much a part of the journey of any author.

Rejection is even more apparent if you are just starting out as a new writer without any kind of network in the industry.

In a situation like that, it is quite difficult to stay motivated because almost all your work is going to get rejected by traditional publishers unless it is the holy grail of a masterpiece that by luck was on the chief editor’s desk by mistake.

So, what do you do? Do you leave writing, something you are skilled and passionate in and continue your day job or do you find out a strategy to overcome publishing rejection?

We will help you understand how you can stop yourself from getting demotivated so that you can move ahead on this publishing journey and finally strike gold.

Before we do that, we need to understand the reasons why a first-time author or any author can get rejected by traditional publishers.

Reasons Why Authors Get Rejected by Publishers

Unpolished Manuscript

The very first reason why authors get rejected by publishers is because of an unpolished manuscript which means that the manuscript has not been edited properly and that it lacks refinement.

This can be due to unprofessional editing as well as unprofessional format setting which will only make it more difficult for the publisher to review the document.

You must understand that every publisher receives hundreds of manuscripts daily and that is why if one stands out for bad editing then it gets rejected because it reduces the work of the publisher to sort out everything.

Wrong Channel of Submission

Publishers are all about discipline and procedure because they are ultimately a business and they need to process a lot of content in a very small amount of time and that is why they have a set process in place.

If you disregard that process and submit a manuscript on a sales email ID of the publisher or submit the manuscript with the wrong subject and wrong title then it might have grounds for rejection.

One of the other reasons why it might get rejected because of this is because most publishers utilise automated software that sorts out spam emails from authentic submissions and has certain criteria which if not met will be rejected.

Lack of Market Potential

An author can be very passionate about their work and they can pour out their soul into a work but for a publisher it is still business and a manuscript is still a product that they need to sell in order to stay in business.

This means that certain topics of writing are more desirable in the market on a particular season which means that a season of the publishing market might see horror as the most popular genre and other seasons might see romance as the most popular category.

What this ultimately means is that publishers will have a much stronger preference for that genre during that period of time and if you write something else then it will by default get sorted to the bottom of the pile.

Unoriginal Concept

Your manuscript will get outright rejected if it is an unoriginal concept or if a certain percentage of the manuscript feels like it has been copied from the works of other authors.

Weak Query Letter

Another very important reason for rejection is going to be a poorly written query letter because this is ultimately the letter that will convince the publishers to read more.

There is a certain technique and certain factors involved in writing this kind of letter for it to be even considered by the publishers and if you do not follow that or study that pattern then your manuscript might have a high chance of rejection.

Strategies to Overcome Publishing Rejection

Reframe Rejection as Feedback

The best strategy you can ever think of is to not get demotivated by publishing rejection but to understand it as a learning opportunity.

If you get the chance then you need to ask the publishing company to simply tell you why it was rejected and you might not get an answer for it but if you do that will be the most valuable feedback you will ever get as an author.

You can also show your rejected manuscript to other people who have tried to publish and they might also provide you with important feedback.

You must always equate rejection to a learning opportunity because it is.

Keep Submitting and Stay Persistent

The second effective strategy to overcome publishing rejection is to never have the time to think about that reaction.

You can do that by continuously being persistent and continuing to submit to other publishers and looking for other agents and also looking for other kinds of opportunities.

This will include trying out co-authoring other projects and working on something new because if you are busy then rejection will simply not be on your mind.

Find Support in Writing Communities

Another very important thing you can do is to find a writing community because yes these kinds of communities exist and they are here to help you with understanding how publishing works.

These support groups can meet up physically or even online and you can attend them and listen to other more experienced people.

Explore Different Publishing Options

This is probably the best strategy out there and it is to simply explore other publishing options and by that we mean looking for something called self-publishing.

The problem with traditional publishing is that you do not have any power in your hands as an author and the publisher gets to decide everything for themselves.

With self-publishing, you essentially become the publisher and the self-publisher becomes a service-providing company to help you out in your publishing journey.

When it comes to self-publishing or even a hybrid publishing model you can expect excellent opportunities to take complete control of your publishing journey.

CONCLUSION

We hope this blog has helped you understand how you can deal with rejection as an author and if you do not want to go through rejection and take matters into your own hands and lead your publishing journey then we are here for you.

We are Orange Publishers and we are the fastest-growing self-publishing company in the industry and we will help you out with all your publishing needs.

We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.