Rejection of Authors: Part One - Dealing with Rejection

Does everyone like the same things? Do all people have the same taste in books, music, movies, cuisine, vacation destinations, pets or anything else for that matter? Are you fascinated by the lives of everyone around you? And are they all unreservedly interested in you as a person? Of course not. We’re all individuals, with our own likes and dislikes and it would be a pretty dull world if we were all the same, wouldn’t it? 

The same applies to your writing, with which you’re never going to please all the people all, or even some of, the time. Your work is never going to be to everyone’s taste. Even the most prolific or famous authors are not read and enjoyed by every literate person on the planet. No one wants to be rejected of course, but when submitting your work for publication, the experience remains very much an aspect of the writing life. Throughout their careers, all writers will be rejected by publishers far more often than they are accepted. Rejection might be a little easier to take for the seasoned professional, but is still never pleasant, even if you have perhaps twenty or thirty published works to your name. 

Just as we will never please everyone we encounter throughout our lives, rejections are a part of being a writer and happen to everyone at some point of another. To quote renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov, “almost every writer, before he becomes a success, even a runaway supernova success, goes through an apprentice period when he’s a ‘failure.’” And yet, rejection of your work can sometimes result in you improving as a writer, going in another direction with your craft, say into a different genre or market, or into non-fiction instead of fiction, for example. How writers deal with rejection can often make the difference between success and failure in the long run.

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