In my last post, I asked the question: Why was my work rejected by every publisher – even those that showed interest?
The short answer is “I don’t know”. I’ll get to a slightly longer answer, but first let me explain the “I don’t know.”
Unfortunately, in the publishing world, editors will not take the time to tell you why your work was rejected. There are two main reasons for this: The first is that editors are so overloaded that they don’t have time to give feedback, and the other reason is that it so easily turns into an argument when the author doesn’t agree with the editor’s assessment.
I fully understand the reasons for this lack of feedback, but that sure does make it frustrating for the first-time author. There is absolutely no way of knowing what you need to improve on to snag the contract. Believe me – I felt this frustration. I’m a very capable person. Tell me the problem and I can fix it. But without feedback, I’m left guessing.
If you have the luxury of having an agent, then you may get some feedback from that source. But there’s a good chance if you’re getting rejections, then those are coming from agents, which leaves you totally in the dark. Although I had an agent, he didn’t really give me any feedback that would put me on the right track.
While my first book was making its rounds, I wrote five other books. The story was the same with them – I drew some interest here and there, actually went back and forth several times with an editor, but eventually all my books were rejected by every publisher where they were submitted.
I eventually gave up. I mean, totally gave up writing. For several years I pursued other things, not the least of which was raising three adopted children.
Now that I’ve come back to my writing, I have better insight. I’ll share my “guesses” as to why I was rejected in my next post.
We’re also going to dive into some things you can do to improve your writing and your chances of getting an agent and publishing contract.