Comments on Nathan Bransford, Author: Every Writer Gets Rejected

Great Blog and excellent comments. In the book, &...

2011-02-25T08:59:29.889-08:00

Great Blog and excellent comments. In the book, "Go For No" by Fenton & Waltz; they say, "Yes is the destination No is how you get there."

OMG OMG OMG. I'm a young writer. I search up t...

2011-02-21T16:22:12.686-08:00

OMG OMG OMG. I'm a young writer. I search up the story of how Harry Potter got rejected. Here:
"A publishers little 8-yr-old daughter read the first few chapters and begged for more.When she was done she fell to her knees and begged for it to be published."
BBBLLEESSS YOUR LITTLE SOUL

Hi I read your blog and found it ve...

2011-02-07T03:19:36.701-08:00

Hi
I read your blog and found it very informative and helpful to me .Thanks for such an effort

It's bad though, when you get rejected at the ...

2010-12-23T02:30:26.294-08:00

It's bad though, when you get rejected at the query letter. So far, I haven't even made it to a synopsis request. I would love a rejection letter from an agent that has actually read my work, but they don't even get that far. :) Thing is, not to toot my own horn, but my book is good. Go ahead, read my blog, tell me I'm wrong. :)

It's such a big industry, everyone thinks they're a writer, and that leaves very little room for those who actually are.

I pity agents and publishers greatly. Hell, if I could take the load off and read some query letters for you, I would.

http://bloodknightseries.blogspot.com/

If every rejection leads to rewrites and a better ...

2010-11-14T14:02:35.513-08:00

If every rejection leads to rewrites and a better manuscript, then the final book that is published is not the same that was rejected!

I really like your take on the purpose of these ki...

2010-08-31T19:35:11.035-07:00

I really like your take on the purpose of these kinds of lists. In the slightly different realm of getting published in literary magazines, here is a short video presentation I did on the acceptance of getting rejected. I think the same basic message applies for books. In my case it took 544 (!!!) rejections from the beginning of my writing career to getting accepted into Glimmer Train magazine. From Poop to Glimmer. I made this presentation just as a reminder (for myself and others) not to let rejection slow you down...

how interesting!

2010-05-25T11:20:15.837-07:00

how interesting!

anon- Other than editors going way out of their w...

2010-05-24T19:57:18.534-07:00

anon-

Other than editors going way out of their way to convey that it isn't an ordinary rejection, rejections are indeed created equal.

Hey Nathan, Thanks for the post. My agent submit...

2010-05-24T19:41:48.842-07:00

Hey Nathan,

Thanks for the post. My agent submitted my ms to about a dozen editors (about 8 mos ago.) I've received two very gracious and professional rejections and haven't heard anything from the others. My agent has gently indicated that silence most likely equals a rejection. Do you feel that there are different "grades" of rejection? i.e. does the fact that most editors couldn't even reject my ms professionally speak volumes about the quality (or lack thereof) of my book? Or am I just being paranoid and should assume that all rejections are created equal?

Am almost done with my book... it'll be reject...

2010-05-19T22:31:40.776-07:00

Am almost done with my book... it'll be rejection time in June...

Yea! Can't wait!! *rolls eyes*

I don't mind the rejections so much; they affo...

2010-05-19T19:56:56.861-07:00

I don't mind the rejections so much; they afford me an opportunity to revisit my work and rethink whether it is really as good as I can make it before I send it out on another round of submissions. It's the non-responses that really bug me.

I hate those.

I follow a number of writers on Twitter, and read ...

2010-05-19T17:54:05.768-07:00

I follow a number of writers on Twitter, and read their blogs and their books, and the more I read, the more I have come to realise how difficult being an author can be! Rejections, not to mention even after publishing there is often little money earned (unless your JK Rowling of course - but I guess she had to go thru the rejection process first too). And I guess it could be easy to wonder why people bother?

But if you love to write...write. If you get rejected, so be it. If you believe in your work, keep plugging along with it, because you never know what's around the corner. Not everyone will see your vision, but someone is bound to eventually.

Thanks Nathan. Enjoyed the read.

@ popsicledeath I understand what you're sayi...

2010-05-19T14:41:32.687-07:00

@ popsicledeath

I understand what you're saying, but in some cases you're 100% incorrect.

Anyone wanting a real eye-popping account that issues in the publishing industry aren't new should read the forward in the newer version of "The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk.

The novel wasn't rejected; it was published, but it was rejected for serial rights (one of the main ways they made money back then) and Hollywood wanted nothing to do with it. Wouk was told (in 1951) "That no one is interested in WWII anymore."

After readers made the novel a best seller (and it won a PULIZER PRIZE) everyone loved it and Humphrey Bogart even got the lead in the film.

Same book. Good enough.

I'm certain there are hundreds of books per year that fall through the cracks of publishing. It is what it is.

Nathan, thank you for this. When I was a newbie wr...

2010-05-19T14:12:50.473-07:00

Nathan, thank you for this. When I was a newbie writer with my first manuscript out to agents, I shook my fist as well. Now I know better. But yes, I agree with others who have commented...rejection is a part of the writing life...heck, of any kind of life. We're not growing if we're not putting ourselves out there. So I cherish those 138 rejection letters (on that first book alone)and one day hope to wallpaper a small room with them.

Indeed. I say rejection can make us better instead...

2010-05-19T12:47:34.663-07:00

Indeed. I say rejection can make us better instead of bitter if we let it.

Poetry magazines have 98% rejection rates (yes, th...

2010-05-19T12:32:29.918-07:00

Poetry magazines have 98% rejection rates (yes, they only accept 2% of poems submitted) so you accept rejection isn't personal.

Sylvia Plath's English teacher used to encourage his pupils to submit short stories to magazines and run competitions on who could get the most rejection slips, just to teach them rejection means you didn't hit the right desk at the right time: keep writing, keep submitting.

Clay Johnson raises a very good point regarding im...

2010-05-19T11:39:00.719-07:00

Clay Johnson raises a very good point regarding improving queries. Many, if not most, of the queries I have read here and elsewhere on the net are incoherent. The writer's informal description of the novel is often better!

Writers love pounding their chests and swapping macho (gender notwithstanding) war stories of their hundreds of rejections. Delve deeper into their blogs and you often discover those intimidating statistics include impatient scorched-earth stunts like sending a hundred or more undifferentiated queries to every agent listed by Writer's Digest, ignoring genre and submission guidelines.

The agent or publisher rarely rejects the writer, a person they rarely meet, nor the book, which they rarely see. They reject the query, the only thing they see most of the time, which may tell them little that's useful about the book. It would indeed be interesting to compare different versions of a query over time.

One concern I have as I receive rejections is the ...

2010-05-19T11:34:52.849-07:00

One concern I have as I receive rejections is the response, "This just didn't interest me," or "my taste runs." I understand that an agent has to be enthusiastic to represent something, but when you write for children, I wonder with such responses, what do the kids want? How does an agent or publisher know that s/he is really addressing the market when it appears that s/he is responding to his/her own taste?

I gotta say, I would have rejected some of those a...

2010-05-19T10:58:18.996-07:00

I gotta say, I would have rejected some of those authors, too. Call me sacreligious, but I've never liked Dr. Suess. But Agatha Christie and Tony Hillerman? You gotta be kidding me.

Of course, that's all to say that individual taste is just that, and when an author runs contrary to our taste, it's hard to imagine the masses liking it any better.

Oh, I'm not that negative. I don't take it...

2010-05-19T09:22:11.930-07:00

Oh, I'm not that negative. I don't take it to mean the system is broken at all. In fact, I find it inspiring. It shows that no one is perfect and that even the most sucessful writers have had to go through what we are all doing so right now. Posts/lists like that only drive me to work harder and confirm what I already know--it's only a matter of time.

Cheers-
Georgia

I can't help but feel that if you don't go...

2010-05-19T09:06:44.131-07:00

I can't help but feel that if you don't go about publishing the hard way -- through the muck and mire, through the sludge and dirt -- if you can't brave the dangers of getting dirt under your nails when it comes to publishing, then you probably don't have what it takes to promote the book. I've considered self publishing, but always based on a marketing plan that I'd started to build. In the end though, I knew I would rather go through the pains of finding a traditional publisher.

Wordy Birdie is right: rejections are a rite of passage. I'm not published yet, and I'm pretty new to this whole business (the publishing one, not the writing one), but I've already recieved 3 rejections, and I honestly couldn't be more excited about it! I don't like the waiting, but rejections just mean that I haven't found the right agent for my work yet.

That said, I have a question for you Nathan: I don't know if you, as a writer and an agent, brave the query slushpile of other agents, but couldn't you just represent your own book? How does that work for agents in the publishing business that double as writers?

Congrats, K.L.!

2010-05-19T08:37:06.086-07:00

Congrats, K.L.!

In one of the most surreal moments, I looked at my...

2010-05-19T08:33:49.310-07:00

In one of the most surreal moments, I looked at my pile of rejections this morning as opened my Publisher's Lunch email and saw my deal listed. My self-published novel acquired. lol Amazing.

The only difference between that email and the pile was hard work and persistence. That's it.

The home run analogy doesn't really fit. That...

2010-05-19T07:21:23.086-07:00

The home run analogy doesn't really fit. That's a different swing from the last one and the one after. You're only talking about one book. A like comparison would be a first book getting rejected by a publisher and then the second one being accepted.

You throw in "(many of them quite rudely)&quo...

2010-05-19T06:49:45.340-07:00

You throw in "(many of them quite rudely)" and then promptly forget that point. If everyone gets rejected--even the best--I think editors and agents who tell a writer he has no future, etc., deserve to be laughed at a bit when the writer goes on to be LeCarre.