Richter on... Rejection

Rejection is a natural part of the writing caper. Rejection is a writers bread and butter. Regardless of whether you are Stephen King, or John Smith, you are going to get your work rejected... the second you send a piece of work out for possible publication, chances are it's going to be a 50%/50% toss-up on whether it gets accepted or not. Okay. Maybe, more like a 5%/95% shitstorm. Rejection rates are pretty high, let's face it, if you look at the rejection rates of most publications (Duotrope is a good source for this info), you are detinately talking a good 80 - 95% rejection rate. The odds of getting your work published really depend on the market you are trying to target. If I were a math geek I could probably come up with some sort of fancy-pants formulae for getting published, but sadly (or fortunately), I'm no maths geek. Come on, what did you expect?

Things I ask myself when deciding on what market to target
- Why am I writing this story (my motivation)?
- What am I writing (genre, content)?
- Who wants to read what I'm writing (audience)?
- Who do I want reading what I'm writing (the right audience)?
- How much money do I want to make (non-paying, paying)?

For beginners, I'd definitely suggest trying to target your local non-paying markets. Make sure you polish your work before sending it to a non-paying market - just because they aren't paying in cold, hard cash doesn't mean they will accept any shit that you scoop out of your collective conscious and dump onto a piece of paper. Feedback with any rejection is typically non-existent, so don't rely on proof-readers or editors at magazines to give you any constructive criticism... these guys are flat-out trying to get through the hefty pile of submissions. Write a quality story, and try your local non-paying markets first. You will generally get a higher strike rate and quicker response than sending your work to a paying market. Don’t expect to be able to sit in your lawn chair at home and wait for the cheques to roll in like Stephen King… even he had to start somewhere.

If you think your work is genuine quality that is worthy of publication in a paying market, then by all means, go for it! Just don't lose faith after possibly waiting for 90+ days for some sort of response...

Personally, I can't say that rejection bothers me a great deal. Sure, you slave your guts out on a story only to have someone tell you they aren't interested, usually without as much an explanation, or some feedback on how your could have improved the story. That's writing. You get over the arrow to the heart pretty quickly, just yank it out and use it to fuel the fire of your passion. So it wasn't for Market A? Who cares? To mangle an old proverb, “there are plenty of markets in the sea”. Hmmm, is it even a proverb? Anyway, there has to be a market out there for your work, you just have to find it. Don’t let it bother you. Load the bullet, spin the chamber, snap it shut and fire off another round.

You have to hit something eventually!