Rejections that publishers are reluctant to make
Recently Mslexia surveyed writers and publishers and identified a couple of forms of rejection that publishers are now less willing to make. The “we would welcome seeing future work” one and also the sort that goes into some detail about why exactly a piece isn’t quite right.
What not to do
There is often a knee-jerk reaction to these from the writers. In the first instance they immediately send another piece of work. In the second they do a quick edit and send the work back a couple of weeks later.
This isn’t the best way to proceed. Very little has changed. The publisher has to reject again and perhaps contrary to normal expectation we actually don’t like doing that. This may even have the effect of us deciding not to look at any more work from that writer: they’re not understanding how this process is working.
The six month gap
We’ve started adding something about “six months” to those sort of rejections.
If you just dig out another piece of work that you have filed away on your computer, the chances are that it will contain similar faults to the one we’ve just rejected. If you only take two weeks to revise something you’re probably not going into enough depth.
For our CafĂ©Lit site we can only take one story a day although we often see several more that are publishable. Rights remain with the author anyway and we welcome simultaneous submissions. We keep around thirty-four submissions on file just in case we have some barren days and then we “decline” with a note that if you’ve not found a publisher in six months to try resubmitting. Writers who revisit their work before sending it out again may make that story that little bit stronger so that next time round it is the one that we’re compelled to publish that day.
What you might do
We often receive submission for children’s books where the writer hasn’t got the length, the subject matter, the language or the tone quite right. There is no quick fix for this. In many such cases, the writer needs to read about a hundred books for the target reader to understand how those books really work.
Many other books as well have some weaknesses and it’s possible that the next book will be better but also important that the writer spends a little more time on developing their craft.
So, if you’re rejected but the publisher has been positive about your work, put it away for a while and carry on developing as a writer.
