By PJ Parrish
Rejection bites. Even 45 years after the fact.
I was cleaning out some old files the other day, searching for my portfolio of clips from my days working on my college newspaper The Eastern Echo.
Didn’t find the clips but I found my first ever rejection letter from a publisher. It doesn’t have a date on it, but it had to be somewhere around 1980. That was back when I was trying to break into the romance novel business. I had a half-written manuscript and no clue what I was up against.
I decided to send it out to an agent. Guess who I picked? Mort Janklow. He was probably one of the top five literary agents in those days. His client list included Judith Krantz, Thomas Harris, Nancy Reagan and some guy living in The Vatican named John Paul.
I got a very nice letter back from him [his secretary], saying thank you but no thanks. So I decided, well, hell, who needs an agent? Why not go right to the publishers? I told you, I knew nothing back then.
So I sent my partial off to Dell Publishing. I don’t remember who I sent it to. And until the other day when I was cleaning, I didn’t remember exactly what their letter to me said. But here it is:
![[]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img/APIUysjYLgQzY6KeXpeN6t6vMXHzBaZ8q3oZqlhwOUf7KLO2oVdjflXUUZw4PZtFkfsgSswep_gZoEG3rt7z=s1600)
In case you can’t read it, here’s what it says. The bold-faced bracketed comments are mine.
Dear Sir or Ms. Montee,
We thank you for the opportunity [yeah, right!] to consider your proposal or manuscript. [what, they can’t figure out WHICH?]. We are sorry [I’ll bet] to inform you that the book does not seem a likely prospect [how elegant!] for the Dell Book list. Because we receive many individual submissions every day [you think I care how overworked you are?] it is impossible for us to offer individual comment [I’d say so since there is no human being attached to this letter to begin with] We thank you for thinking of Dell [insert sound of raspberry here] and we wish you the best of success [ie don’t darken our doorstep again with your crap] in placing your book with another publisher. [you’ll be sorry some day!]
Sincerely, [you’re kidding, right?]
The Editors [aka the evil Manhattan cabal trying to keep me unpublished]
I can laugh about the letter now. But it stung at the time, and in a way it still does. Because I remember how insignificant it made me feel at the time. (I didn’t realize how insignificant I actually was in the grand scheme of publishing). The impersonal-ness. The cop-out cliches. The fact that no one had the guts to even sign their name. But I kept this letter for some reason. Who knows why? My mom might know, because she always said that I never liked being told what to do. And these anonymous editors were telling me I couldn’t be a published writer.
(A year later, a different manuscript I had finished, was plucked out of the slush pile by an editor at Ballantine Books. They paid me $2,500. I was up and walking!)
Here’s the thing about rejection. It never stops. Even after you are published with a decent track record, you can still get dumped on. Four books into our Louis Kincaid series, my co-author sister Kelly and I decided we wanted to try our hand at a light mystery. We finished it, convinced we were the next Janet Evanovich, had our new pen name picked out and everything. But our agent couldn’t sell it. Not even to our own publisher. Which taught me a valuable lesson: It is not easy to write funny. I never tried that again.
Since I am retired now, I am sort of out of touch with the technical side of our business. Are query letters now done all by email? Does anyone even get paper rejection letters anymore? I kind of hope so, because tangible evidence of rejection can be a powerful motivator. Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie, was rejected by nearly 30 publishers. He kept the rejection letters pinned to his wall, eventually replacing the nail with a spike.
Do rejection emails still come in the same code of yesteryear?
1. “This doesn’t fit my needs at this time.”
2. “Your writing is strong but I don’t feel I can be enthusiastic enough to fully get behind this project.”
3. “I’m afraid I will have to take a pass. But I am interested in seeing other projects…”
What they really mean:
1. You can’t write.
2. I already have four authors who write interplanetary romantasy.
3. Solar Punk rip-offs are yesterday’s news. Have you considered writing a horror-hardboiled mash-up?
I don’t mean to make light of your woes if you are going through this phase of rejection now. It’s not fun. But you will get through this. You will keep going. And with time, you’ll probably get a better perspective about it. Like I did.
The manuscript I sent to Dell was really, really bad. It was called The Last Rose of Summer, by the way. Go ahead, you can steal that title. The manuscript had no business going out in the world in the state it was in. I know, because I kept it. And yeah, It found it, too. It was actually physically painful to read it. But it reminds me that I learned a lot, and I came a long ways. This is a learning process. It still is. It always will be.
I read a good column by David Brooks the other day. He normally writes about politics, but he is often drawn into the side current of family or tribal dynamics. He asked a simple question in his column: Why do people do things that are hard?
Why do marathoners run almost to bodily ruin? Why endure the tedium of practicing the violin? Why does your curiosity compel you to explore the darkest cave despite your fears of going down there?
Why do we keep writing when we don’t even know if someone will ever read it?
Brooks believes it has something to do living in an “offensive spirit.” Meaning, you’re drawn by a positive attraction, not fear of failure. You see obstacles as challenges, not threats. “By the time you reach craftsman status,” he writes, “you don’t just love the product, you love the process, the tiny disciplines, the long hours, the remorseless work.”
I know that strikes a chord with some of you.
So, if you are feeling blue today, just know this one thing: You are not alone. Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth was rejected on the grounds that Americans were “not interested in anything on China.” A editor passed on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, explaining it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” And let’s not forget the agent who dumped Tony Hillerman and told him to “get rid of all that Indian stuff.”
And know that if you remain in an “offensive spirit,” you can prevail. I feel this way about gardening. And trying to become a really good cook. And playing the piano and pickleball. David Brooks ends his column by quoting the sculptor Henry Moore. So I will as well — because it rings true whether you are writing a book or learning how to make pasta from scratch:
“The secret to life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do!”
Wow, Kris. Such a powerful post, and exactly what I needed. Though I’m not dealing with rejection, I’ve been in a writing slump lately (also fighting a lingering cold/virus). And you, along with that last quote, reframed my thoughts. Sometimes, all we need is the right push or perspective to reignite the spark. Thank you!
That’s how I felt when I read Brook’s column. It hit me at just the right down-in-dumps moment. That night, I made homemade pasta for the first time. An utter mess. Took an hour to clean up. But the result was delicious.
An editor friend of mine relates being in a bathroom stall at a writers conference. Someone slipped him a manuscript from the adjoining stall. He picked it up, removed the first page, and slipped it back with this scribbled note: “Thank you, your manuscript has met my needs at this time.”
Probably apocryphal, but I couldn’t resist.
At least someone at Dell cared enough to strike through sir and hand write your name. Such an encouragement.
Oh My Gee!
That story is too funny!
🙂
Oh geez. That’s great. Don’t care if it’s true or not. Dontcha love how mean editors can be?
Yeah, Kris, the good ole days of watching the mailbox for SASEs. The slow climb up the rejection ladder from anonymous form rejections to ones with an actual signature, to a short personal note (“good writing”), to “This doesn’t work but do you have anything else?” [Cue The Hallelujah Chorus].
Nowadays, agents rarely respond to queries, even ones they themselves solicited. Did they ever receive it? Or are they ignoring you? You never know.
What’s worse? Rejection or indifference?
In a long ago writing class, the teacher asked, “If there was no chance you’d ever be published, would you still write?”
If the answer is yes, that burning need to write will keep one going.
I don’t understand agents that don’t have the minimal courtesy to fire off a standard thanks-but-no-thanks letter.
I’d take your rejection letter over mine any day:
“We did review your proposal, and for some reason we don’t feel we can represent it. Some of them come close, and yours may well be one of those, but we do have our reasons for declining.”
What does that even mean, Terry??
🙁
I am laughing, Terry, but WITH you, not at you. That tops mine, for sure. How passive-aggressive! We have our reasons for rejecting you but WE’RE NOT GONNA TELL. NA-NA-NA-NA-NAH.
The rejection letter that sticks in my mind came from a CBA editor and read: At XX Publishing House we only publish extraordinary writing. Yours doesn’t rise to that level.” I remember bawling that night the entire time I made spaghetti for my family. My husband would tiptoe into the kitchen now & then to ask if I was all right. I’d sniff and say, “I’m fine.” Then there was the CBA publisher who kept a manuscript for one full year & then emailed my agent to say she liked it, the writing was strong, but they already had enough romantic suspense novelists on board. More crying. But I couldn’t not write & these rejections only made me push harder in I’ll-show-you mode. Thirty novels and 12 novellas later, my llatest publisher decided not to offer me another contract. Sales weren’t high enough. Yet I still plop myself onto my chair every day, plant my fingers on the keyboard, and do that hard thing–even when it makes me miserable. Cheers to all y’all who do the same.
Been there, Kelly. I got dropped by two different publishers at various times in my career. The same blatter about sales not strong enough. The limbo (or hell) of the midlist author. There is so much pure luck involved in this business as well. But only if you keep writing and are on the road when luck comes by.
Terrific post, Kris. Rejection goes with the fiction writing territory, no matter which path you walk on. It can be a rejection letter, lack of response from an agent we queries, or it can be lack of sales or bad reviews.
The only thing we control is the writing itself. We can use that offensive spirit to improve, work on our craft and practice it by writing the next story and the next novel.
My favorite rejection: I was in a Barnes & Noble, there to see where my book was on the shelf. (shoot, IF it was on the shelf). It was, with cover-out placement in the mystery section. YAY! I lurked around, watching. A lady finally picked up my book, read the back copy, opened it, read the first page or so. THEN SHE PUT IT BACK. I so wanted to ask her why.
The coldest rejection letter I ever received came from an agent who used my SASE to return my query letter with a STAMP (you know, slam the ink pad then slam the paper) that read, NO.
The entertainment business can be harsh.
I got one of those, too. At least one.
That’s cold, man. That’s ice cold.
It is startling when you look at rejection letters of what are today master works. I have two favorites, but there are many.
“…guitar groups are on the way out” and “the ____ have no future in show business” – Deca Records. The guitar group was of course, the Beatles.
A Princeton professor wrote on a student’s paper, “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” The student was Fred Smith. His idea was to collect packages from businesses, fly them to one place, sort them all night and then fly them to their destination for delivery the next morning. Fred Smith founded Federal Express.
Why we do what is hard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA1LOz9liag
Had heard about Decca but not the Fedex one. Great. I remember watching Shark Tank one night and a guy was on there trying to sell them a door bell with a camera in it. They all passed, saying “nobody wants a robot answering their door. The company is now Ring.
I love this post, Kris! And the quote at the end is a PhD paragraph for Life on Earth.
The only rejection letter I ever actually received stated that the agent in question, after keeping me on tenterhooks for 18 months over my novel, said, “I wouldn’t know which Amazon shelf it would fit on.” Huh? (I was sorely tempted to correct her grammar, but I stifled myself.)
That novel was No Tomorrows, which was well-received by those who have read it.
And just for your information, Ms. Agent, it fits on the Women’s Fiction shelf and maybe the Suspense shelf as well.
So there! Ooh, that felt so good. 🙂
Have yourselves a great Tuesday of doing that hard thing…
Yeah, we got that with our attempt at a humorous novel. Editors all had variations on “it’s neither fish nor fowl.” And yeah, no one could figure out what shelf it should go on.
If you can’t take rejection, the business of writing is not for you. If the writing doesn’t bring you joy either, writing definitely isn’t for you.
This is the essential truth, isn’t it.
My first rejection letter said something like “This project doesn’t fit our needs.” I didn’t even know I was writing a project. I thought I was writing a book.
But at least a rejection letter shows some professionalism. I don’t understand publishers and agents who simply don’t respond. I know they’re busy (who isn’t?), but a form email costs nothing except the time it takes to fill in the Send To field. Arrgh.
The quote by David Brooks did strike a chord with me. “By the time you reach craftsman status, you don’t just love the product, you love the process, the tiny disciplines, the long hours, the remorseless work.”
I tell my friends that the hard work of writing has been a great blessing for me. To have more to do than I can ever get done is satisfying in ways that are difficult to explain to non-writers.
The days when writing is going well, when everything is moving and you don’t even know you’ve been working all day until you notice the lights aren’t even on — those days are the gifts.
But it’s the awful days, when nothing you write is fresh, when everything bubbles up in a lava of doubt, when you want to stop but you know you can’t — those are the days that teach you.
The whole process of submission (I hate that word) of my original mystery series to traditional publishers – including the nice rejection letters – was so hard on me that I took the self-publishing path when I decided I was ready, and have never looked back.
And changed to mainstream novels.
Now I’m getting the same rejection while looking for a publicity/marketing firm – including supposedly prominent firms ghosting me somewhere during the back-and-forth process. You’d think they, of all publishing professionals, would know the value of a carefully-worded turndown!
I know who I am, what I write, and what I want – and why I can’t do it myself – and being clear about the communication seems to cause a breakdown on the other side. Which means they were probably not what I wanted – but it is going to be my money, and they are not being asked for favors, only services.
Maybe it’s me. I keep looking for the right people when I have a tiny bit of extra energy.
After reading all these awful rejection stories, I wanted to add one a bit more on the up side. My first rejection letter became a bragging point for my husband for the rest of his life. This was back in the days of everything on paper, and when the manuscript came back in my carefully prepared (required!) return envelope, there was a letter enclosed. I read the first couple of lines, tossed it over my shoulder and said “Oh, well, it was a nice dream,” or something similar. It was my husband who retrieved the letter, looked at it, and said “I think you’d better sit down and read this.”
I was so ignorant at that point that I didn’t realize a two page rejection letter was a GOOD thing… But this one was, it was one of those “If you do this, this, and this, I’d like to see it again,” things. So I did those things, sent it back, and boom, there was my first published book.
So there is another kind of rejection, thankfully.