More on Rejection

I don't want to sound like a whiner. I'm trying really hard not to sound bitter. Mostly I'm trying to justify my choice--maybe to others, maybe to myself. I feel like both publishing roads--self and traditional--are both difficult, fraught with risk and potential ego-shattering disappointment.

A lot of publishing professionals tout rejections as a way to get tough, to learn to improve your writing, to be vetted against others who know what they're doing. My creative writing teacher at Goucher, the esteemed Madison Smartt Bell, said we all have to grow rhinoceros skin--egos thick and impenetrable. But I think it's a flawed and failed system. I've been rejected a ton of times. I should state also that I've been published multiple times. I don't want anyone to think I don't know what I'm doing. I've had half a dozen short stories published, as well as multiple non-fiction pieces.

But it's a losing game, and the house is collecting way more than I am. That's because of the way the system is set up.

This is a screen cap of my agent spreadsheet. Dark red means form rejection. Light red means personalized rejection. Gray means never bothered to get back to me. Blue was a request for pages, and white are ones I haven't approached yet.

Now, notice I said "agent spreadsheet." The agents are the first gatekeepers. In fact, I would argue that the agents have their own gatekeepers--interns and junior assistants. Who knows how many of the form rejections I got were from these assistants, some/many of whom (I say bitterly with tongue planted firmly in cheek [I was once a publishing intern, too]) are young, naive, unsophisticated, perhaps fans of Twilight, perhaps bitter at their own low rung on the ladder or lack of publishing cred.

So there are gatekeepers before gatekeepers. Perhaps one or more of my queries got past the intern to an actual agent, and then was rejected. Say an agent finally did accept my manuscript. Then they must go through their own submission ringer. The idea is that they have contacts and friends and they know how to shmooze and they know how to pitch--it's their job. But still, they're working with the same manuscript. No matter how good a salesman they are, the product doesn't change. So they're going to get rejected again--possibly by another bitter intern, possibly by a big-name editor. There are many more gatekeepers to pass.

Then the editors have to convince their own houses, make a business case, secure financing. Then the book gets published. But then there are still more gatekeepers--distributors, bookstore and library acquisitions managers, book clubs, reviewers, and ultimately the readers themselves. There are layers upon layers of people just waiting to say, "no thanks."

People in publishing say that passing through all these gates ensure that a fine quality product is put out for the reading masses. Is that so? Then why is there so much crap on the shelves? Why do I still find typos in books when I'm not even looking for them? Why isn't everything a bestseller?

The thing is, I get rejected all the time in my day job. I manage proposals for a government contractor, and sometimes we win them, but more often we lose. This is industry standard; the average win rate for companies in this business is well below 50%. So I'm used to playing a losing game, 40-50 hours a week. But I think that's a big part of the reason why I can't play the same losing game at home, with my writing.

I have the choice to take a different path, and I'm taking it. I'll take unknown odds over known bad odds any day. And if I can load my own dice, so much the better.