An expert on rejection

One of the things I've become in the last few years is an expert on rejections.  As writers, this isn't something we're keen to own up to.  We'd rather keep our failures quiet and secret.

But I've  come to realise that not showing our struggles isn't helpful to other writers.  If we are honest enough to share our failures then we can do a great service to other struggling writers.

This was brought home to me last weekend.  I'd volunteered to give a talk about pitching fiction at Portsmouth  Bookfest, my local literary festival.  I went through the usual things: editing, researching your market, following the submission guidelines.  But just giving information on those things alone doesn't give aspiring writers any idea of the real struggle to get mainstream published.

So after I'd finished discussing advice on the do's and don'ts I moved on to talk about rejections.  I shared my total failure to get anything accepted for short story publication last year.  I made 35 submissions, and got 35 rejections.  I also shared some of the experiences of the writers on Twitter who had pitched in to the Twitterstorm I touched off over Christmas.

I wanted to give a flavour of how tough it is to break through and get mainstream published.  I wanted to get over the idea that publishing is a business, and that publishers buy and sell products. That precious part of your heart that you have spent years working on is now just another product when a publisher buys your story,

The truth is that tangling with the world of mainstream publishing can be a brutal process.  I have two Masters's degrees, and I am a qualified English Solicitor (lawyer) and I can honestly say that getting all those qualifications was child's play compared to the challenge of trying to get mainstream published.

Trying to get published is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  It's something that has no guarantee of ever succeeding, and that's because it relies on the personal whims of a few individuals.  If an editor or agent doesn't resonate with your work they'll reject It.  It might be the best-written work in the world, but if they personally don't like it it won't get bought.

I was called brave at Bookfest for sharing my experience, but writers need to know what they're taking on.  Then they can grow the thick skin they'll need to storm citadel publishing.