What Does Rejection Look Like For Writing Hard Copy

Part of being a writer, is dealing with rejection of our writings. If there are writers out there who have never gotten a rejection letter, I have yet to meet them. I know several writers that are very familiar with rejection letters. As a matter a fact, the more rejection letters you get the more fired up you may become. Or on the other hand, you just may want to give up. Don’t give up before reading the following types of rejections of your writings; this list may help clear up some issues for you.
Four Types of Rejections from Worst to Best:
1. The Worst Type of Rejection is the No Response After Submission: Editorial rooms are bombarded daily by hundreds, even thousands of unsolicited manuscripts and among those piles they may find a few worthwhile items to devote their time to. Remember, they too have a work schedule and time allotments to do their work. If they are going to do quality work, it is impossible to respond to each and every query or manuscript submission. They are human too, and for that understandable reason some publishing houses do not respond. Unfortunately for the writer, it just doesn’t feel good on this end.
2. The Not So Bad Type of Rejection is the Form Letter: This type of letter is a very general pre-printed letter that is sent out in large numbers to those writers that have submitted work and the editor and publishing house is not interested. Even this generic letter is better than no response, with this type of letter you at least know your query or manuscript arrived.
3. The Good Type of Rejection is the Checklist Letter: This is a letter written as a generic checklist. On this list you may have small boxes with reasons checked off for the rejection of your query or manuscript. Rejection reasons may range from bad grammar to inconsistent formatting or even that the topic is not appropriate for that publishing house.
4. The Best Type of Rejection is the Personal Rejection Letter: This type of letter is one you want to hold onto because it tells you that your written work was noticed and it has potential. It also may include a few words of encouragement and feedback. Take that information and use it to your advantage, and remember that not all rejection letters carry this much benefit.
For the record please know that Dr. Seuss was rejected twenty-some times before his first book was published, titled, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” in 1937 by Vanguard Press, Inc. Talk about rejection, he would know. But did he give up? No, neither did Thomas Edison, and nor should you. Take those rejections and use them as firm stones for your writing foundation, and just keep submitting.