rejection

Reading Between the Lines

September 30, 2010

Form rejection letters give you very few words to work with, so it’s natural to try to read between the lines and squeeze out a little more meaning; a little more of an explanation. Don’t bother. Really. You’re just putting yourself through unnecessary stress. I don’t mean to be harsh here, but I see a [...]

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Gatekeeping

August 9, 2010

In this new world model of publishing, the traditional gatekeepers — editors, agents, publishers — are finding themselves in a slightly different position. Self-publishing is on the rise, and anyone dissatisfied with “the system” can choose to detour around the gates and the gatekeepers entirely. But that does not encourage the gatekeepers to abandon their [...]

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Slush Metrics

May 6, 2010

Editors and agents reach a certain point in their slush-reading careers where a quick glance at a query will tell them whether it’s worth reading onward. You start to learn a certain set of warning signs, over time. For example, you learn after reading lots and lots of submissions that a query letter riddled with [...]

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Lone Star State of Mind

April 22, 2010

What’s more disheartening to a writer: a rejection letter or a bad review? Both can crush your spirit if you let them. The trick is not to let them. Tastes are subjective. If they weren’t, we’d all like the same things and there wouldn’t be a wealth of different genres out there to appeal to [...]

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Slush Rush Wrap-up

January 25, 2010

Initial responses have now been sent on all the queries I received during the Dragon Moon Press open submissions period. If you have not received either a rejection or a request for a full manuscript, I did not receive your query. Make sure you check the address posted in the submission guidelines and try again. [...]

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Dealing with Rejection

September 24, 2009

We all have a deep-seated need for closure in our lives. We like to know why people have made the choices that they’ve made, whether we’ve done something wrong to bring about that choice or whether acting differently could have somehow changed the outcome. In the absence of answers, we tend to analyze situations and [...]

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