A Tale of Two How-Tos
6 hours ago
Friday, November 13, 2009
Rejections! Who Knew?
I just discovered there are specific categories of rejections. I know, I know. There's probably a big, fat round of well duhs out there. OK, so I did know about the Form Rejection. I've seen this mentioned on numerous forums and did know it was a standard rejection letter, probably not even addressed specifically and may not even signed by a particular person. In addition, I just found out there is the Extended Form, the Encouraging Rejection, the Revision Possible Rejection, and the Revision Letter. Whew! Just when we've been through the mammoth effort of writing a book, built up the courage to send it in and had a heart attack when that envelope comes with a certain logo on it - we have to know how to interpret a freakin rejection letter! I've only had one rejection so far (based on a query). It was short, and specific to my plot but it was nice to know it wasn't actually a Form Rejection after all. Here I thought it was a standard rejection and filed it so I wouldn't have to ever look at it again. Go figure. Just when you think you're getting (somewhat) savvy in this business you come across something like this. It's obviously really fundamental, right? However, it's kind of a case of not knowing what you don't know.
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Yes, Just learning about this business is a full-time job, forget having time to write!
ReplyDeleteDid you see the this on eHarlequin? It's good eh? I didn't know about all of those either. My first rejection was a two pager and specific to my ms - an encouraging rejection. Have three of those now! :-)
ReplyDeleteCari, yeah, there's a bunch of things to learn about this business. And when you sell? You basically have to do the marketing yourself as well. That's a whole other profession!!
ReplyDeleteJackie, I did see it over on eharlequin. I'd seen reference to it a couple of times but had never searched it down till someone provided the link (yeah I can be lazy). All this time I thought I'd gotten a form rejection. I was disgusted. It was nice to know it was probably somewhere between an extened form and an encouraging rejection. I know you've heard this a zillion times but the editors wouldn't waste their time with you if they thought it wasn't going to pay off. It's just a business for them. They must think you're going to get there. And you will!