Dealing with rejection
It’s something even experienced writers and scholars have to do!
Goooooooooood morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you might happen to be!
As some of you might know, I’ve been working on my ‘Big Fat/Effing Book’ (BFB) for the past several years. I’m currently making the final revisions to the manuscript I plan to send out to publishers. It’s an exciting stage of the process!
A few months ago, I’d gotten far enough down this path that I had a proposal and two sample chapters ready to go. So I asked for feedback from a few trusted friends and colleagues, and sent a preliminary ‘approach email’ to the relevant editor at a press I’ve been eyeing for years. Once I got the green light, I sent everything in. (Silly confession: I’m so proud of my proposal that I keep rereading it from time to time to remind myself how proud I am!)
And guess what? The answer I eventually got back was No, thank you.
I’ll admit it: I was surprised! I’m a scholar with a strong international profile and an excellent publication record whose three (three!) monographs have been well received. I’d submitted a really strong proposal and sample materials. And the book is based on such an awesome project! Who wouldn’t want to publish it?
Publisher X, that’s who!
So why am I telling you all about this?
It’s not because I’m mad at Publisher X. I mean, of course they’re missing out on what I firmly believe will be an outstanding publication (eventually…). And yes, it did sting—rejection always does! But the whole process was clear and professional from start to finish, something that isn’t always the case even when your proposal is accepted. The initial rejection email very kindly explained that ‘this was not a scholarly decision, but rather an editorial one, based on the press’s current acquisitions needs and priorities’. Basically, the project wasn’t a good fit at this time. And that’s about as nice a rejection as you can get!
The reason I’m telling you all about this is because I want you to know that everyone experiences rejection, no matter how experienced/published/fabulously brilliant they are. I say ‘fabulously brilliant’ not because that’s how I’d describe myself (though I have good days), but because I have watched fabulously brilliant colleagues get passed over again and again.
There was one of my supervisors, who was not only passed over for a top job at her own institution but also missed out on another job at an equally prestigious university.
There was one of my mentors, who was headhunted by an Ive League university and sent in sample publications only to be ghosted afterward.
There’s my extraordinarily brilliant friend who for YEARS kept having her grant proposals rejected—they were literally so cutting-edge that the people reviewing her proposals didn’t know how to handle them. She’s since been awarded millions, so at least that eventually worked out! But even after she received tons of research funding, I watched her get rejected for jobs when—IMHO—she should have been getting all the jobs.
I’ve been a scholar and a writer for more than twenty years, and in all that time I’ve never had a book proposal rejected by a publisher. I’ve experienced lots of other rejections, though! And those experiences have taught me how to feel my feelings, take a deep breath, and plunge back into the fray.
So I sat with my dejection for a beat. I acknowledged that the rejection stung. I shared the news with a few friends and family members and soaked up their condolences. I sent a very professional reply to that editor at Publisher X, thanking him for considering my project, and I got an equally professional reply from a second editor apologising again for not being able to take the project forward, and expressing her hope that we might work together in the future.
And then I immediately asked myself, Which publisher should I approach next?
If any of you have been struggling with rejection lately, please know you’re not alone. Please know that it’s just part of Life As An Academic (not to mention Life As A Writer), no matter what stage you are at. And once you’ve given yourself time to process your feelings about it, please know that there are lots of other opportunities out there waiting for you. As Ted Lasso would say, ‘Onward. Forward’.
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VB,
M