I love writers. Our mission is to help every writer get paid. That’s why I’m addressing one of the biggest issues every writer will face: Rejection. I’m here to give you hope. Because rejection is an important part of the process, and it can be good for your career.
Let’s face it. Rejection is not fun. It’s soul-crushing, mind-numbing and throws you for a loop….every single time. Understand and accept that now because this is a very simple fact of the life of a writer, and it is completely unavoidable. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to work on dealing with it.
First of all, I want to introduce you to a couple of authors. One has, depending on your source, 6 of the top 20 best-selling book of all time. This writer was also rejected around a dozen times before publication. The author of course is J.K. Rowling. It might also interest you to know that the epic Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times before publication. If these writers had given up after their first dozen rejections, we would have never heard of them. But instead of giving up, J.K. Rowling became one of the wealthiest women on the planet.
Now I realize that many of you are freelance article writers and not book writers. There is no difference when it comes to rejection because a rejection is a rejection. You need to learn to deal with them and move on to the next job.
Figure Out the Reason for the Rejection
There are two primary reasons for a rejection and it’s important to know which one applies and they are pretty basic:
- Not What They Want
If you submit an article or story and it is simply not what they are looking for you can just try someplace else. It might not be a good fit for their publication at this time or they might have already covered the topic.
- You Messed Up
This is so incredibly important to understand that it’s almost unreal. You might say that your career hangs in the balance until you handle this effectively.
Everyone makes mistakes and that is fine as long as you learn from them. It’s when you make the same mistakes over and over that it becomes a problem. If you are writing for online companies, rejections can even end your ability to write for the company, lower your per word rate or even impact the jobs you can apply to write.
For online writing companies, you can often repackage the article and publish it elsewhere. Yahoo Voice has always been great for this as have several other companies that I have reviewed here in the past.
For a do-it-yourself kind of freelance writer, a rejection typically means that you had some sort of miscommunication with the client. In most cases this is going to cost you money because you will need to get on the same page with the client and fix the error. To avoid this problem in the future, make sure to clarify everything with the client. Even if you understand perfectly what they want, parrot it back to them just to be sure. That extra 2 minutes of conversation or email can save you hours of work later.
What happens if you do everything the way the client wants and it’s still rejected? There is very little that can be done in cases like that and some clients can be difficult. Thankfully they are also very rare. It does make sense to keep tabs on the client for a few weeks to see if they use your work without paying you for it. Again, this is very rare but it has happened. This is why contracts are so important to many freelance writers. I have only rarely used them because I have never had the need; I do save all of my emails, just in case.
Dealing with the Emotional Side of Rejections
Okay, we have now covered the mechanical side of dealing with rejections; that was the easy part. The hard part is dealing with the emotional side of the issue. This is a valid concern because in the early days of your freelance writing career you are likely to be feeling more uneasy about your new career. Even after you have been writing for years a rejection can be soul crushing. Just remember that every writer has been rejected at some point in their career. It might not make you feel better but at least you know you aren’t alone.
So what are the best ways to deal with the emotional aspects of a rejection? There are several great ways to handle the gnawing in your stomach and the questioning of your writing abilities that come with a rejection. Look over my list and use any that will work for you. I’ve used all of them at different times, depending on my mood and how important the rejection was to me.
Ignore it
I’m starting with this one because it’s simple, direct, and fits with the dictates of current logic. It’s a lot easier said than done however. Of course if you are extremely busy, you can just keep working and pretend it never happened.
This is a tough one to pull off in the early days of your career. In those days it’s not unusual to write something, submit it and then sit waiting for a response from the client of approval from the online writing platform. Later in your career when you are working steadily you will not be sitting around waiting. Plus once you have gotten to the point where your projects are consistently accepted you will not give as loud of an internal voice to a rejection.
Take a Walk
This can be a literal or figurative walk but if you are a regular reader then you have likely noticed that I stress taking a daily walk, usually midway through your workday. Sitting at your desk for hours a day is not healthy and because freelance writing tends to be a solitary occupation you need to get outside and away from your desk for a few minutes at least. A relaxing walk will often help me put work issues into perspective; what seemed like a big deal when I started the walk is often quite insignificant by the time I return home.
Put it in Perspective
Maybe the weather is bad and you don’t want to go outside, maybe you already went to the gym. What matters is to look at the rejection for what it really is to you: someone didn’t like your work. Typically this is one single person and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to give more weight to their opinion than it deserves.
Some online writing companies are notorious for having editors from hell. Many have about a 50/50 split of good editors and bad editors. It’s entirely possible that what one editor rejects another would accept. It the grand scheme of things, it’s not really worth focusing on because it will drag you down, slow down your writing and make you question every letter you type. Calculate what you can learn from it and move on. Got pet your dog or cat, grab a snack and consider that no one is going to die from this rejection.
Challenge the Rejection
I’m including this with a caution. If you challenge a rejection make absolutely certain that you are correct before you do this. Often in dealing with editors online you will read in the forums that statement “you can be right or you can get paid” and this is very true. I’ve challenged only two rejections because I am an expert in both the topic being covered and in the target audience that was being sought. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the approach they wanted would backfire. I explained this to them, included why and finished by telling them if they still wanted it changed, I would change it. I was correct both times even though the client in one instance had me make the changes. I made more money when they came back, admitted I was right and asked if they could purchase the original material.
Generally speaking challenging a rejection is a bad idea, but it is an option.
Receiving rejections is a part of your life as a writer of any sort. The sooner you come to grips with this and put a plan in place for handling them, the better off you will be.