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Adrian Phoenix, author of A Rush of Wings. Vampires, conspiracies, steamy romance - it’s all in there!
Ann B. Keller, author of the fantasy/sci-fi hybrid Briggen.

Welcome to part 2. Today we have Michael Balkind, author of Sudden Death, and his take on

How To Deal With Rejection?

Answer - Embrace it.

You know it’s coming so prepare yourself for it. It comes in all forms and the more queries you send, the more rejections you’re going to get. So, the best answer is expect rejection, laugh at it, embrace it. And always keep in mind that every NO you receive brings you one step closer to that necessary YES. (You only need one Yes - well that is, one from an agent and another after that from a publisher)

It doesn’t matter whether you plan to read them and then file them where they belong, or whether you plan to wallpaper a room with them so you can go in a and have a good cry once in a while, rejections will come. Some of them are absurd, some are funny, very few will give you any suggestions on how to fix the reason they are rejecting you.

One of the critical points to handling rejection is to try to understand why agents and publishers actually reject most of what they receive. I remember the day that I first realized that if I was going to get my work published in the traditional manner, that I needed to put my super tough, super thick, extra layer of Zylon skin on. (For those wondering - Zylon is a lighter form of body armor than Kevlar). Anyway, years ago I went to a publishing conference and listened to some agents, editors and new authors speak about what it takes to achieve success in this crazy business. What stands out in my mind even to this day was the first statement made by one of the agents. She stood up in front of the audience of about 300 struggling writers (all looking to publish something) and said that the prior year her office received about 6000 query letters. Then she informed us that at the end of the year her office actually worked on only 100 books. How many rejections does that equal? Can you say 5900?! Now, although you have to understand what you’re up against, you don’t have to run and hide. Just prepare yourself mentally and put on that thick skin.

Don’t get nervous - Just get tough! As she said, she wasn’t trying to scare us - she just wanted to let us know what we were up against. Agents and publishers have to sift through a lot of @#$% to find the right projects that will sell.

Always remember, if your work is good, well, maybe very good, it will get picked up if you persevere. You must believe in yourself and your work. Then you must send out a ton of queries. Then be prepared for the rejections. But more important than anything else is to remember how many acceptance letters you need. That’s right! Just ONE!

If you remember that you only need one YES, it makes all the no’s you are going to get along the way a little easier to handle.

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Thank you very much for your contribution! Part 3 tomorrow, July 3rd.
Want to be part of this? Then send us an email!

Visit Michael Balkind’s Profile for more information or visit www.BalkindBooks.com. Sudden Death is now available!

Welcome to Tips for Authors!
In this new series published authors give advice on topics that are on every aspiring author’s mind. Any author is welcome submit his/her thoughts on the particular subject. If you are interested, please contact us at webmaster@bookhuntersblog.com for details.

First topic in the series:

How To Deal With Rejection

by J.E. Braun, author of PARANOIA
“Rejection hurts. Trust me. I had a lot of practice with it in my younger years, but at least that prepared me for being a writer. The truth is, we, as writers, depend largely on other people’s opinions. Unfortunately for us, these other opinions are not always in line with our own.

I try to always take the approach that what I see as a beautifully-crafted, finely honed, destined-to-be-a-classic, work of art will be seen, by and editor/publisher/agent as a big, steaming pile of donkey dung. This way, I’m almost guaranteed to have a better than expected reaction. Remember what they say, aim high and you will fail high, aim low and it’s easier to accomplish something (okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what they say).

There is really, in my opinion, only one way to deal with rejection and that is to prepare for it. Steel your nerves. Know it’s coming. Inevitably, somebody in the business will not like your work, or will not have the time to deal with it, or will not be the right person for your writing style. Whatever the reason, there will be rejection. Hopefully, it will be nice with some sort of constructive criticism, but more than likely, it will be a form letter that barely even acknowledges you as a living, breathing creature.

The true test of character comes, though, when you do receive some feedback. What do you do with it? Do you write it off? After all, this person rejected you. They’re out of their mind, right? Or do you read it carefully, consider it, see if it has any merit? I think now, reading this from a sane state of mind, it’s obvious that the latter is the better way to handle it. Unfortunately, in an emotion-filled moment, it becomes easy to disregard what could be valuable feedback.

There’s one other important aspect to handling rejection. It used to involve toilet paper, keying cars, and yelling obscenities in her front yard at two a.m., but if there’s one thing anger management and restraining orders teach you, it’s that there are better ways to handle this. Specifically, alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. After that three day binge, you can shake off that hangover and sent that manuscript right back out! What… bad advice?”

Thank you for your input! Stay tuned for more tomorrow, July 2nd.

For more on J.E. Braun and his work, including excerpts of his book Paranoia, please visit his Profile on AllTheseBooks.com.

Paranoia - now available!

The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli, an experimental novel written as a touching hybrid of a bizarre television script, became available exclusively on Amazon. A wide release of the book is scheduled for September 2008.

What starts off innocently told through the voice of a 12 year old girl (Beatie Scareli) is the young girl’s attempt to make sense of her life through a nickelodeon view of the world. The story unfolds with prose, resulting in quick, readable, deftly crafted scenes.

At the same time a woman watches the young girl’s difficult past on her television. The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli soon turns and twists until everything about the girl and her family is darkly connected to what becomes reality and fiction in the girls mind.

The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli challenges the reader to look at human beings in a different way and to accept that given the right circumstances anyone, even the reader, can fall into a painful abyss of pop culture and get lost in their own reality.
–Marshmallow Press

“Wow, The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli packs a punch. From the beginning, when I was introduced to the characters, I was hooked. This somewhat unconventional story packs hard truths. Ginnetta Correli dives right in to the dark depths of humanity. She is precise, and to the point. Ginnetta Correli does not dawdle on unneeded detail. She is going for the jugular with her words. I would recommend this novella to any and everyone.”
– Front Street Reviews http://www.frontstreetreviews.com

“The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli demands to be read in as few sittings as possible-in my case, one Correli’s storytelling is so potent that readers will continue to race through episodes in an attempt to determine whether their presence may somehow have been enough to save the narrator. Ginnetta Correli demands the engagement of readers in a manner that exceeds the traditional narrator-audience relationship.”
– Prick of the Spindle Reviews http://www.prickofthespindle.com

The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli
Author: Ginnetta Correli
Publication Date: September 2008
List price: $16.95
Pages: 238
ISBN: 978-0-615-213842
Publisher: Marshmallow Press

For more information including review copies
Contact: Marshmallow Press
ginafritz52@gmail.com
http://AllTheseBooks.com for Ginnetta Correli’s profile
http://BeatieScareli.com