So now you have written your block busting killer book or outline and you are looking for an agent or publisher.  You send it off to several publishing houses and agents. Two weeks later it comes back not having even been looked at.

Most people would recognise that it’s important to pick yourself up and move on to the next round of contacts. The issue is not moving on but finding a way of doing this effectively and getting the most you can from the experience. This article is about how you can do that.

Understanding the meaning of rejection

For most people rejection is not a nice thing. It is easy to take it personally and let emotions come to the fore. The reality though is that in the context of publishing, rejection is just a business decision and is not a personal thing.

If we take the idea a little further the action of being rejected is just information or feedback for you and can lead to improving your results if you use it as such.

Good sales people recognise and expect a certain amount of rejection. They use what they call “objections” to hone their pitch. Great business people, athletes and entrepreneurs all recognise failure and rejection as a vital step in the process of getting great results.

How does being rejected help?

Every rejection gives you important information about your pitch. If you were rejected without your outline or manuscript being looked at then you know that you selected the wrong agent or publisher for your book. If it was read, hopefully they gave you some feedback. If there is no “useful” feedback coming but you know it was considered then you know they were not seeing the value in your book. So either your pitch or your product has flaws. By looking systemically around the circumstances of the rejection you can get valuable information that you can use to improve your approach and as a result move on to the next round.

How do I put this into place?

The first thing to do when a rejection slip comes through is to let go of the emotion so you can think clearly. The only time to take on this process is when you have let go of enough emotion to be able to think clearly. Remember rejection and failure is a vital step in getting results.

The next step is to look though the information that you have, the copies of what you sent, the research you did on the publisher or agent and any information they sent you back. Familiarise yourself with all the information you have to hand.

This step is the hardest, but can give you some great results. Imagine yourself as the publisher or agent you sent your material to. Look over everything you have from their eyes. Ask yourself whilst acting in the persona of the publisher good questions. Here is my most favourite question as the publisher, “What would have to change about this pitch for me to accept it?” I am sure you can think of some more and if you can’t, this is a great question to start you of.

Looking at information in this fashion can lead to lots of good learning. The learning of which lets you let go of the emotion of rejection and sets you up for the next round better prepared and one step closer to getting the result.

To succeed means you have to do something. Doing something courts the possibility of failure and rejection. Being rejected gives you information on how to succeed. The issue is not how to deal with rejection but how can you possibly succeed without a few rejections.

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