If you’re writing for publication, you’re offering something for sale. Not everyone will want to buy it. This is only common sense. There’s no such thing as rejection, there’s only writing which has yet to find a home. If you submit a piece of writing enough times, it will sell. Professional writers understand this.
When you’re a writer, you write, just like a potter makes pots, or a real estate salesman sells plots of land. However, there’s a difference: if you let yourself feel too personally involved in the selling process, you can come to feel as if each rejection is a rejection of you, rather than of a piece of writing. This is not so, no one is rejecting you. If they say that they can’t use your writing, then this is what they mean.
Writing is a business. It’s up to you to find out how this business works, so you don’t get elated or depressed when you sell/ don’t sell. In my writing courses, (http://www.digital- e.biz/ecourses.html) I advise students to create a production and marketing plan, because this gives you direction and a method of working. This is all you need. You write, and you sell.
Rejection? What rejection? Here’s how to eliminate “rejection” from your vocabulary.
One: Understand And Research Publishers And Publications
Let’s create a scenario. You’re Gloria C. Writer, and you want to write a saleable nonfiction article about landmines. At this stage, you have two ways you can proceed. You can write your article first, and then find a publication which may give it a home, or you can find the publication first, and then write your article.
If you have all the information you need, you may want to write a first draft of the article, so that you can discover the approach that you want to take. If you’re a new writer, this is the best way to proceed. You gain confidence with every word that you write, and since all writing involves rewriting, you’ll feel better once you know you have something to rewrite.
On the other hand, you may decide that you’re more comfortable proposing this article to several publications first, before you write the article. In this case, you write around 100 to 200 words of an ARTICLE QUERY, or PROPOSAL LETTER.
Then you find a likely market for the piece and send it to the editor.
There are many market guides for writers. One of the best known is the Writer’s Market, published by Writer’s Digest Books. The online version costs you $US29.99, and if you’re serious about selling your work it’s an investment you must make:
The three guides I find most useful are:
The Writer’s Handbook 2004, The 2004 Writer’s Market, and the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2004 (UK and Commonwealth markets). Please note that I’ve stipulated the CURRENT edition of each book. Yes, you’ll need to update your guides each year. If you write and sell what you write, this will not be a problem. Each guide will pay for itself many times over. All are available from your local bookstore, or at online booksellers.
If the first editor you send your proposal to either doesn’t want it, or fails to respond, send it to the second editor on your list.
Two: Have A Writing Business Plan
It’s December 2003. This means that you need to be thinking of your writing business plan for 2004.
What will you write? Where will you sell it? How much time can you devote to writing? How much will you earn?
Sit down TODAY and spend ten minutes working on your writing business plan for 2004. Sit down every day and work on it — by thinking and researching markets — until your writing business plan is complete. (Don’t take forever over this. It took me half an hour in total.)
Three: Have A Writing Marketing Plan
I wrote about writing marketing plans here, in “Create A Marketing Plan (For Your Writing)” —
http://www.digital-e.biz/articles/art_marketing26.html
Four: Work Your Plan, Even When It Doesn’t Seem To Be Working
Persistence counts. You will sell simply because you show up at the right time with the right abilities and the right piece of work. It’s a numbers game. If you write enough, and market it diligently, you will sell. That’s all there is to it. Please believe this. Keep writing, and sending out your work.
Five: Expect To Succeed
“Tackle everything with a feeling that you will utilize all the power within you to make it a success,” says Dumont in his self- help classic book “The Power of Concentration”.
If you expect to succeed at your writing career, you will.
Click here to sign up for FREE B2B newsletters from Murdok!
*Pro Write: Professional Writing Secrets* turns your a love of
writing into a highly paid career. For both novices and
experienced, selling writers. A new interactive writing workshop
every month, for fiction, nonfiction and copywriting, plus
writing coaching and writing manuals. Subscription includes
access to writer’s forum, three ezines, and writing markets. JOIN
TODAY —
http://www.prowrite.biz/
