This is expected. Passes, rejections, whatever you want to call it. You have to accept that this is what’s going to happen. This is something not many people share, unless they’ve hit the big time with their novels. But I want to share some of my rejection letters with you from literary agents all over. Mainly to show hopeful writers that even after many, many rejections, all you need is one yes! And to also show those who have never actually seen a rejection letter, are terrified of receiving one and don’t know what to expect, that they’re not as bad as you anticipate.
There are horror stories of agents telling writers to “don’t give up your day job” and yet I have NEVER received a nasty letter in all my years of submitting previous manuscripts. The fact is, rejection letters are usually generic, polite and generated for the masses of writers whom agents don’t have time to respond to personally.
There are different types: The short, generic ones:
And the longer generic ones:
Then you can get the personal letters that prove the agent liked something about your work and may have even read it! LOL.
Then you get ones like these and wonder if they even read the manuscript?
And lastly, this one one I received after getting asked for the full manuscript. There are plenty more of these, but they give too much of the plot away, so I won’t post them on here.
So there we have it. Just some of the many passes I received for The Hidden.
I hope this eases the anxiety about submitting your work to agents. They are just normal people who have to make snap decisions over the hundreds of submissions they receive in their inbox each day. This is the first professional interaction for a writer outside their writing space. And I get it, we’re sensitive people and the pain can sometimes get to you. Just remember they don’t have time to respond personally and it’s up to us as writers to not take their responses personally.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for stopping by,
Holly
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