Dealing with Rejection

[Tanisha]

Hiveworks right? Yeah I got rejected too but that's okay. There were a lot of entries this year, 800+ in fact, and they only took in 21 ppl. So I wouldn't take it too personally, it doesn't mean my comic or your comic was bad or anything, just that they really had to squeeze it down to a very small number of people. Try again next time around! There are other publishers you can try! Like I'm thinking of submitting to spiderforest~^^

[Rabbit]

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but I just remind myself that Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers before it was finally published.
Actually, most famous books you think of were rejected/very badly critiqued by publishers - Moby-Dick('does it have to be a whale' was a question one publisher asked), Catch-22, Ulysses...
I'm wondering, though - why do you say 'focusing on alternative plans to grow my comic'?
Are you really going to give up on the idea of publishing your comic because you got turned down by one publisher? Or did I misunderstand the meaning behind that sentence?

[donathinfrye]

@AnnaLandin gives a lot of good advice here. In essence:

• Be flexible. Can your first issue or volume stand alone? Could it fit into an anthology or magazine? What's your best route for self-publishing? Have you pursued other publishers and avenues?

• Try your best not to compare your work with the work that publishers do accept. It'll drive you crazy. My comic I, Necromancer started out as a pitch for a comic book set in the Ravenloft (D&D) universe. It got turned down in favor of another comic. That comic wasn't risky or atmospheric or any of the things that make make Ravenloft scary and unique -- it was safe. Super safe. It really bummed me out. So I started researching other publishers and tweaked the concept a little.

• Always look for opportunities. I've submitted Necromancer to 27 publishers so far, mostly focused on print. I've now received a total of four nos and a yes (with an offer that didn't satisfy me enough to accept). I suspect that a good number of publishers might not respond at all. Maybe that ratio ends up becoming 26 nos and 1 unacceptable yes? Time to go to conventions and try to meet publishers that way. Conventions make it a little easier to get meaningful feedback from people, or connect with people in the industry who will be willing to give meaningful feedback.

• Know when to shift gears. Plan for success, but plan for failure too. I've outlined Necromancer for a 13 issue series. I've also written the first issue to be able to stand on its own (with just a few simple text changes) if needbe, so that I can submit it to horror and fantasy anthologies if I can't find another avenue for it. One thing is true: you're never going to run out of good ideas.

• Try to build up more of a social media presence. I have a great presence on FB, because I interact with a lot of people face-to-face. My Twitter presence is kind of sad, and I suspect that that probably works against me. If publishers mostly play it safe, your ability to have strong social media reach is going to be comforting to them. Indie publishers need you to be able to contribute to the overall expansion of their brand. They're buying more than your art and your story, they're buying your ambassadorship. To me, this is the single biggest challenge.

My thoughts. <3 goes out to the folks who got their letters. 852 submissions is a crazy number. Don't let "what ifs" gnaw at you (I'll try too!) ... instead, start working on your back up plan, and your back up plan for that back up plan, and etc/etc. Be bouncey. Be the Rocky Balboa of webcomics. Good luck to us all.

[eslameldeeb]

i punch the wall so hard till my hands bleed * just kiddin*

it sure does feel bad to be rejected, and i have had a lot these awful moments specially prior to this year

i remember back in 2012, i created a free comic zine in my home town where i put my b&w comics, photocopied them and gave them to friends, family and others
then, weeks later, i was at the gym and accidentally found a torn-off copy in the trash can their
that was a big "NO" made by the Universe.. LOL * can't believe my eyes still get wet for remembering that*

the following years also had these awful moments of various publishers not answering my submissions, then i stopped caring about traditional publishing when a french publisher finally answered my mail with "we're not interested in your art!".. a lot of other minor NOs took place in between but those 2 occasions were the worst

well, 'nough with the cheap drama.. but, to be honest?.. i have no idea what keeps me going, i swear.. guess 'am just stubborn and won't stop to be so till things work out the way i want

also: i improve my work all the time.. and i mean ALL the time!

[agentfink]

I know this thread is about the aftermath of rejection, but I thought it interesting to also discuss the pitch.

Some recent words by Matt Hawkins (from Top Cow), in regards to the other side of the pitch

---

Reposting! Had several people cross the line recently. Sorry I'm busy the week before ComiCon!

Some pitching advice

1) understand that no one will be that excited to read your pitch. This is because we read so many bad ones that the expectation is that it won’t be good. If we’re excited after we read it that’s a good thing.

2) it may take a year for someone to read your pitch. Editors, writers, publishers, agents and managers are busy people. Proper follow up is once a month check in unless the person tells you differently. If they tell you check back in August and it’s May then check back in August. Best thing is to use the same email thread. When I see I told someone something already there’s a guilt factor to push it to the top of the list.

3) everything matters. Punctuation, grammar, spelling my name right…we get that you’re sending it out broad but what you need to get is that when reading these things we’re looking for a reason to say no. For this reason I encourage people NOT to use dialects in samples or pitches sent out.

4) keep it short. No one wants to read your 10,000 page story bible. Most places have submissions guidelines on what they want to see. These may differ from company to company. You should modify your pitches to target companies and give them what they’re asking for. Again, as mentioned above we’re looking for a reason to say no. The more you give, more likely find a reason.

5) know who’s reading it. If you send me your children’s super-hero romance story set in the Stone Age you clearly never researched what I’m interested in. Look at the companies that do material similar to what you’re pitching.

6) have a logline. If you can’t pitch your story idea in a couple sentences you’re not cut out for this business. You have to be able to pitch your idea in less than a minute or two tops. Why? Because you need to grab people’s interest. Think Tank is the story of a slacker genius who designs weapons for the military but doesn’t want to do it anymore…but they won’t let him quit because he’s too valuable. It’s okay to use other existing franchises to explain your concept.

7) understand that no you’re not the only one with that idea. It is so common to receive multiple very similar pitches. Why? Zeitgeist. You got the idea because you saw X movie, read Y book, saw Z internet meme and x+y+z = the high concept core of your idea. This is fine, btw. Just execute better.

8) less plot, more character. Convoluted plots are bad and don’t make your story smarter. Twists are great, but don’t overcomplicate. Every great existing movie out there can be pitched in less than a minute and you get the basic idea. Try pitching Alien then try Prometheus. Alien = simple plot, great characters and execution. Prometheus less so. When you pitch, pitch the character, who they are and why we care. That’s more important than your beat be beat plot.

9) be prepared to “hurry up and wait”. If someone responds asking you to tweak your pitch with some notes you get to do this. Just because you turn something back around in 24 hours the person reading it might take months to get back to you. Variety of reasons, low priority, busy, whatever. In this situation when someone engages you at all, ask them how you should follow up.

10) be courteous and understand that you don’t really matter to the person on the other end (yet). Hard pill to swallow, but humble goes a long way. If you get angry, that’s understandable. Happens to me every week. Go work out, walk around the block, yell in your car…whatever. Taking that out even partially on whoever is reading your thing just gives them a reason to ignore you.

11) pitch verbally to friends and family. If they get lost or ask questions that’s YOUR fault not theirs. Even if you answered the question they have already, it wasn’t clear enough. You should listen to these and adjust. If you feel like you did answer that question, answer it twice in two different ways If you see people tune out, remember where it is and try and adjust. Again, keep it short. Movie pitches are usually 10-15 minutes long. Don’t do voices in verbal pitches.

12) thank the people that “pass” on your project. Most people don’t respond at all, they’re giving you the courtesy of a no. It is okay to ask why, but if they don’t respond to that don’t follow up, let it go. If they give you a reason ask them if you can adjust and resubmit.

This is not a complete list just some things I think about.

[Aspie_Gamer]

At first I thought for whatever weird reason that this was a thread about dealing with rejection in the dating world which I have plenty of experience with. lol

Speaking about the actual subject of this thread, I can't say that I've ever submitted my work to a publisher or webcomic contest. I know right away I'd be rejected in a heartbeat because of my clumsy sometimes inconsistent art no matter how good the story I had attached to it was. More importantly, I'm of the opinion that like in the dating world, you shouldn't have to "sell yourself" to get the right people interested in you. All you are really doing when you do this is seeking validation from others and when you do that, it makes you come across as needy or insecure about yourself as a person especially when you keep doing it long after you stop counting how many times you've been rejected by people and/or companies and you still aren't finding any success doing it the way everybody else says you should. People and/or companies should be the ones selling themselves to you, not the other way around.

In short, as a wise man once said "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results!". If you keep doing what everybody every body else claims works, but you aren't seeing any results, don't keep doing it. If you keep getting rejected by publishers and you know that you have something good to offer the world, go independent and publish your work on Tapastic or Line Webtoons.

If you know you have a good head on your shoulders, but you can't get a date no matter how many times you put yourself out there, its time to stop listening to generic dating advice that everybody's heard a million times and seek out the people who have hundreds of dates and dozens of relationships to their names who know something that most people will never know about dating that actually works.

Lastly, if you keep applying for jobs, but nothing comes up. No phone calls, no e-mails, no interviews, no follow up interviews, etc. (which is VERY likely to happen in this terrible economy of ours that favors the rich over the working class a little too much), its time to incinerate your resume and start your own job. Get food stamps or move back in with your parents if you have to until your business takes off.

Will rejection still be a part of your life? Yes. No matter how much you know or who you know, rejection will still rear its ugly head in your direction from time to time, but its how you deal with it that makes all the difference. Being a person of high value (i.e having all these social connections, running a 5-6 figure independent business, being passionate about what you do, etc) will give you a definitive edge over somebody who doesn't value themselves the way you do, but even then, people can and will reject you still. If someone rejects you, screw them! People reject others for various reasons and its not always to be mean. You don't need to know why. Just forget about them and move on.

tl;dr If you keep getting rejected by publishers, quit trying to appease them and instead show off your creation to the world via Tapastic for example. By confidently showing off your creation and being passionate about it through social media, you give off a high value vibe that other people and companies want to be a part of. Now I'm not saying that publishing companies will magically fall into your lap begging you to sign with them. What I am saying however is that by only seeking validation from yourself, not the people whom you so desperately want to be a part of, you give off a confident vibe that not only inspires other people, it makes some of them want to be a part of your life and who knows? Maybe when all the stars are properly aligned, that publishing company that previously rejected you will now want your comic to be a part of their line up?

[Shanny8]

It's been a long time since I've received a rejection...not saying that I always get an acceptance- I just got to the point where I dont submit my art to any type of project.

Normally, I've been good with just doing my own, and not worrying about anything else...but in the last few years since I've picked up doing my art again, I've been changing my strategy, trying to do a little more to get myself out there. Unfortunately, there was this one "anthology in the making" that was taking subs, but I've been so busy trying to get to a nice buffer with my work on Ray Thunder- and the fact that I found out about the whole thing with a month left, so I was like "screw it, I'll see if I can get in on another anthology in the future".

[keii4ii]

Also got rejected recently. I find that it's not the rejection itself that stresses me out; it's the circumstances surrounding it. In an ideal rejection situation, the entity doing the acceptance/rejection addresses all applicants with respect (without overdoing it!!!). And the ones who got accepted are clearly more skilled than I am, or clearly a better fit for what they were looking for. When I can see that, it makes me feel assured that the judgment process was fair.

Unfortunately, things are not always that ideal (sometimes for totally understandable reasons). But I guess that's life for you. Things get tough, and you need to figure out healthy ways of dealing with it. I'm still in the process of figuring mine out.

[Michelle]

I'm wondering, though - why do you say 'focusing on alternative plans to grow my comic'? Are you really going to give up on the idea of publishing your comic because you got turned down by one publisher? Or did I misunderstand the meaning behind that sentence?

Ohh no no. I don't really have an alternative publisher in mind right now, so for the time being I'm going to continue to self-publish. I just mean that I'm going to focus my energy into growing my comic on social media and improving my skills until I feel I find another good fit for my work.

[Michelle]

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses and insights so far :> Seriously, if it weren't for such an awesomely friendly place like Tapastic, I would've been bummed out for much longer. It's motivating to hear how you guys pick yourselves up and keep going.

Definitely not gonna give up! But I'm not clawing to submit to another publisher right away. I really want to make sure I find someone who would be a good fit for my work. I'm not opposed to my current self-publishing situation, it's just a lot more work as opposed to having someone else help get your work out there.

[indagold]

"Rejection" for me was finding out the grim reality of becoming a cartoonist.
Changed my life goals to work as a 3D animator/concept artist and kept my other work as a hobby. And I sure do love 3D now. I'm not the type of artist who chooses it as a last resort and never use outside of school/work place.