My rejection letter from a publisher (sharing my story, you can share yours too)

[HeavenSweets]

Hi, everyone,
I've been writing since I was 6 years old.
I love writing so much. I've written a lot of stories mostly in the Young Adult genre.
I've been writing everyday and been planning to get my novels published.
I've tried researching literary agents and publishers for my novel.
I've never submitted anything yet to those literary agents. I decided to submit it to a publishing house and waited for four months.
I received a rejection letter from their editor. I screenshot the rejection letter I've received to share it with you.

Unfortunately, they do not publish a book same as the genre of the novel I submitted to them. I researched that they published books in Young Adult genre, but apparently the sub genres of my novel didn't fit their lists.
The editor also mentioned that sometimes they pass on well-written and marketable books because it didn't fit their list, sadly, as you can see from the screenshot.
I'm still confused about what the editor said. Did the editor meant that my story is well-written and marketable? Or the editor was just generalizing about books that were submitted to them and some of those books were well written and marketable?
Anyway to continue my story, I'm trying to think of a way to publish my novel and self publishing comes to my mind.
But this is still unsure because I might try to submit my novel to another publisher. I love writing and I'll always write stories till I grew old.
This pasion of mine of writing stories will never end.
Let me know in the comments your rejection story and what are the things you learned from it. Also, share with me what do you plan next for your writing career. Whether you submit it to literary agents or publisher or even trying the self publishing route.

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

Hi

I've not yet come to the part of quering, but I am planning on trying to do that.
What I have heard is that a lot of people send out hundreds of letters before they get accepted. So I wouldn't give up after one.
I'm not sure what route I'll take, but I think I'll start with trying a literary agent.
But I'll probably sent out as much as I can. Can't hurt to gamble on more than one.

<3
Wolfie

[rajillustration]

Absolutely keep submitting your novel--just make sure it's to a publisher that makes books a lot like the one you're writing. When I've received rejection letters in the past (IF I receive them at all) they've always been very helpful. In fact, you know you're on the right track when a letter is quite long and has ways to edit and fix what you've written to better match what that publisher needs. What I've learned mostly is not every book will fit into mainstream publishing--and that's OK. We all eventually write books that will. Just gotta keep writing.

[EmmyPax]

I've subbed a fair amount of my work in the past few years, and rejection is absolutely a normal part of the process. There's no shame in it and you can't take one "no" as meaning that much, because as the letter says, tastes vary and people want/are looking for different things.

I wouldn't read too much into the letter. It looks like a form rejection to me, which they probably send out to everyone they say "no" to. It could mean absolutely anything, which means trying to divine the exact meaning will be pretty useless to you. Getting a letter with actual comments about your work is a rare treat, and usually means you were just slightly off of what a particular publisher or agent was looking for. My rule of thumb for rejections is that if the letter doesn't mention something specific about your book (character name, title, a compliment that is clearly specific, like "the world building just didn't seem quite vivid enough, though I liked the characters"), then it's a form. And again, no shame in forms! Publishers and agents need to use them, because the sheer volume of submissions makes personalized feedback difficult to do, because it's time consuming.

So keep trying! Hit up publishers, but also literary agents (if you want the option of publishing with a Big Five publisher) and use resources like Querytracker and Absolute Write to research place/refine your query process. It just all takes time.

[ISNEKO]

I have a folder of a dozen or so rejection letters.

One time I got one and all it said was “No, thank you.”

[Chopythes]

Send your novel to a lot of publishers!
I mean, just don't send it to one, make it as many as you can in one go so that you can focus on doing other things instead of having to wait for four months.
I sent my pitch to 3 publishers in one go, and right before a convention where I knew I could meet up with them if it would lead to them being interested in my work.
As I knew they were going to the same convention as I, I asked to meet them up and the third said yes.
The first told me that I had a great talent but it wasn't quite what they wanted to publish and that they were laying off the comic's section later that year.
The second I heard nothing from (still haven't, 4 years later xD) and well, the third got me a publishing deal after hearing my pitch at the convention where we set up an interview.

But glad to hear you got a rejection letter, that usually means it piqued their interest

[amberberry]

I have not reached the querying stage yet and I'm quite unsure about querying in general since right now most my work is written in English for Tapas but I'm not native English speaker nor do I live in UK or US which I think most people here are from. And I don't know if I even could query to like UK publishing houses as a non-UK resident. I guess I will eventually write a book in my own language and try to query that because I've always wanted to be a publisher author.

But about your query. I just wanted to point out that Young adult is not technically a genre but an age group, like children's literature and adult's literature are. But you definitely should keep querying your story. Definitely focus on publishers who publish in your genre or you will just be doing extra work with no reward if you offer a romance story to a horror publisher (as an example).

[thedude3445]

The message is a form letter. They send that to anyone they reject and it is a blanket statement that they can only accept a few submissions per year and have to reject the others for countless reasons. Maybe your story just got overlooked and too much time passed, or maybe they filled a quota before they got it, such as too many YA novels selected already. Maybe your story didn't hook the first readers quickly enough and they decided not to continue. Or maybe the pitch/query itself wasn't enough. Unfortunately with this letter you have no way of knowing, so you'll have to submit to many, many more publishers and agents to see how it can go. The wait times will be long, and the rejections will be constant. but it is worth it.

[gmaximin]

But glad to hear you got a rejection letter, that usually means it piqued their interest

=> It.s true that not all publishers bother to even send rejection letter. It always bugged me, and I generally black-list these publishers on future projects. It might limit possibilities, but it's a matter of respect...

[prunier]

Im not a writer but I've heard that a lot of famous writers didn't win anything and didn't get their books published until years of hard work of making a successful pitch for the book. Hope everyone get's an a opportunity here someday! cheers

[joannekwan]

A few months ago I took a shot in a dark and submitted to a publisher and was surprised to get a detailed response back with comments from the editor who reviewed it. Even though it was a rejection, enough feedback and encouragement were given that it left me grateful for trying.

Here's part of the letter:

I was quite thrilled to see Secunda come in, as I am a fan of anime and particularly The Ancient Magus’s Bride which you compare the story to. Your premise is unique to the market right now and hits a lot of tropes that readers enjoy, and that are gaining with some popularity right now. I found myself effortlessly enjoying the story you wrote; you have a clear voice as a writer that’s perfect for this kind of fantasy.

What prevented me from going further with the story was the overall tone and style. While I enjoyed it, it felt more like a young adult fantasy or light fantasy than a fantasy romance. The heroine reads as a little young in voice, and the dialogue is expected and uses a fair amount of exclamation points. While the monster-hero is really interesting (as is the heroine), they don’t necessarily have a romantic or physical connection that fits the adult romance expectations.

I took this advice and did an editing pass on my story, focusing particularly on the dialogue that they mentioned. The feedback also made me look at my work in a new light and now I'm considering marketing it as a New Adult book, as the themes coincide with that market. And as New Adult is a thriving category in the self-publishing/digital book sphere, I'm now set on self-publishing Secunda.

Being a creator (especially author trying for traditional publishing) means getting familiar with rejection. Keep at it though! JK Rowling got rejected a ton before someone took a chance on Harry Potter.
Don't forget nowadays with the wonders of the internet, there is another path open for people: self-publishing! And sometimes self-publishing is more lucrative, but I understand the prestige that comes with being traditionally published. It just comes down to your content (as some genres do better in self-pub vs trad pub and vice versa) and what you want to do with it.

[EmmyPax]

I think with the self-pub vs trad-pub, it also depends on what genres you're working in. If you write Adult Literary, you're generally better off going through an agent/trad publisher etc, but if you write romance, I frankly don't know why you WOULDN'T self-pub (fiscally) other than really not wanting to do the leg work of marketing on your own. It just seems like there's so much more money in Amazon than in traditional book sales.