Your work will be rejected

11th August 2016 | for Creatives | creating isn't easy, writing, publishing, editors, feedback/criticism/rejection, Nicki Porter  |       

Your work will be rejected

"Your work will be rejected.  Often, always, and forever.  Good work.  Quality work.  Publishable work.  Work you've born your soul into.  You will be turned down not only for logic and for reason, but for the silliest of subjectivities: The editor's cat has just died, and your work is too sad.  The agent is moving in a darker publishing direction; your work is too light.  Your poems are too short.  Your essays are too long.  We've seen this before.  We've never seen this before and wouldn't know how to market it.  It's good, but it won't sell.  It's good, but it's just not right for us.  You do understand, don't you?"

— Nicki Porter

Similar for Creatives

You Can Be a Writer

"I wish all writers realized that agents, publishers, book doctors, vanity presses, and how-to seminars, have a cost attached to them—sometimes a very high cost—with zero guarantees. You can be a writer, and have writer be a part of your identity, without any of them."

you aren't aiming high enough

"If you aren't getting rejected by 90 percent of the things you apply to, you aren't aiming high enough."

which of these two cultures you want

"Literary and commercial: If you are a writer, an editor or a publisher in traditional trade book publishing, you have to decide which of these two cultures you want to align yourself with."

Join my mailing list!

Don't miss a single, riveting word! Be the first to hear of new releases, special promotions, and other news and nifty things...