Rejection Sucks But You Still Need To Grow The Hell Up

[kimberly]

I used to take rejection a great deal more personally. I know how it feels to work truly hard creating something that is dear to my heart and have it thrown back in my face as if it were garbage.

I still reserve a careful disdain for those who have dismissed my creative work as a musician. It used to be a feeling closer to hatred, because I felt like the music that was being supported (and still is) by the world at large was in antipathy to that which I had created, therefore it sucked. When I was younger, I reacted more to the world around me and took things that I didn't agree with personally. It took me a long time to see that it wasn't about me all of the time. The Kim Network, all Kim 24/7 had to shut down sooner or later. It wasn't sustainable.

I have never felt the same attachment to writing as I once did to music creation. I never wrote music for fun. Writing was all release. Maybe that is why I absolutely didn't care about Forever 15's success. It had already helped me by the act of writing it. I didn't even know I liked writing until I wrote that book. Any happiness that followed was pure kismet.

As I am drawing closer to to the completion of two books, one non-fiction and the other fiction, I am beginning to loosely research agencies. I stumbled upon Lori Perkin's http://agentinthemiddle.blogspot.com and felt compelled to comment on this post:http://agentinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html#2796460536046655613.

Summary: It was the published correspondence between the Lori Perkins Agency and an angry rejected writer. He was turned down after harassing the agency with email after email. His main complaint? That they had taken too long to read/review/reject his 300 page manuscript.

Forever Fifteen is approximately 280 pages, by the way. In 2006, I sent it to three agencies, two who politely rejected it. One never wrote back at all. I promptly sent the two replying agencies thank you letters for letting me down easy. Never followed up with the third.

Some of the comments advised the writer to get a life. These I agreed with. Others rallied around the rejected writer, heaping abuse upon the Lori Perkins agency for publishing the emails. I stated my opinion that the writer needed to grow up & that it's much worse in the music world. I have received some flack for the comparison on my previous post about Robert winning a copy of my book. It wasn't appropriate there, so I've decided to re-post the comment here in full.

My original comment: The author whose email you published sounds like a total entitled narcissist brat. What he needs to do is try his antics when pitching an album to ANY PERSON in the music industry and then he can feel what it is to be truly ignored.

As for the authors who are kvetching about that email being somehow inappropriate, grow the hell up and do something worthwhile.

Ha ha! I'm such a bitch! Well, little did I know that I would receive a flame comment from what sounds like a disgruntled writer:

You're an idiot.

Since Lori Perkins has stopped publishing comments that disagree with her, I'm telling you here. You. Are. An. Idiot.

That author was told to wait ten weeks before following up.

He waited eleven.

And then he followed up, which he was TOLD HE COULD DO.

He was told she'd get to his manuscript in late December.

He waited until after December.

And after January.

And two weeks into February.

And then he sent a very polite status query. Which the agent ignored.

After not hearing from someone with his manuscript for three months, he checked in with her boss. For all he knew, the person with his manuscript quit the business and he hadn't been informed that no one was considering his manuscript anymore.

Lori Perkins got butthurt and said he should pull his manuscript if he didn't like waiting seven months for a simple yes, no, or still haven't gotten to it yet. You're an idiot for agreeing with her.

Also, publishing is not the music industry. Get a hold on reality and realize that.

If you want to gain a clue and stop looking like a fool, I suggest you read this post:

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/ ... titlement/

That author WAS entitled. And he deserved a response.

Finally, the name of your site is forever fifteen. Definitely fitting for you.

The publishing industry is definitely NOT the music industry, I agree. You can actually make it as an author even if you're old or fat or ugly and prefer the quiet life. Not so much in the music industry, where if you don't have a body to sell (other than your work) then forget about a deal. Send a hundred press kits like I did with color photos and sound samples etc.--there were three replies. That's a three percent reply rate, all of which were rejections. There are no manners or decorum in the music industry, because there's no bigger group of slimebags on earth than music execs and radio promoters. At least when you're dealing with writers' agencies you don't have to deal with a majority population suicidal coke addicts. The music industry fell for a reason: because the people running it were horrible human beings. For every sweetheart like Dolly Parton you had 10 Arlen Spectors hiding some very freaky skeletons in the closet.

In publishing it's mainly hard working book-dorks who live to read even though that's what they do for a living. There's more compassion. If they reject you, it's probably because they read your book and weren't interested. They don't reject you based on the fact that you don't party like it's 1986. It's a rejection based in reality.