Rejection: It’s a reality

You may have noticed in the last month or so I have clammed up about Tears of a Clown. It had been up as a giveaway on Goodreads and I had to pull it. At the time I didn’t give a reason but asked that you guys please understand and I’d let you know what went on.

Welp, here goes.

About a month or so ago, I took a chance and participated in a Twitter Pitch contest. 140 characters to pitch your book to several different agents at once. If yours caught their eye, they could request a partial. Much to my surprise, my pitch interested someone. I was shocked and elated and rather nervous. I had decided with Near Death that I was going to go the self-published route without even trying to go traditional so I never wrote a query. I had done some research prior and got some tips from one of those sites that allows you to send your query in and they rip it apart for you but I had never seriously sent one to an agent. So that was a first and I was pretty happy with what I came up with and I sent it in along with my first 50 pages.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

While it was really only a couple of weeks (and no I didn’t expect a super quick response, especially since I had seen this agent was super busy traveling the country for all sorts of events) it seems like a lifetime to hear back from them. Sadly, they passed on it but wished me luck, which is always nice.

Tears of a Clown is a bit of a different kind of story. One that started as a joke amongst friends and surprisingly came into its own. I never entertained the thought of trying to send it out to agents for traditional publishing. Hell, I never expected to have someone be interested in the Twitter pitch, so all of it came as a surprise and gave me a little experience with the process.

Am I sad? I’d be lying if I said the rejection didn’t hurt at all because let’s be honest, no one likes to be rejected. But it’s often a reality in this business and if it happens a couple of times, it just helps you grow a thicker skin or maybe fix some problems to make a better product.

Instead of wallowing in my rejection or throwing myself a pity party, I decided to look on the bright side of things.  I can self-publish it very soon (final proofs are being done and digital formatting needs to be finished) and I get to use the cover that was already designed, which makes me a bit giddy. Heh.

All in all, a good learning experience and now I can say I officially have my first rejection under my belt.  I kind of feel like it’s a rite of passage and now I can join the club of rejected authors. Someday I hope to be able to join the club of accepted authors too, but for the moment, I’m quite content with being in the club of self-published authors. We’ve got cookies.