The REJECTION RASPBERRY thread

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Several years ago:
An agent after hearing my pitch for a novel.
"I really like the sound of that, can you send me something?"
*I send 3 chapters with full story breakdown (as requested) and I wait two weeks*
PING! email from agent: "It's a really commercial idea and I can definitely sell it for you. Perhaps we change X Y & Z to R S & T and it's game on."
*Spend four months rewriting and making alterations (we swap some emails during this period) and I then send back the fully overhauled MS*
PING! email later same day: "Looks great, I will be back to you as soon as I can with my notes."
I guess she must be quite busy currently ;)
Since then not even a polite "Sorry, but this sucks even more than a hosepipe emptying a septic tank."
Reluctantly I was forced to accept I must have turned a promising elegant swan into a turkey - but she'd already read first three chapters and professed to have really liked them and the overall concept..
I was baffled. Still am. I thought I might've deserved the soft let-down at the very least. Ah well.


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Maybe she left the agency, stopped being an agent, had a baby or coronavirus. You should have got back to her and asked if the work was still under consideration or could you withdraw the submission. And if still, she didn't answer- you are better off without her.
 
Another day, another rejection. I have stopped writing and submitting, and I'm STILL getting rejections. At this point, I'm wondering if an old ex didn't somehow attain Illuminati-like secret power in the publishing industry and constantly circulates worldwide memos saying "Under no circumstances publish anything by this individual!"

This time, I thought I'd try to make it a learning experience. So, I went over the "things we say you should do differently" section of the letter, and compared them to some other recent examples. I thought if I cross-referenced what various "professionals" note I am doing wrong to turn them away from the MS, it can give me a better idea of how to do things differently. I carefully compared what was said and what was suggested in three different samples.

This has led me to a conclusion: whoever writes these rejection letters pulls slips with things like "engage the reader better", "provide more backstory," "provide less backstory", "do better at worldbuilding," "less worldbuilding, more focus on story events," et al, out of a f(BLEEP!)king hat.

ROAR. How is everyone else?
 
Still haven’t worked out how to attach a gif so I’ll just send my commiserations instead. Don’t you just love the fact that they always seem to send the rejection emails on a Friday just to knock you down before the weekend.
Absolutely, and even moreso. A few months ago I submitted during the week, and had my rejection come late at night on that Saturday (like, 1130 PM when I was fighting insomnia kind of late). I immediately submitted to another venue and went to bed...only to find another rejection waiting for me the next morning.

Like, who the hell is up at midnight on Saturday/Sunday, reading and rejecting manuscripts for online publishing of short-form fiction? Is this a normal thing?
 
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