Rejection

Every publisher is going to be different. While this one (was it St. Marten's since they're focused on 20-somethings?) thinks it's too young, another might think it's perfect.

Hi Arya. {{{hugs}}} Editorial rejections hurt.

Is your book nonfiction or fiction? I don't know as much about the submission process for nonfiction, but it's not unusual for agents to sub, either simultaneously or in rounds, to 20 or more publishers. And it's very usual for all of them to end up rejections except for one -- competing offers are the exception.

Try to find out what your agent's submission strategy is -- he probably won't limit your submission to just these two publishers. If the second one passes, there are lots more publishers out there.

Breath deep, Arya! It would be very unusual for a company to change its mind, but why would you need them to? You really just need one yes, and there are dozens of good publishers and imprints. There are probably very few cases where published works did not rack up a pass or two -- even super popular works that are sold in huge auctions probably were rejected by SOMEONE. {{{Arya}}}

AryaT92 said:

So this is usual for published works to get rejected by some publishing companies before being published..?

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Very VERY few books are picked up by the first publisher to whom they're submitted. Just think of the twenty publishers who rejected Harry Potter. And the lists of the number of times huge-selling books were rejected is, well, huge.

Now, go get yourself some chocolate and pamper yourself. As others have said, rejection is hard.

AryaT92 said:

Is getting a rejection from one publisher the end of the world?

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Not at all. It's the norm, not the exception, for highly successful books.

Not trying to freak you out, but be careful about quoting verbatim from a communication which was intended just for you (or your agent, as was more likely the case). Most people are okay about it, of course, but some can be less so. I'd just paraphrase.

Editor rejections are tough, because you go through a bunch of NO to get the agent, then get the YES, and then you're in a place psychologically where NO comes back again and it's kind of terrifying. But it's very normal, so don't worry. You don't know all the reasons you got rejected, and some of them have zero to do with your book - marketing think they can't flog it in that category, the list is too full for proper publicity coverage for a debut, they just bought something exactly like it the week before - you just don't know.

Sorry it's so hard. But it does get easier in time.