When Your Submission Doesn't Make It

Last night, I received a monthly newsletter from the editors at Chicken Soup for the Soul publications. One small part stood out like a neon sign on Broadway. One of the newest titles is about stepping outside your comfort zone. I had sent three stories for consideration.

It seems they received over 6,000 submissions and were able to select 101 of those. Guess what? My three stories went to the wayside. No go! Disappointed? Of course. We all get a bit deflated at first when a story we believe in doesn't make it. 

Consider this, however. The odds of making it are huge which should make anyone who has had work in a Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology in the past feel very proud.  It should also not act as a depression trigger when your story does not make it. 

Think how difficult it is for the people selecting the stories to choose that very small number of stories for the book. More than once recently, the CS publisher has decided to have a second book with same theme and 101 more stories that didn't make it into the first book. 

Does it mean that the more than 5900 stories that did not make it are poorly written, uninteresting or just plain awful? Of course not. No doubt there are some that might fit one of those three categories, but most of them are marketable elsewhere.

When a submission (anywhere) is not accepted, get through the initial disappointment, even anger, and then get busy looking for another place to send your story. If it didn't fit the first place you submitted, that doesn't mean it is no good. Move on! There is no guarantee that the second place you send it will scoop it up but you'll never know unless you submit. Market like a madman, without abandon, and an intensity to rival a political candidate. You're in charge of whatever you wrote from the initial draft to this marketing process. 

You cannot get accepted if you don't submit your work. It's as simple as that. No one ever said this writing game would be easy. 

The best thing to come from my three stories not making it into the comfort zone book is that I have three finished stories that I can submit to other publications. How about you? How many finished stories that didn't make it do you have sitting in your files gathering dust? Comb through to find out, then give them a final edit. After not seeing them for awhile, you'll find places that you might want to change, eliminate or add to. Then, get moving on searching for a new place to submit to. 

Tomorrow, we'll look at finding markets for your writing.