“Sorry I just couldn’t love it more.”
–From a rejection letter to Miss Maya Rodale

We have a saying it my house, “It only takes one.” As in you only need one agent to see the promise in your book, it only take one editor to buy it, and only one publishing house to get your book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. Sure, it must be great to have people clamoring to represent you and your work, and to have your dear little novel be the subject of an intense bidding war. But in the end, you only need one.

In pursuit of The One are a lot of rejections. After publishing my first book, I tried to find an agent to represent the Book Of My Heart, a sort of paranormal, sort of chic-lit, sort of romance novel. I sent proposals to twelve agents. I received twelve rejections.

I took the hint, and put that book firmly on the shelf. I also collected my rejection letters and after numerous readings, I noticed something: there were a few compliments on my writing.

“You certainly write well, but…”
“I loved the imagination of this—you’re certainly a very creative writer—but…”

And then there were a few that contradicted those:

“I didn’t find the voice captivating enough…”
“I wasn’t fully engaged by the story you told…”

The only point of agreement amongst all of the letters was that publishing was a very subjective business.

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I reckoned that since I wasn’t dead, I must be stronger. Or insane, or a glutton for punishment or ridiculously hopeful and optimistic, because I wrote another book and tried again. I also applied to graduate school, and sent out my resume just in case this book didn’t sell, either. What followed was very wretched winter in which I received a rejection letter for something at least once a week. I thought of my friend, who once said, “If you aren’t getting three rejections a week, you aren’t trying hard enough.” Great, I was a failure at getting enough rejection letters too!

But once again, after accumulating enough rejection letters, one can find a few compliments and few contradictions:

“I thought the characters were very real, but…”
“I didn’t find the heroine as appealing or strong as I would have hoped…”
“Ms.Rodale demonstrated an engaging, witty writing style and offered a fresh new look at the Regency period.”

See point above about the business being subjective. To state the obvious, it’s a small consolation.

But I did manage to land a job interview. They never called me back, which was just fine because that very afternoon, my agent called to say we had an offer on The Heir And The Spare and the second book in the Negligent Chaperone series. Naturally, I accepted. And two weeks later, I received admission to graduate school. Just like that, my luck had changed, and my patience and perseverance paid off. And like any romance novel, this story had a happy ending.