A friend of mine recently wrote a wonderful novel that is well written and very intriguing. She entered it into the annual novel competition on Amazon. Her book did very well. Out of 10,000 entries, her novel made it into the top 100. Her manuscript was reviewed by a professional book critic and the first chapter was available for the public to read and vote on. She felt like she had obtained a large amount of success with her book even though she didn't win the grand prize.
More recently, my friend has been sending her manuscript to various publishers in hopes of finding one that is interested in taking a chance on it. She got her first rejection just the other day and it literally crushed her spirits.
Rejection can be very difficult to deal with, but it is important to remember that it is just part of the game. For every "yes" I get, there are probably 10 or more "no's" that came before it. It is easy to let yourself get discouraged when someone tells you "no" but once you put into perspective just how many submissions and requests are received by galleries, publishers, and other venues, you come to take the rejection much less personally. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with the quality of your work, it has more to do with limited space, over-abundance in submissions, and budget restrictions.
In my friend's case, I want to put my arm around her (I can't because she lives in Idaho and I live in Wisconsin) and tell her not to let it get her down. She will get many more rejections before someone says yes. She just needs to hang in there and not give up, because someone will say yes. All it takes is one.
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