Rejection and Disappointment as a New Author

Learning to deal with rejection and disappointment as a new author is something that I’ve been facing lately. If you’ve been following me on social media, you’ll see that I’ve shared happy and exciting moments of my little “wins” as a new author – getting featured in the local newspaper, getting into a bookstore, creating my first eBook, etc… I’ve been keeping it positive because I want to stay optimistic!

STRUGGLES

However, what I haven’t really shared much about is the behind-the-scenes struggles that I face mentally. Am I on the right path? Am I crazy for continuing? Should I just go back to find “a real job”? Being more vocal about my struggles is something I feel God is calling me to do. All these mixed emotions inside my are yearning to be expressed, so here’s my first attempt at it.

PLANTING SEEDS

A lot of advice to entrepreneurs goes something like, “Plant lots of seeds and you never know which ones will sprout and turn into something amazing.” So I did that. Ok, so I didn’t plant a ton of seeds, but I timidly planted a few here and there. And a bunch of them didn’t work out. Here they are:

BOOK AWARDS

There are a bunch of awards for authors to submit their books to, and winning one of those awards can bring publicity and boost credibility for the book and for the author. I read that some of these organizations are for-profit, so it’s worth being strategic about which contests to apply to.

Example of a book with an IPPY Gold award sticker on it

I submitted my book to several contests – i.e. IPPY awards and Next Generation Indie Book Awards. They each cost about $80 – $200 depending on how many categories you want to be considered for. Also you have to submit multiple copies of your book for the judges to read. It’s a decent financial investment and you have no idea how it’ll turn out.

So yeah, after waiting several months, they announced the winners, and I was pretty bummed that I didn’t win anything in the categories I applied for (kids books and gift books). On the one hand, they are tons of amazing authors that submit their book, so I guess I have to be realistic about my chances.

LOCAL WRITING CONTEST

Earlier this year, I was reading the local newspaper and came across an announcement for Palo Alto Weekly short story writing contest. I felt intrigued to write a piece just for fun – unrelated to a book and unrelated to my blog. I thought I may have better odds with a local contest because the above contests were nationwide or global.

Hence, I wrote up a piece, enjoyed the process, and felt proud to have submitted a piece of writing out into the world.

My Application to the Short Story Contest 

About 5 weeks later, I got an email with this news.

Dear Short Story Contest Entrant:

I’m sorry to inform you that you were not among the top three stories selected by our judges for prizes in this year’s contest.

Thank you for entering and best of luck with your writing. We hope you’ll return next year with another story.

SPOTIFY PODCAST BOOTCAMP

Around that time, I also submitted an application to Spotify for their Sound Up Bootcamp which was a training program where they’d fly you out to New York to teach you about podcasting, introduce you to experts, and help you create your own podcast. It was intended to promote female podcasters of color so that there’d be more diversity in the industry. I wrote up a whole spiel about what I would say on a podcast and why I thought these issues were important.

When I shared this on Instagram, one of my Instagram friends, Fey, commented that if I started a podcast, she would definitely listen. ^_^ That made me super happy, thank you Fey!! I still remember that comment because it made me feel like oh hey, maybe what I have to say is worth listening to. 🙂

As I was waiting on a response, I thought more about the idea of doing a podcast, even if the Spotify thing didn’t pan out. I also blocked off those dates in my calendar because if you get it, then you go to NY for a week in June. And finally after a month and a half, I get this response.

Dear applicant,

Thank you so much for your application to the Sound Up Bootcamp! Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer you a spot in June’s bootcamp. 

We reviewed over 18,000 applications, and were so impressed and inspired by the ideas we received. We want to encourage you to make your podcast a reality, and join the community of women of color podcasters. You can find a list of resources on creating your podcast — and communities you can get involved with online — here. 

Thank you again, and best of luck in podcasting!

Of course, I felt disappointed again, but I was like wow, 18k people applied for 10 spots. I guess my chances were pretty slim. o.O Since this bootcamp isn’t the only way to start a podcast, I feel okay. There are still plenty of tools and resources out there.

I’m still debating on whether I will start a podcast or not. It’s just a matter of what format of blogging is most natural for me –  writing, doing YouTube, or recording audio. I still need to experiment.

REFLECTION

Looking back, I guess these scenarios were contests with thousands of applicants, so most of us weren’t going to be selected. But that doesn’t mean our work isn’t worthwhile. We can’t take it too personally – though it is in my nature to be highly sensitive >.< Sigh lol.

I know the advice of planting seeds really only works if you start planting hundreds, thousands of seeds. When you’re first starting off, it’s hard to stay motivated when the initial ones don’t pan out. But from my observation of the successful authors/entrepreneurs, it seems like they relentlessly continue to plant seeds and put themselves out there in vulnerable situations many times over. They keep going when other people would’ve given up a long time ago. So I think the lesson for me is that I’ve got to keep planting seeds, and not dwell on things that don’t pan out. Let’s do this!

I want to hear from you too! Was there a time when you really wanted something and it didn’t turn out. How did you deal with it?