It’s not just about getting an agent or a book published. It’s also about picking yourself up after the umpteenth rejection. After writing for a certain amount of years without an acceptance letter in sight. I would imagine every now and then one becomes disheartened or has peaks and troughs when for a few days you send off to several agents, wait a few weeks. Then start the whole process again. Sometimes not trying for a few months. So these are just tactics for keeping going. Chin up it’s only been five years.

Narrow down your search

The obvious place is the Writers and Artist year book and when you get bored of that just casually try surfing ‘agents’ your books ‘genre’ and ‘submission’ and then see who pops up. Usually there are already well known writers that have compiled lists of agents and publishers specific to a genre and this can be handy when you get tired.

Turn rejection into acceptance

There is nothing worse than slogging through the writers and artist year book and trying to find an agent who is into your thing and then writing off with your awesome query letter, and synopsis, and then waiting four months for a rejection. So it’s nice sometimes to just grab someone elses lists and just fire of a few more letters. I know I should hone in each letter to a specific agents interest but sometimes I get tired and then fire of five emails with just the name : ( followed by Intro, Synopsis and First 3 Chapters.

Seek writing funds and yea shall find

When tired of hunting for agents or publishers yea can seek funds elsewhere from nice organisations that are seeking certain types of writing. Not all writing is poorly paid some magazines will pay good dollar for a very well-written article or ghost written book. Seeking funds from these organizations is also time intensive so set aside a morning or a day and just focus on that one task and then it can be quite enjoyable.

Focus on your genre

As well as searching for standard agents and publishers. It is important to narrow down your search list to your genre. As I write young adult I have found numerous lists already well searched that detail the right agents to pitch to. Again, working through like a donkey and sending of the right amount of query letters, synopsis and 3 chapters to your potential agent. Why do all the hard-work when people who have walked before you have already been there.

When all is said and done and all you get back is rejection after rejection its tough but then all you can do is pick your next book and start to write again and get lost in that story.

Some people can take ten years before they are published, how about twenty.  It would be tough getting nothing published so there are always articles and short-stories to amuse yourself along the way. Try a few competitions to boost the confidence. The only difference between the successful writer and the unsuccessful one is that one has the tenacity to keep going. It’s quite sad but it’s like being a salesperson and constantly knocking on doors. If you don’t like rejections then you will lose.