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If you shop in the Amazon bestseller list for Thriller and Mystery (like I do), you'll see a number of Michael Wallace books there. Michael has several great books with the Amazon thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer, but it hasn't always been this way. Today he shares some of his journey with us.
I could wallpaper a room with rejection letters.
If I printed electronic rejections I could wallpaper two more rooms. Altogether, I have collected more than 1,500 rejection letters from magazines, publishers, and agents. In fact, I’m still collecting rejection letters, even though my indie novels have sold roughly 80,000 copies and I have paired my indie career with a more traditional contract through Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer thriller line. My book, The Righteous, has been ranked as high as #5 in the overall store on Amazon UK and as high as #20 in the US. Nevertheless, my agent recently shopped my World War II thriller and while I had some publisher interest, I also had editors give me those dreaded “I like this, but. . .” responses.
My ego would love to say that the publishing industry is infested with idiots, but the truth is that many (probably most) of these rejections were justified. I started submitting when I was still in high school, and by the time I’d finished college was already north of 200 rejections. The stuff I was writing then was dreck. I’m a slow learner, and I don’t think I wrote anything worthwhile until I was twenty-five and it would take several additional years before I could write at a consistently high level. Those fifteen hundred rejection letters hang around the neck of more than a hundred short stories and fifteen different novels.
It’s hard to say why I kept at it, even though my work faced indifference from the publishing industry. I knew that I could write, and when people tell me no, I’m stubborn enough to keep trying. During my frustrated periods I wondered why I was inflicting myself with so much pain. Maybe I should learn the piano instead. I may never play professionally, but if I put the same kind of effort into learning a musical instrument as into my writing, I could impress the pants off my family and friends.
Writing is not performance art; until you have success, nobody much cares.
It’s a hard business, and I’d never suggest that anyone voluntarily choose this path, but if you’re a writer like I am, you know one does not simply give it up. You keep working, you keep studying, and you keep submitting. In the old days, you submitted to agents and editors, and while this option continues, we’re lucky to be able to appeal directly to readers these days. This is how I got my break and I can tell you from personal experience that if the readers embrace your work, the editors and agents will come around as well.
Here is my advice.
(1) Produce
Don’t dink around for five years with the same novel. Set daily word count goals and meet them. At 1,000 words a day, you’ll have the rough draft of a novel in 3-4 months. Give yourself two months to polish it to the best of your ability, then move on to the next project.
(2) Study
You can’t be a writer if you’re not also a reader. Find good stuff and figure out how they do it. That’s the most obvious way to study. The second is to read as many books on writing as you can get your hands on. I find that doing this while I’m in the middle of first draft work helps me see how to apply this advice to my own work.
(3) Keep perspective
You’re a writer, dammit. It doesn’t matter if the world scoffs, if every third person and their dog walker is working on a novel. You are going to keep writing because that is who you are, and that is what you do. In the early days our reach exceeds our grasp. We know what is good and we want it, but we don’t yet have the tools to produce at that level. The good news is that over time your reach grows.
(4) Persist
If you’re a writer, you have to keep going. There is no other choice. Remember that a year from now you’ll be a year older than you are now. You’ll either have another novel or two under your belt or you will have finally got your paladin to level 80 on World of Warcraft. Which is more important to you?
Michael Wallace is the author of over a dozen thrillers and fantasy novels. His series of of suspense thrillers set in a polygamist enclave, The Righteous, is published by Thomas & Mercer and is available in print and as an ebook.
Lauren S. says
This is really great advice. It’s pretty much exactly what I needed to hear right now.
Thanks so much, Michael!
R.E. McDermott says
And it doesn’t hurt if you selflessly help people along the way. Success couldn’t have come to a nicer guy. Michael, congrats and best wishes for continued success.
Bob
Daphne Gray-Grant says
You raise important points here, but by far the most important is PERSISTENCE. Without persistence, you cannot succeed as a writer!
Michael Wallace says
Thank you for the comments, everyone. And thanks for inviting me, Joanna.
Michael
Kirstie says
I don’t know… that paladin is calling to me… Haha, no, I purposefully avoid WoW because I know it would eat away all my free time!
It’s great to hear that even sucessful people have been rejected numerous times before. It is grounding to learn even accomplished self-publishers such as yourself (I call 80,000 copies sold VERY sucessful personally) recieve rejections after the success as well.
You are so right, writing is something you are drawn to do. You can’t help it, you can’t resist it, you just have to do it.
Thanks for the great post.
Amber Dane says
Good advice! Thanks for sharing a helpful post & reminder
Christopher Wills says
I have a level 69 Rogue on WoW. It eats some of my time but it also gives me lots of creative ideas as I am writinf in the YA fantasy genre. But agree persistence is the key.
Eden Mabee says
Always nice to know that when rejection hits, we’re doing it right. Because, while it’s nice to get an acceptance letter here and there, it’s still the rarer of the two beasts. And getting either one means that submissions are being made… and THAT is doing things right–SUBMITTING!
Thank you for a wonderful post, both of you.
Rob Blackwell says
Great post. Wish I had followed this advice a lot earlier.
I have 100% completion in Red Dead Redemption’s single-player campaign.
Wish to God I had spent all that time working on the sequel to the novel that was sitting on my shelf. It’s published now, and I’m writing again, but damn, there’s a lot of wasted time in there I’ll never get back. Don’t make my mistake. If you enjoy writing, don’t stop because you don’t know if anyone’s reading it. Just keep going. The only way to lose is if you give up.
Dina Santorelli says
Excellent post! I agree with writing 1,000 words a day. That was my magic number.
Leigh says
Great tips! Gives me more motivation; If you’re a writer, you will always be a writer. I will have to put the pen on the page…life keeps getting in the way of writing! Damn bills and needing to eat!
Jim Bronyaur says
Hey Michael – congrats on all your success! I love your comment about the word count goal. I sometimes obsess with word counts and my yells at me. But it’s quite easy to map out a books time frame and use it to motivate you.
Staring at a blank document, knowing you have to fill it with tens of thousands of words can be scary… but if you take it one day at a time, you’ll get there.
And yes, rejection… lovely rejection. When I lived in my old apartment, I had a wall next to my desk that I filled with rejections. It was floor to ceiling with layers on top. You need focus, thick skin, and a good heart. 🙂
-Jim
Alison Strachan says
I applaud you Michael for continuing despite the mass amount of rejections. I can’t say that I would have had the same courage. In the scheme of things I am still early on in my writing career (although I’m not sure you would call it that just yet) but I have promised myself that I will continue as long as it makes me happy.
I wish I had time to write 1000 words a day! Once upon a time I did but now with a young family… It’s hard and the time factor for me is my main obstacle at the moment. I have scheduled my life around to try and fit as much writing time in as possible and even posted about it on my new blog. http://writingmytruth.com/finding-the-time-to-write/
I must say that it as a newbie around here it is all a little overwhelming but your advice is right on the money. PERSIST. PERSIST. PERSIST.
I’m trying not to beat myself up about getting hits on my post, I am just trying to persist at making it all work.
Rosanne Dingli says
If it were a mathematical exercise, persistence might work. It isn’t – a great number of rejections does not guarantee imminent success. And even if acceptance comes along, sales might not follow. Although writing excellent books and acting professional are important, nothing an author does can guarantee anything, least of all frequent submission, and luck plays such a big part in all this, and serendipity, and chance and necessity… that it all becomes moot in the end.
Persistence is like exercise – it certainly does not work if you do not do it, but it does not necessarily work in the way you think it does. It’s not a spell, it’s an expedient, and some DO do it in the wrong way, with the wrong product, without a clue.
I liked this line: “Writing is not performance art; until you have success, nobody much cares.” It’s true – nothing succeeds like success, and getting success in this business means getting people (doesn’t really matter who) to READ what you write. So rather than thinking of submissions and rejections, [because let’s face it, it’s darned easy to rack up a few thousand rejections] one should try to cultivate a readership of whatever nature … now THERE’s a hard one.
Mark Montgomery says
I started to write as an simple exercise in creativity. I was never really bothered if people wanted to read my work. I simply wanted to complete it, like so many others. I applaud anyone who in the wake of a biblical flood of rejection, perseveres in his wordcraft. I was too scared to seek publishing this way (ego too fragile). It is strange however that now it is completed, I want half the world to read it and the other half to like it.
Graeme Ing says
Thank you. You have no idea what this means to we budding authors. It makes the nagging doubts and the frustration go away… at least for a while. Your words are like drinking a triple-espresso in the morning… woweee, let’s go!!
Kim Cano says
Great advice. I feel persistence is key to being successful in so many areas in life. Even in marriage: how did couples stay together for so long in the old days? They didn’t give up.