We hear a lot of "no" in this business. Let me tall ya. Some days they come from all sides, and the little buggers can really wear you down. You get less if you take the self publishing route, but odds are, if you submit anywhere over the course of your career, you will here: le no.
Ouch.
Some days it makes you want to give up. Some days you start to believe that you suck eggs. So maybe submitting isn't such a good idea, right? So maybe I should just do it all solo and avoid the whole mess. It's not a bad idea. I'm a big fan of self-publishing, in particular considering the current trends and numbers. But I wonder if totally blowing off the whole subbing process might be robbing yourself of something really great.
The wonderful, Yes.
As bad as no no no feels, one YES! can make it all go away in a flash. Yes means someone else thinks you can do this too, someone who doesn't even know you. Yes is a very, very good feeling. It's butterflies and dancing for joy, and even a hundred no's before it won't diminish it one tiny bit. In other words, it's worth the wait.
So I got thinking about the self-publishing path and it occurred to me that that was the one thing it was missing. I mean, yes, reader love is the best love. But once, just once in every author's life, I think feeling that yes is important. Not even for validation, because I get that we shouldn't need that. Just for the experience of it. For the butterflies. Maybe, if you do plan to totally self-publish, it would be worth it to send out a couple of short stories, to keep sending them, and if necessary to send to one of the easier markets. They're not too hard to find, the ones that accept a bit more than some of the others. Maybe it's worth it to do a little time and snag that yes. . . just once.
Because once you have it, nothing can take it away.
~Frances
award-winning animal stories