I had done a little research on the Internet and sent my book of poetry to a company that said they accepted unsolicited manuscripts from unknown authors. I sent them my files and they promptly sent me a contract and a check. Wow, this is easy!
Unfortunately it is difficult to get any company to spend advertising money on anything that they don't project to generate massive funds and my poetry book was not exactly what they would be wanting to spend their money on.
Poetry isn't the hottest commodity, add in that the author is a total unknown and the title is Poems From A Transgendered Heart and it doesn't exactly scream best seller but I was happy that it was accepted and seems to be selling not quite like hot cakes but it is selling.
A couple of years later I decided to publish my novels through CreateSpace and being a self publishing site there was never any real fear of rejection letters.
I finally sent a couple of short stories to a publication that pays rather well for anything that they publish, I received an Email today - one of my stories has been rejected. They include a generic note saying that they don't have time to send critiques but they would not be using it.
Rejection with no real reason given, it reminded me of my attempts at the High School UIL Solo and Ensemble Competitions. I was always given a rating of a 2 (the medals went to 1's only) and the lone comment from the judge each time was, "Very nice job, you'll get a 1 next year!" I never got a 1 but I saw the sheets from my friends that did, filled with notes about ways that they could improve their performances, never just Very Good Job - always lots of helpful suggestions.
Somethings never change.
