What you can learn from a Rejection Letter/Email
No matter how great of a freelance writer you are, there are going to be times when you receive a rejection letter or email. This happens to the best of us, even when the job seems to be a perfect fit. Although a rejection is disappointing, you can learn quite a bit from it.
Here are three things you can learn from any rejection:
1. Determine what went wrong. If you are lucky, the editor will send back a brief note explaining why your query was rejected. You may find that your article suggestion was not right for that particular publication. Or maybe they loved what you had to say, but they just aren’t looking for freelancers at this time. No matter what, it is important that you know why you were rejected. This way you can better position yourself for future success.
2. Did you do anything right? You may have to dig to find this answer. As noted above, some editors will happily write back, tell you what they do and don’t like, and let you take things from there. But with others, you will have to sift through the rejection and pull out both the good and bad.
3. How to be resilient. The last thing you want is to get down on yourself every time something goes wrong. Freelance writers have to be resilient. No matter how many queries you send out, whether it is a few or 100, you are probably going to receive rejections. This is all part of being a freelance writer.
Don’t get in the habit of ripping up or deleting rejections before you take the time to learn from them. The more you learn the better chance you have of success with the next one.
