Member-only story

How to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection by Publications

It’s not a matter of getting your foot in the door — it’s a different part of your body

Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.
8 min readDec 3, 2020
woman, palm out, signaling rejection
Woman photo created by cookie_studioFreepik

New writers on Medium are often told, you have to submit your best work to publications, especially the biggest ones. That’s the only way, they are told, to get your stories in front of eyeballs when you don’t have a substantial following of your own.

However, new writers are also told, don’t be surprised if those publications reject your work.

It’s gut-wrenching to pour your heart and soul into a story, to edit relentlessly, to believe you’ve finally achieved perfection — and then after a 7-to-9-day wait, the editor contacts you to say, “Sorry, we’re not interested.”

As a result, many writers don’t try very hard to submit their work to publications. I know I myself was guilty of that my first three months on Medium. Although self-publishing was less potentially damaging to my ego, it took me longer to connect with many awesome fellow writers. It took longer for people to discover my work, and for me to reap the corresponding financial rewards.

Here’s a strategy for getting over the fear of being told “no” by publications.

That masterpiece of a story? Don’t submit…

--

--

Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.
Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.

Written by Paul Ryburn, M.Sc.

I write about writing, ideas, creativity, homelessness, intuition, spirituality, life lessons. Ex-college teacher Twitter: @paulryburn

Responses (5)