5 Reasons why the publisher rejected your book

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So you’ve actually finished writing and editing your novel. You are extremely proud of yourself, and you should be! But now that you finally had the guts to send it to a publisher (or two), you received a rejection letter. They don’t want your book. They don’t want to have anything to do with the manuscript you slaved over for months on end. Now what?

Unfortunately, your work is far from over. If you really want your book to get published, you’re going to have to figure out why it was rejected. Most likely, it’s one of these 5 reasons below.

1. Your manuscript sucks

We hate to be blunt, but if your manuscript got rejected, there is a chance that it just plain sucks. The good news is that you don’t have to chuck it in the bin like the publisher did. Of course, there are a lot of reasons why your manuscript might not be worth reading:

  • Your point of view is a mess

  • Your story is lacking substance

  • Your characters are flawless

  • Your story doesn’t have enough conflict

  • Your opening chapter is boring or vague

  • Your characters’ motives are missing or unclear

  • Your story is not original

  • Your manuscript is full of spelling and grammar errors

  • Your story doesn’t flow

We’ll explore each of these manuscript problems in more detail shortly to try to help you fix them. But if you want to make sure that your manuscript doesn’t suck, then you need to get other people to read it and provide you with feedback. One of these people should be an editor to eliminate spelling and grammar errors. Even if only a couple of people read your book, you’ll most likely get some valuable pointers that will help you tell your story better. Of course, the more beta readers you have, the better.

2. Your query letter sucks

Your manuscript is actually pretty good, but the publisher never got around to looking at it because your query letter sucks. If you call your manuscript a ‘fiction novel’ in your query letter and use flowery writing to prove to them how good you are at writing, nobody will be interested in your story. Your query letter should give them a reason to read your manuscript. This means you need to pitch your story in an exciting way.

Think about books you’ve seen at the bookstore. Before you decide to read or purchase a book, you always read the description on the back or inside the jacket. Is it compelling enough to make you read the story? If not, then it sucks. Your query letter is the same. It’s like the cover letter for your resume. Employers don’t look at your resume if they don’t like the cover letter. And if you can’t entice the publisher to look at your manuscript with a kick-ass query letter, you’ll get a rejection letter. Scroll down just a little and we’ll help you fix that query letter.

3. You selected the wrong publisher

Of course you know better than to submit a romance novel to a publisher of children’s books. But there’s more to selecting the right publisher than matching up your genre and theirs. Some publishers only look for books that fit into a certain niche. For example, the publisher might be looking for a space-opera novel with a romantic twist. Or they may be looking for a transgender shape shifter story set in the 15th century.

Your publisher might also have a hard word count requirement. If they’re looking to publish a novel with 100,000 words or less, then your 120,000-word manuscript won’t get looked at. Research the publisher before you spend time on sending your query letter and manuscript to a publisher. And make sure that you follow their manuscript submission requirements to the letter. It would be a shame if your work got thrown out because you didn’t upload it in the right format.

4. The publisher is looking for something different

You really have no influence over what your publisher is looking for. They may be looking for something very specific, and your story just doesn’t fit the bill. It’s also possible that your publisher is in a cash crunch, has too many books in your genre, or the publisher doesn’t believe people are buying that type of book. It’s possible that the publisher (and a lot of other publishers) hate your agent. Or maybe the boss has an irrational bias towards your story because it reminds them of their ex.

There are a lot of reasons publishers reject manuscripts. It’s a tough job. There are lots of manuscripts, but most of them don’t get published. Even the ones that do don’t necessarily pay the bills for the publishing house. If the publishers think that your book is going to lose them money, they’ll send you a rejection letter real fast. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your manuscript sucks. It’s just that the publisher doesn’t think they have the readership to make money with your story.

5. It’s just bad luck

J.K. Rowling, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, and John Grisham have all had their fair share of rejection letters. And their stories don’t suck, at least not according to the millions of people who have read them. In J.K. Rowling’s case, the publishers just thought that Harry Potter was too big of a book for a children’s book. But kids (and adults) all over the world devoured not only one but several of these fat books. And the publishers who rejected her are probably kicking themselves now…..

The moral of the story is you just have to keep trying. Don’t take rejection personally. Deciding which story to publish and which story to reject is a very personal, biased process. Unfortunately, there is no better process. Sometimes publishers don’t exercise good judgement. Some people will love your book, and some people will hate it.

What to do next

Send your manuscript to at least 10 publishers and send your queries off all at once. If you don’t get a favorable response from any of them, then you may want to work on your manuscript, your query letter, or both. But don’t give up. And in the meantime, keep writing books. Your next book is going to be even better than your last one!