When No Can Mean Yes...

Rejection is part and parcel of being a freelance writer, unfortunately. In all my 16 years of working as a freelancer this is still one of the hardest things to cope with. Rejection in any form is rubbish, but when you've spent hours perfecting an article that is not only ideal for your chosen publication, but has been tailored to their house style and edited to within an inch of its life and you receive a short 'NO!' back from a commissioning editor, it's not only rubbish, it makes you feel rubbish too and it's very tempting to write back and ask why exactly is your work not good enough? Don't do this!

It could be for a number of reasons, including; the editor may have recently covered the subject (hence the importance of keeping up with your reading and read back issues of your chosen publication!), or the editor's budget may have been used up for that month. They could have enough freelance content, or they could be holding a similar article in stock. If you've stuck to the guidelines of writing a subject that will appeal to a publication's readership, written it in the same style as the publication's house style and presented it in the correct way for submission, then the negative response is probably nothing to do with your work and you shouldn't take it personally.

What you should do however, is to target another publication with the same piece of work. Aside from a few specialist titles, most magazines and newspapers have competitors and if your article is a general piece, such as health and well being, the media world is your oyster. Say for example, you had written a piece about how we are all so dependent on social media that we no longer have time to actually socialise with real people. This could be targeted to every newspaper editor, particularly if there is a new device being launched. It could also be subbed to every women's magazine editor in the country with a different angle; perhaps you could volunteer to go without your iPhone for a week and record how you coped without it?

Don't ever think that just because one editor doesn't want your work that another won't. Many magazines and newspapers are desperate for new content to keep their readers interested and if you keep subbing a rejected piece to other titles, it will eventually come back with a yes!