As the grey-haired man in the single’s bar soon finds out, rejection is a tough thing to deal with. How we handle it defines us perhaps more than anything else. For me, I’m not inclined to run for the Grecian Formula, but I’m also not as thick-skinned as I would like to be. Especially now.

I wrote my first book, What Not to Do, in a flash. It was a fun ride, taking me only about 3-4 months to complete the entire 60,000 word first draft. And the first draft is pretty good, close to what I could be proud of as a final draft. Yet, since then I have spent at least 4 more months trying to figure out how to navigate the traditional book publishing maze, and gotten nearly nowhere.

To date, I’ve submitted by book proposal to one, count it, ONE literary agent. She required an “exclusive” submission, meaning I could not send the proposal to anybody else until she had the chance to review it.

It took her a whopping 9 weeks to look it over and send me a [very nicely worded] rejection letter.

Now I know these folks are busy, but if they all expect me to wait 2-3 months to get told “thanks, but no thanks”… and do it ONE AT A TIME…then I can understand why self publishing has garnered such an appeal. I hate to wait. I hate rejection. Combine the two, and I’m not likely to dance to this tune much longer.

My next step? Well you can rest assured I’m not waiting around for 4 more months to hear “nope” from one self-proclaimed expert. I’m going right to the horse’s mouth. I’m mass-submitting my book proposal to a ton of publishers, literary agents, and whoever else will listen…all at once. Then, after say 4-6 months, if I have not gotten any real interest and traction, I’m publishing this puppy myself.

I feel too strongly about the issues I speak of in my book, and have worked too damn hard for it all to end up as a pile of papers in my desk drawer.

Not going to happen.