Lucky breaks and the rejection rollercoaster: Is getting traditionally published based on talent, hard work, or just plain luck?
“I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”
— Sylvia Plath
My daughter, Rowan, is the luckiest person I have ever known. Nothing ever seems to go wrong for her. Either that or I have never met anyone who has handled rejections as well as she does. (It’s like I always tell her: having a weird mother helps build good character.)
She recently made the Dean’s List after her first semester at Tufts University. This is not a humble mommy brag, or at least not entirely because I have a point! It relates to writers waiting for their lucky break and wondering how much luck plays a role in getting a publishing deal.
For those who have received multiple rejections from agents, editors, or publishers — riding the rejection rollercoaster, as I like to call it — it’s natural to wonder, “What are the odds my book will be published?” and “Why do I have such bad luck?”
Writers can’t help but feel luck has something to do with getting published because success as a writer can sometimes be based more on luck than just talent. Climbing Everest in goddam flip-flops can seem more bearable than having your manuscript rejected again and again.
My daughter didn’t land on the Dean’s List because of luck. She landed on the Dean’s List — an overall average of 90% or higher — because she worked and studied hard AF.
But she only had less than an 11% chance of getting into Tufts. Was she lucky to have gotten into her top choice?
Yes and no.
She had the grades, but interestingly, almost all the American colleges that accepted her application left out any mention about her grades in the interviews. (And, no, she didn’t get accepted everywhere she applied. But because she handles rejection so well — almost too well — those rejections were literally forgotten in less time it takes me to brush my teeth. She did not shed one tear!)
Like publishing, getting into your first-choice university or program is just as challenging and competitive. (I wrote about the insane competition to get into an elite high education in a piece called, “Do you want your kids to be happy or go to Harvard?” I suggest all parents who have kids preparing for their acceptances or rejections this year take a sec to read just how nuts the competition is nowadays!)
It was my daughter’s 300-word written essay that impressed these universities. She wrote about her love of backgammon (which is ironic because much has been written about luck vs. skill when it comes to this game). “When we read your words about your love of the game of backgammon and how you expanded that passion to many others, we hoped you would bring that passion to our campus,” was one written personal note she received from college — a college she didn’t end up attending.
When she was being interviewed by the president of another college, it turned out he loved playing backgammon too. During their 15-minute interview over Zoom, their mutual love of the game was all they talked about. (I was hiding under the desk in a ball to eavesdrop.) Her high-school grades or even why she wanted to attend the program/school were not mentioned at all! Not once. She was accepted there too.
But…but…but what if the president had no interest in backgammon? What if he was in a crap mood because he just spilled coffee on his new preppy sweater right before the interview? Would she have gotten in?
Ironically, much has been written about luck vs skill in backgammon. Backgammon enthusiasts agree that it is actually a game of skill and the more skill you have, the more likely you are to win. But only in the long run.
Although my daughter is an expert player, she has lost to beginners. With enough luck, just about anyone can win in a backgammon game. When you’re playing a game with dice, you need luck.
But it’s just that — that luck factor, the unpredictability of the dice — that makes backgammon fun. And players know this. They accept that losing to others who aren’t as skilled is all part of the game.
This holds true in publishing. Of course, the more work you pour into your manuscript and your query letter, the better your odds are of getting a traditional deal. But is it possible that your manuscript be turned down in favour of another writer, who’s perhaps a newbie and not as skilled? Totally.
The odds are still stacked against you to an incredible degree. The writing industry is so subjective and unpredictable, you just never know what could influence a person’s decision.
So, yes, a bit of luck doesn’t hurt. Whether you’re accepted or not can be based on completely arbitrary things. What if your manuscript landed on an editor’s desk the morning after their partner filed for divorce? What if an agent happened to be suffering from a migraine and decided to put your manuscript down until the next day, but then totally forgot? What if an agent’s assistant only read the first five pages of your book, but your writing really starts to shine on page six?
What if? What if? What if?
Editors and publishers at traditional houses receive approximately 5,000 fiction manuscripts a year. Most agree the odds of being published are only 1%-2%, and that most manuscripts are rejected upon reading the first few paragraphs. Some aren’t read at all!
I’ve heard multiple stories where an author was rejected, then submitted the exact same piece months later without changing anything, and got accepted.
It’s that subjective.
So, can you improve your odds of becoming an author, especially if your success as a writer is often based more on luck than on talent? Abso-fucking-lutely.
And if you believe that luck does play a factor in getting your book published, then allow yourself to take the pressure off a little. Go ahead and admit you just weren’t lucky.
That said…we have to see this for what it is. Believing that other published authors, who you deem have less talent, were just “lucky” is basically self-preservation: If we can blame bad luck, then we don’t have to blame ourselves.
Many years ago, I remember a news story about a wounded 35-year-old woman. She gave an interview from her hospital room in Tel Aviv. She had just survived her second bus bombing in less than a year. “I have no luck, or I have all the luck,” she told reporters. “I’m not sure which it is.”
In recent years, a number of studies have suggested that luck and opportunity may play a far greater role than we ever realized; of course talent matters, but the data suggests that we miss out on a really important piece of success if we only focus on personal characteristics in attempting to understand the determinants of success.
I believe in facts and science, but I’m superstitious like so many writers, which shows that in some ways, I must believe in luck. Here are some of the weird things that are more likely to happen than getting a book deal winning the lottery.
Fun Facts:
Your odds of dating a supermodel are 1 in 88,000
Your odds of being hit by lightning are 1 in 10 million
Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are 1 in 10,000
And now some fun facts about famous writers who road the rollercoaster ride of rejection:
Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: 144 rejections
Still Alice by Lisa Genova: about 100 rejections (or non-replies) from agents
The Help by Kathryn Stockett: 60 rejections from agents
I know, right?
“In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help,” Stockett has said. “But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60?”
The Help was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks and has sold over seven million copies. Was it luck or persistence?
In a 10-year study, Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor, concluded that, to a large extent, people made their own good fortune based on four basic principles:
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities.
They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition.
They create self-fulfilling prophecies via positive expectations.
They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
“Lucky people’s high expectations motivate them to persist, even when they don’t succeed,” Dr. Wiseman concluded.
So, why do writers hide their rejections from other writers? Or from friends and family, especially when rejection is normal for writers and authors?
Let me say that again: Rejection is N-O-R-M-A-L. All of us at some point get rejected — trust me, I’m much smarter than my dating history would lead you to believe! (Did you read my chapter on the multiple times I’ve been an accidental mistress?)
“For years I didn’t talk about my own rejection, putting up the front that every aspiring writer does. But I was steadily getting rejected from every creative writing MFA (Master of Fine Arts) I applied to, and then by dozens of agents,” said author Sophie Mackintosh. Her debut novel, The Water Cure, was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker prize.
“When I did get an agent, it was time for my first book (still unpublished) to be rejected unanimously by publishers, then rejected again by even more publishers a while later. When my next novel went on submission, I spent a lot of time having panic attacks in office toilets — until a first offer miraculously, came through. This kind of trajectory is normal. It’s often much worse. I just didn’t know,” Mackintosh says.
No one tells you that, as one writer said, they believe they had a greater chance of being mauled by a black bear AND a polar bear on the same day than getting an acceptance letter.
Many famous writers have writing superstitions, convinced that following them is the only way to get their thoughts flowing and produce great writing — including me, who believes that if anyone touches my computer, it will lead to writer’s block.
I also get a new computer every time I start a new book. (Yes, I realize how extra that is.) Also, I can’t write without my lucky bathrobe that’s more than 20 years old, a drawing my son made nearby, a very specific Swell bottle beside me, and a crystal bracelet on my wrist.
Other writers’ superstitions include starting books or novels on the same date every year, having rotten apples near them to smell for inspiration (I swear), lining up 12 pens perfectly on their desk, refusing to begin or end a piece of writing on a Friday, and not having the same initials for their characters as their friends. (Can we all agree now that writers ARE weird!)
All of these…let’s call them writing quirks, show that us writers must believe in some luck. Researchers have even found that having a customized pen can actually improve performance. (Does that work even if you’re typing?)
So, if you don’t have a lucky pen, consider getting one. And maybe some rotten apples?
Author Daniella Levy believes with 100% certainty that any author published by a traditional publishing house is not just lucky, they are EXTREMELY lucky. “This is one of the things that drives me crazy about success stories,” she said. “These people think it’s because they worked hard and survived all those rejections. And yes, hard work and resilience against rejections are absolutely necessary parts of the equation. But there are many, many people who have worked just as hard, or much harder, and survived much more rejection, and still never managed to land that traditional publisher.”
Another author also believes that traditionally published authors are lucky. “I spent three years promoting my books, and the latest one is no better than the others, in my opinion, so why is it selling so much better? Luck! I definitely didn’t do anything different. I was promoting six hours a day then just like I have been for this one.”
So, is the difference between those of us who’ve succeeded and those of us who haven’t based on hard work or luck?
If we chalk it up to luck when one author finds a publisher and another doesn’t, or when one author has a successful career and another doesn’t, then do we also believe that dozens of things had to line up just right for that “lucky” author to have such a career?
Let’s break down the factors:
The author wrote a great original story.
The author sent it to an agent who was searching for such a story.
The agent submitted it to a publishing house that happened to have a slot open for that genre and by chance also had no other similar books already published.
And so on…you get the idea.
Oh, and the cover design had to be spot on in order to attract the target audience, the book had to have a large enough print run to attract ample readers in retailers, not to mention be placed in the appropriate bookstores (both online and brick and mortar) for readers to actually find it, and the back matter/summary and inside cover reviews also play a factor, of course.
That’s a lot of luck! Then again, writer Rod Raglin asks, “So how do you become a bestselling author? You get lucky….success is less about talent and more about opportunity, plus it’s greatly influenced by accidents of time, birth, and place. In a word, luck.”
Yet, no one teaches us HOW to be rejected as we watch others say they got a “lucky break.”
The problem is how we look at lucky breaks or rejections. Hindsight is always 20/20. If I hadn’t been assigned to write a profile on Ken Whyte when I was 19 years old, would he have hired me when the National Post launched years later and he was the editor-in-chief? Probably not.
That said, it was my gut that told me to send him all the articles I had written, and this was before he landed editor-in-chief. After our interview, he would have probably forgotten that I existed. So, sure, it was lucky that I got to interview him. But it was me who continually sent him my articles for feedback.
“Luck,” the playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote, “is believing you’re lucky.” That’s a quality my daughter processes. She never believes she can’t accomplish anything.
Luck may put us in a better position, but we still need skills, dedication, and awareness to capitalize on them. So, keep these 10 things in mind to up your odds of getting published by a traditional publishing house.
10 ways to ride the re:jection rollercoaster (without getting nauseous!)
You must submit. The opposite is not to submit.
Rejections don’t predict the success of a book.
Luck does exist, but it favours people who capitalize on it.
Some writers suggest having a rejection goal. If you work that hard to get that many rejections, you’ll eventually get an acceptance.
Use rejection to identify where you can improve your writing.
Your writing may not be everybody’s cup of tea; your manuscript may be so unique that not every publishing house will be ready to take that risk. So, don’t take rejections personally.
Take a break! If you're recovering from rejection, it’s hard to motivate yourself to write right away. So take a few days or few weeks off.
Share your rejections with people you know who share your pain.
Network: You never know who you will meet that one day may be helpful
Remind yourself why you love writing, like backgammon players who know that part of the fun of playing IS the luck factor. Also, they enjoy it, even if they are more skilled and sometimes lose to beginners.
How much do you think luck plays a part in writing (or in life, for that matter)? We would love to hear your thoughts on this here.
Until next time,
Flip your hair and flip the page!
xoxo,
Rebecca F. Eckler (Trying something new! Apparently, the display of your middle initials increases positive evaluations of people’s intellectual capacities and achievements. Do you think of me differently now?)