I was having an online conversation today that made me reiterate one of the fundamental rules of selling your fiction—Never reject your own story. That’s the editor’s job. Too many times a writer will look at a story and decide one of three things:
A, this is a disaster and I can’t send it out.
B, this story isn’t the right sort of story for ________ (fill in the high end market of your choice).
C, this story is perfect for __________ (fill in the low end market of your choice).
In all three cases, the story never makes it to whatever is the writer’s dream market, thus guaranteeing that it will never be published there. But, for the cost of postage and a little time the writer could give the editor the chance to do the job of rejecting the story if it doesn’t work for them, or maybe, just maybe, buying that story.
Look at it this way:
When a writer pre-jects a story for an editor:
—The worst case scenario is that they don’t sell to dream market x.
—The best case scenario is also that they don’t sell to dream market x.
When a writer lets the editor make the decision:
—The worst case scenario is that they don’t sell to dream market x.
—The best case scenario is that they do sell to dream market x.
Never reject your own story.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Sept 18th 2006—original comments may be found there. Reposted as part of the reblogging project)