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Lesson #1 – Persistence pays

1. Persistence pays.
There were 33 publishers and a similar number of agents that either rejected my novel or didn’t respond by the time my book was accepted for publication. If I had let that bother me, I would not have gotten published.

Every publisher and agent has their requirements for submission. These are things like a certain number of words, page length, margins, headers and footers, font, spacing, etc. Every one is different, and if I didn’t get it right, the book would be immediately rejected. I could spend multiple hours on one submission. To spend that much time and then have it be for nothing is something I didn’t dwell on.

What I measured were the number of submissions I got done and their quality. Whether the people on the other end liked what they saw was not up to me.  I did a good enough job not to get my submission immediately thrown into the trash. Each submission was a step toward my goal.

Toward the end, I was getting very good at the process of submitting, and my submissions were getting better. I had to stay in the game long enough to improve.

There’s also a degree of luck. Luck is enabled by showing up. If I hadn’t shown up one day and sent the last submission, I’d still be posting rejection letters.

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