Recently, I wrote an article about three 19th century inventors's quest to create a wireless telegraph to communicate with moving trains and sent copies to two magazine editors. It took about a month, but the first sent back a "Thanks, but no thanks" rejection letter. The second editor wrote back with a "Good idea, but start over" response.
I immediately sat down at the keyboard and rewrote the article according to the outline suggested by the second editor. After I finished, and had a few colleagues read it, I sent the new manuscript back. The editor responded with a kind note and a contract for publication at an acceptable fee.
Meanwhile, I had an article on Alexander Graham Bell's Photophone, a wireless telephone that used sound to modulate a beam of light, which some claim was the precursor to fiber optics. This manuscript had been languishing in the hands of a third editor, from a stuffy academic journal, for three months. I wrote a query letter to the first magazine editor in which I thanked him for the kind review of my prior submission, mentioned that his competition had purchased it, and asked if he would like to see my piece on the Photophone.
He wrote back and said yes. So I put that manuscript into commercial form, mainly a task of removing footnotes and rewriting the introduction and conclusion, and submitted it. After a few weeks, I received a letter of acceptance and a contract for publication at a fee larger than the one for the first article.
So I wrote the third editor and asked him to withdraw my manuscript because it was going to be published elsewhere. Later, I ran into this editor at a conference, and he mentioned that his journal was publishing a special issue on radio technology next year. He asked me to write an introductory article for this issue on the early history of wireless.
I just happened to have one in the works about five inventors who devised the technology we now call radio at the same time, and why only one succeeded in finding a market for it. This in turn led to a Smithsonian Fellowship to continue my research, which improved the manuscript to the point that the third editor said "Yes." Unfortunately, academic journals don't pay authors, but you need some publications like this for promotion consideration as a college professor.
In the meantime, I discovered a fourth publication whose editor is in the market for material like this. My first article for him went through seven revisions before publication. He now has two more manuscipts of mine. Stay tuned.
What's the point here? There are several lessons. First, you have to find a market for whatever you write, and that's not always easy. I go about it backwards by writing about topics that interest me, then trying to match them up with a publication. If I were writing for a living instead of a pastime, I would learn what the market wanted then produce it.
Second, you have to understand rejection in the context of the sales process. To a salesperson, "No" means "Not today," and "Yes, but…" means, "Yes." Also being flexible and having more than one solution for the customer's problems are time-honored sales techniques. That means you must be working on several writing projects at the same time.
Third, no matter how well you write, someone is going to change what you do before it's published. That's the nature of the editorial process. Hopefully, you will work with skillful editors who improve your work, but be prepared to see your name on stuff that bears no more resemblance to the original manuscript than hypocrisy to holiness. Editors establish the boundaries of the playing field, and serve as the referees during the game.
Finally, in order to be successful as a writer, you have to realize that finishing a manuscript is only the first step in a lengthy mediated process. So get on with it.
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