Guest blog post by Esther Chilton

Hi peeps, I hope that you are all doing well. Today I have a guest blogger joining me, Esther Chilton. She is an author and writing tutor and her new book is out now. I will be writing a review about it next week but today, Esther will tell us a bit about the book.

First of all, I’d like to say a massive thank you to Sarah who has invited me over to her blog to tell you a little bit about my new book. It’s called Publication Guaranteed (Well, Almost!) and I’ve written it to help writers become published – regularly! Topics included are readers’ letters, fillers, articles, short stories and writing for competitions.

Inside the book, you’ll find information on market research, how to set your work out and send it, as well as lots of useful tips, examples and writing exercises to give you ideas and build on your writing skills with the aim of publishing your work.

I’ve been writing for over twenty years and have been fortunate to have had many pieces of writing published. I’ve also been a Writers Bureau tutor for over ten years and have my own editing service. I started out with a lot to learn and if I can do it, so can you!

Here is an extract from the book on the subject of rejection:

Rejection is part and parcel of a writer’s life. I could paper my whole house with the rejection letters I’ve had over the years! Yes, it stings when you receive a rejection. That precious piece of work you’ve spent hours lovingly nurturing isn’t good enough. However, it may have been. No, I’m not contradicting myself. That rejection could be for all sorts of reasons e.g. the editor thought your article was superbly written, but because they’ve recently accepted an article on the same topic you’ve written about, they can’t publish another one. Or the editor might have loved the filler you’ve sent for a specific slot, only they’re changing that slot.

On the other hand, perhaps it isn’t quite right. It happens to us all. One of my writer friends has had thousands of articles published and his success rate is about 50%. You’re not going to get it right every time. But the more time you spend agonising over the rejected piece, the less time you have in writing something else. Move on to the next piece of writing – you may get that spot on. Don’t linger too long on rejection. Use it to spur you on to acceptance.