Dear Writer, Did You Know Editors See Your Private Messages?

Like, rejection from other publications

Have you ever dreamed of being naked in public? Submitting a rejected piece to another publication is a little bit like that. If you didn’t delete the rejection note, we can see what the other publication said.

Not the general public, of course. Your readers don’t see the private notes. But the editors do. But hey, no worries, there’s only 30 of us. So far.

Here, let me explain how this happens.

You write a story, and submit it to one of the “big” publications. You cross your fingers and hope. Finally, you get a notification that they left you a message.

Darn, drat and fooey, they rejected it. So you submit it to Illumination.

But guess what?

Editors can see private comments left by another editor. Even an editor from a different publication.

Unless you delete them first. And you can. At the bottom of every private note is a little “dismiss” link. Most writers don’t know. Or don’t bother.

So when you submit a rejected piece to Illumination, if you didn’t dismiss the private comment, the editors at Illumination see it.

We see what the rejection note said. We know why it was rejected.

Also? That we were your second choice. :(

Sometimes, editors reject great work…

We had a piece submitted to Illumination that was rejected from another publication. It got curated and got a ton of views!

Their loss, our gain. :)

Here’s a little secret about rejection. It’s mostly all taste. Sometimes, editors have a “feel” they’re looking for with their publication. You might have a great piece that’s just not what they’re looking for.

Other times, they’ve had so many submissions on a particular topic they don’t want to flood their feed with it. So they start rejecting based on what’s already in the feed. Who wants a page filled with the same topic?

It’s a crap shoot, mostly.

When we see a comment rejecting your post for those reasons, we get it. We see a rejection note that said “sorry, we have too much of that topic” or a similar reply — we know how that feels.

Editors are writers too, remember?

So we accept it. Unless we’re full up on that topic, too. In which case we let it sit a bit before publishing.

Sometimes, editors reject based on quality…

True story. We had a story submitted with 15 typos and no image credits. Know what the writer said? Sorry, I was rushing.

Don’t rush. Your work eventually becomes your reputation.

Is that who you want to be known as? The writer whose work is filled with typos? The writer who doesn’t know how to wrap up a story?

Even worse, the writer who forgot that a piece wasn’t even done and stops in the middle of the sentence? So the editor has to ask you to finish it? Yes, people do this stuff. Mind boggling, isn’t it?

Eventually people figure it out, and stop clicking. Not us. Your readers.

Some of the rejection comments (from other publications) we see speak loudly of quality. Like when they reference the amount of editing needed, or the number of typos.

You know what else? The politest rejection notes are the ones that should scream to you loudest. Like when a publication editor simply says: “We’re going to pass on this one, but please submit again.”

Editors are people, too. We don’t want to say “wow, that’s bad writing”

3 easy ways to improve your writing.

Because honestly, if you aren’t willing to pay a little attention to your writing, why should people pay the attention required to read it? If you don’t care, why should they?

Here’s 3 simple ways to improve your writing.

1. Don’t rush.

It’s not a contest. There’s not a quota and if there is, it’s in your head. One really well written piece that gets curated, clapped and shared can outperform ten lousy, rushed pieces.

2. Read it out loud.

Not even kidding. You’ll find the places you stumble. Readers will stumble there, too. Reading silently in your head won’t reveal those. Only reading out loud can do that.

3. Is this how you’d tell the story to a friend?

If you were telling a friend the story, is this how you’d tell it? Too often, writing sounds like writing. Make sense? If your writing sounds like writing, you need to fix it to sound like you’re talking to the reader.

P.S. And if you do get rejected at a big publication, don’t forget to “dismiss” the rejection note.

Illumination isn’t one of the biggest publications on Medium. Yet. But we are one of the fastest growing. 25K followers in 5 months. Who grows that fast? Well — we do, that’s who! And we intend to keep on growing!

Perfectly okay to date two people at the same time. But maybe not a good idea to repeatedly let one of them know they’re a backup you take for granted. Know what I mean?

It’s real easy. When you get rejected, dismiss the note before you submit to another publication.

More on writing…

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