How to cope with query rejections (without giving up)

Let’s be honest. Rejection hurts.

Especially when it’s rejection for something you’ve poured your heart, caffeine, and late-night sanity into. You send out your carefully polished query letter, maybe the best version you’ve ever written, and you wait. You check your inbox too many times. And then it comes: “Thank you for submitting, but this isn’t quite right for my list.”

Cue: soul deflation.

But here’s the truth, most every writer who’s ever been published has been here. Some more times than they can count. Coping with rejection isn’t about being bulletproof. It’s about learning how to take the hit, process it, and get back to writing without losing that spark that made you start in the first place.

Now, I'm no expert here. I'm in the query trenches myself and certainly have my days of "why do I bother". But with many years of experience of life coaching and NLP it's interesting to bring some of that into the querying world.

So let’s break it down and talk honestly about how to cope when the “no thank you's” start rolling in.

1. It’s ok to feel disappointed

You’re human. You’ve just been told “no” about something deeply personal. Of course it stings. You might even start spiralling through all those unhelpful thoughts: maybe I’m not good enough, maybe this was a stupid dream, maybe I should’ve gone into accountancy.

Stop. Take a breath. And let yourself feel it for a bit.

It’s perfectly fine to sulk, rant, mope, eat chocolate, or scroll aimlessly for a while. Give yourself permission to have the emotional reaction. It’s natural. Just don’t unpack and live there.

A useful trick is to give your disappointment a time limit. Say to yourself, “I’ll feel sorry for myself until Sunday. Monday morning, I’m back to work.” It sounds simple, but that small boundary stops the sadness from stretching into weeks of inertia.

You can even make a small ritual of it. Go for a walk. Burn a candle. Have a drink with a friend who gets it. Then draw a mental line and move on.

2. Don’t take it personally (This is a tough one)

The hardest part of a rejection is that it feels like they’re rejecting you. Your story. Your imagination. Your entire worth as a writer. But in almost every case, they’re not.

Agents reject for a million reasons. Timing. Market saturation. Office politics. The fact they already represent something too similar. Or maybe they’re just not connecting emotionally with your style. Sometimes, honestly, they’re having a bad day.

That’s not about you. It’s about fit.

Imagine you’re a musician auditioning for a band. You might be brilliant, but if they’re looking for a drummer and you play saxophone, you’re not getting in. That’s not failure, it’s simply a mismatch.

So try not to turn rejection into a reflection of your ability. It isn’t. You could be only one agent away from that “yes”.

3. Learn what you can (and let go of the rest)

If an agent gives you feedback, and not all will, read it carefully. Resist the urge to defend yourself. Feedback is data, not an insult. Even a single sentence like “The pacing didn’t hook me” can be gold dust.

Ask yourself: is this a one-off opinion, or a recurring theme? If several people mention the same issue, take it seriously. If it’s just one person’s comment, weigh it lightly.

Sometimes, rejections don’t come with feedback at all, which is frustrating. In that case, look at your materials with fresh eyes. Does your query really capture your book’s tone? Does it hook the reader straight away? Are you pitching to the right agents?

It can also help to get a second opinion. Share your query with a trusted writer friend or beta reader. We all miss things in our own work, especially after staring at it for months.

The key is to treat rejection as information, not condemnation. Learn what you can, bin the rest, and keep moving.

4. Stay busy between submissions

One of the worst things you can do after sending out queries is sit around waiting. That way lies madness.

Instead, work on something new. Maybe it’s another novel. Maybe short stories or poems. Maybe it’s a complete change of pace, a weird side project that reminds you writing can still be fun.

Not only does this distract your brain from obsessing over your inbox, it also builds momentum. You’ll feel like a working writer, not just a waiting writer.

Plus, if your next book ends up being the one that gets picked up, you’ll thank yourself for not wasting months staring at Gmail.

So keep creating. Keep your hands busy. Don’t let rejection be the full stop in your story.

5. Celebrate small wins (Seriously)

Writers can be terrible at celebrating themselves. We move the goalposts constantly. Finish a draft? Great. Now it’s all about editing. Send a query? Fine. Now it’s about responses. Get a full request? Wonderful. Now you’re stressed about whether they’ll sign you.

Stop. Take a second to acknowledge what you’ve already done. Most people never finish a novel, let alone send it out into the world. You did. That’s huge.

Every small victory deserves recognition, a glass of gin, a slice of cake, a happy dance, whatever works. Celebrating progress keeps your motivation alive. It reminds you that this is a journey, and every step forward counts.

6. Manage your mindset (The real game-changer)

Let’s talk honestly about mindset, because this is where most writers either survive or crumble.

The emotional side of querying is brutal. You’re exposing something personal and creative to strangers who hold your dreams in their inbox. It’s very easy to start equating rejection with failure, and failure with “I’m not good enough.”

But here’s the thing: mindset is the only part of this process you can fully control. You can’t make an agent say yes. You can’t make the market shift. But you can control how you respond to each rejection.

Start by reframing rejection as proof that you’re doing the work. Every “no” means you’re in the game. You’re trying. You’re showing up. That alone puts you ahead of 90% of people who only talk about writing.

Also, watch how you talk to yourself. If your internal monologue sounds like, “I’ll never make it, I’m wasting my time,” you’re building your own walls. Replace that with, “This hurts, but I’m learning,” or, “This was just one person’s taste.” You don’t need toxic positivity, just self-compassion.

Create routines that keep you grounded. Go for walks. Journal. Connect with non-writing friends who can help you zoom out. Remember that life exists beyond the inbox.

And maybe most importantly, keep your sense of curiosity. Every rejection is another data point, another small piece of information about what’s working or not. Stay curious rather than crushed. “What can I learn from this?” is a far more powerful question than “Why am I not good enough?”

Your mental resilience is your best long-term tool. Books get rejected. Projects stall. Markets change. But writers who manage their mindset keep going, and those are the ones who eventually succeed.

7. Know when to pivot (Without giving up)

Sometimes, after dozens of rejections, you have to pause and reassess. Not because you’ve failed, but because you’ve gathered enough data to make smarter decisions.

Maybe your query needs a rewrite. Maybe your opening chapters need a stronger hook.

Or maybe, and this one’s tricky, the book you’re querying isn’t the one. And that’s ok. Plenty of authors sold their second or third manuscript first.

Knowing when to pivot is not quitting. It’s adapting. It’s strategic.

If you’ve genuinely taken your book as far as you can, it might be time to look at other paths, smaller presses, independent publishers, or even self-publishing. The industry has never had more ways to reach readers.

Or maybe you put the book aside for now and start something new. Often, the act of writing another project clarifies what went wrong with the first. Then you can come back to it later, stronger, wiser, and with less emotional baggage.

The key is to keep moving. There’s no expiry date on becoming an author.

The bottom line

Rejection isn’t the enemy. Paralysis is. As long as you keep learning, adjusting, and creating, you’re still moving towards your goal.

So the next time that “unfortunately” email arrives, remember: it’s not the end of your story. It’s just another beat in the plot. Every rejection is a nudge toward the right match, the agent who gets your voice and your vision.

And when that happens, all the “no thank you's” will blur into background noise behind the one “yes” that matters.

Keep writing. Keep querying. Keep believing.

You’ve got this.

p.s. now I've written this blog post I need to read it myself and follow the ideas. The query trenches are a tough place to be.