You’ve spent several grueling months on your manuscript, spell checking, making revision after frustrating revision, getting the formatting down. You have checked everything over and over, caring for it like a baby because it IS your baby, and you want it to make the best impression that it can. It is your dream, something that you have shed blood, sweat and tears for because you believe in it so much and, just when you think the difficult part is finally over, it is time to start submitting it to the agents and publishers.

“This will be easy,” you tell yourself, certain that they will recognize the fruits of your agonizing labor. “Surely they will see what a hit this one is,” you say. How could they not after so much effort? You are excited by what could be, the possibility of your masterpiece being nationally read, the next big thing. Your book could be a New York Times Bestseller! It could be on the silver screen!

Patiently, you wait for the emails praising your work and requesting your full manuscript. The first agent finally responds, only to say something along the lines of it isn’t what they are looking for, then another responds to tell you that it simply isn’t a good fit. The blatant rejection is a dagger to your abdomen – the worst form of rejection you’ve ever felt that truly makes you question your abilities as an author and urges you to give up. You begin to question your value as a writer.

“What if they are right and I’m just not good enough?” You ponder with sadness. Eventually, you recover and start to regain your confidence, deciding that those were only the opinions of a couple, that believe in your work as much as you do, so your keep submitting with renewed hope, convinced that your publisher is out there, waiting. You know your manuscript only needs to fall into the right hands. When more rejections follow, it destroys you, along with your self-esteem, and you begin to question everything.

I know. I’ve been there, but here is where the gut check happens. Here is where your decisions truly define you. It’s easy to doubt yourself. We are all our biggest critics, right? For some, this is the final word in their writing journeys. The agents told them they weren’t good enough and it was gospel. It is a gut-check moment, and a defining decision was made. Then there are those who simply won’t take no for an answer. They are unable to accept an agent’s rejection because there is a hunger inside. Writing is not only their passion but their breath, and they have to do it under any circumstance. They don’t do it for others but for themselves. These authors don’t write for money or valor. They write to let out the words that live inside of them. They write to offer an escape to their readers. It doesn’t matter to them what an agent says because the story still needs to be told. Once again, a gut check moment and a defining decision.

It is so important to understand that even the best-selling and most popular novels have suffered rejection, superstar books like Harry Potter (I’ll bet those agents kick themselves today for passing on it). There are plenty of self-published books, downed by literary agents, that become best-sellers because the authors refused to take no for an answer.

Believing in yourself and your abilities is imperative, in spite of those rejections. The agents don’t decide your value. Sure, they can boost your books to find you a publisher, but even that doesn’t guarantee you success. No one will fight harder for you than you, so use that powerful spirit to know that you are enough and your story deserves to be told.