Have just received my first rejection letter!

[siucra]

And now I have to wait as the rest trickle in. Gah! Must be brave and keep going. Anyone in same boat or advice?
I have written a novel for teenagers. Maybe it's useless. I have no idea.
Thought about paying for someone to read it and then at least I know OFFICIALLY it's crap. I was really enjoying my secret fantasy about being a writer. Sigh.

Come on, you know many top writers had their share of rejections. Well done you for managing to write a book - what a fantastic achievement.

If the worst comes to the worst you could always go down the self-publishing route, like a lot of authors of Kindle books. It could catch on from there?

What kind of book is it? Is it one of these dystopian SF books for teenagers that seem to be in now, or more general?

Thanks Nadia! Yes I know rejection is all part of it. And I am philosophical! Bollocks though! It's not SF dystopia, more conventional with some time travel thrown in!
Upwards and upwards!

Are you looking for beta readers siucra, an agent or a publisher?

I could maybe hook you up with some folk; just a suggestion.

Just agents 2Retts. I don't know what beta readers are but would love advice. Thanks so much.

Just wanted to say, congratulations on finishing writing a novel and getting it out there. That is so much more than many achieve. You must be really pleased with the achievement putting the rejection letter to one side

My mum sent out her cartoons for publishing- they are seriously brill, anyone who sees them is impressed, and she got rejected. She's still got a great eye for line and colour, she's still as talented. Keep heart :)

Keep your hopes alive.

Some very famous writers had heaps of rejections before they struck gold!

Yeah, wasn't Huckleberry Finn rejected a lot!

And Harry Potter of course....

And if all else fails, self publish to ebook!
That said, please do make sure the spelling and grammar are impeccable first. I'm sure they are, but the number of times I almost buy an ebook but then see a couple of reviews saying that it "needs an editor" or "spelling/grammatical errors galore" and it really is offputting.
I've noticed lots of new authors publishing as chapters or episodes recently too, on Kindle. I am quite happy to pay 77p a fortnight for the "next thrilling installment" so to speak and get a taste of the author's work and style, and then, if they are good, will happily pay for the sequel/next book all in one.
It seems to be the way forward for new authors, to build up that fan base and get the reviews coming in nowadays, and is much more fun than just having to pick a book to buy once a month or two, for us poor cash-strapped book addicts too
I also love that a lot of newer authors have FB/web pages and one can actually interact with the author themselves and other fans, so that might be worth thinking about once your work is out there.
There is nothing so thrilling as a Real Live Author replying to my post saying "oooo great idea" and then whatever it was appearing in their next book