Perhaps you have heard of the horror stories associated with rejection slips and have put off submitting your works for calls, contests and shows. Or, maybe, you have had the unfortunate experience of receiving one or several rejections and now have a reluctance or even a fear of being rejected once again.

Usually the only advice you will receive is try, try again. Albeit good advice and certainly should be followed, it does nothing to handle the fear of rejection. Not to mention the fact that the more a person dwells on a subject, the more it becomes a reality – so if you are concerned about being rejected to the point of being fearful about each submission, you may receive exactly what you don’t want.

Trying not to think about it or attempting to be hopeful about the outcome can only take you so far. When you have a fear of rejection, the best method to handle it is by increasing your knowledge and by increasing your professional presentation.

You may wonder what increasing your knowledge has to do with fear of rejection. The truth of the matter is that submissions go to companies that are in the business of making money off of creative individuals. If the company sees that your creations will be sellable within their niche market, you will more than likely receive an acceptance slip instead of that feared slip called the rejection letter.

So, instead of shaking in your boots about the fear of rejection, do some homework to find out what niches would be appropriate for your artistic creations and then find companies within that niche to submit to. Searching the internet, the local library and book stores for companies to submit to can be of benefit to making the fear of rejection disappear.

The second method of increasing your chances of experiencing joy of acceptance instead of fear of rejection is to work on your presentation – both of yourself and the method in which you present your works to be considered. Think about it, which of the following do you think will grab attention: plain papers stapled together and a business card attached with a paper clip or a presentation binder that has graphics on the cover (perhaps a professional picture of yourself), a business card on the inside front cover and the submission neatly bound?

Apply the tips above so that you can replace the fear of rejection with the joy of acceptance.