Can a Rejection be Good News? What Tiered Rejection are and what to do about them
This article is for: Beginning and Intermediate Poets
When you are sending poems off to editors, making submissions may seem a pretty simple process:
You send some poems to a publication.
You wait a while (anything from one day to several months, depending on the publication).
They let you know if they want the poems or not.
Most of the time (95% or more) they will say no. Occasionally, one will say yes, and that’s a great feeling!
But it’s actually a bit more complicated than that, because:
In the world of submissions, there are actually different kinds of “No.”
And knowing how to tell what they are, and what they mean, is important for your journey towards publishing more poems, and eventually a book.
So in this article, I’m going to explain what a “tiered rejection” is, hy they matter, and how you should respond when you get one.
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When is a rejection not only a rejection?
Most rejections are polite, but impersonal and general.
Here’s an example:
Brian, thank you for sending us your work. We appreciate the chance to read it, but it's not right for us at this time.
Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep being awesome. And best of luck placing this elsewhere.
Sincerely, The Editors
This is a standard rejection, and it’s what you’ll receive most of the time.
It means just what you might think: on this occasion, the editors did not want your poems (or in this case, my poems!).
It doesn’t mean a whole lot more than that, as I explained a while back in this email, so don’t take it personally.
But sometimes, you might get a rejection that reads more like this:
Brian, thanks for sending this our way. We're going to pass on this submission, but we really enjoyed reading it, and we encourage you to send more work to us in the future.
This is not our standard rejection.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
The Editors
This is from the exact same journal as that first rejection note—but it’s clearly not the same message!
This is what we call a tiered rejection—when the editors indicate that they liked your poems and/or ask you to send more.
Why a tiered rejection is great news
Now, you might think that this is not all that important. After all, a tiered rejection is still a rejection!
But what it does mean is that the editors almost did want these poems.
In fact, they thought the poems were very, very close to being good enough, or possibly actually good enough, for their journal.
To make clear why this matters, let me briefly explain:
What the editor's end of the submissions process looks like.
There are two basic facts you should know about the world of journals and magazines:
They receive far more poems than they can print.
The vast majority of these poems are not useful to them—meaning, they’re either not very good, or they don’t fit with the journal’s aesthetic.
This in turn means that:
Editors (or rather, editorial teams) are always very busy. They barely have time to process the poems they get, and they’re certainly not looking for more work.
Editors passionately want to find good poems, so that can be proud of the work their journal prints—and they want this to happen both now and in the future.
So, most of the time, editors just want to reject poems in a way that means the least amount of work and effort for them.
But when they find a poet whose work they like, this is very precious to them. Even if they decide not to take that writer’s work this time, they hope that poet will send them more, because they very much want to ensure a steady flow of good poems in the future!
So that’s when they give you a tiered rejection. It really does mean they liked your work, and they really do want to see more of it.
Why would they take the time to respond more personally to you, if they didn’t? And why else would they beg you to send more poems, since they already get too many?
Another reason why a tiered rejection is a big deal is it actually means you did get accepted—sort of...
And this is because most journals run their editorial process in stages.
The first stage is a simple and fast reading to weed out the weakest material. Most poems are rejected at this stage.
The second stage is a closer reading of the poems that are left, looking for the strongest. Only a few poems are left after this round, and they’re all good!
However, there are probably still too many for the journal to print, so there will be a final winnowing, down to the poems that actually make it. In this stage, many strong poems will be rejected—maybe because they have a small flaw, or because they don’t seem quite to fit with the others.
If you get a tiered rejection, it means that you made it past stages one and two for sure. You might even have gotten a long way into the final winnowing.
In other words, the editors actually said “Yes” to your poems several times!
Unfortunately not quite the final Yes, but close.
How to recognize a tiered rejection
In a moment I’ll go over what to do with a tiered rejection, but first I just want to clarify what signals “tiered” rather than “standard.”
Generally, a tiered rejection will do some or all of these:
Say that they liked your work
Say you were close to being chosen
Mention poems by name that they liked
Encourage you to submit again.
Usually, it’s easy enough to see that you’ve got one.
However, some journals do have standard rejections that also sound quite enthusiastic—New England Review fooled me once!—so if you’re in any doubt, you can check on Rejection Wiki.
This website lists examples of standard and tiered rejections for a wide array of literary journals—just Search for the one you want.
What to do after getting a tiered rejection
So, to finish off, what does all this mean?
Celebrate your success
First of all, I think it’s important to treat tiered rejections as accomplishments, not failures.
Someone experienced liked your poems—a lot. The poems were among the very top slice of poems received by that editor. They very nearly got published.
All these are good reasons to be happy!
So though it’s understandable to be frustrated that you didn’t quite get that acceptance, I suggest that you try to see it as a boost for your confidence.
Over the past four years, I have had tiered rejections from:
Ploughshares
AGNI
Prairie Schooner
New Ohio Review
Beloit Poetry Journal
The Cortland Review
Alaska Quarterly Review
Magma (UK)
The Rialto (UK)
The Southern Review
Adroit Journal.
Actually, that’s not a full list, but those are the bigger ones.
Was I bummed that I didn’t actually get accepted into some of these, especially names like Ploughshares or Magma? Of course!
But looking back, is it frankly awesome to know that my poems were appreciated by some of the biggest literary journals out there? And that they asked me to send them more?
You bet it is! I see it as an endorsement of my writing and what I’m trying to do.
So I hope that, as you start to accumulate tiered rejections, you feel your confidence as a poet increase.
Send those same poems to other places
As great as it is to get a tiered rejection, you still want to get acceptances the most!
But the tiered rejection can still help with that, because it shows that these are strong poems, and someone, somewhere will accept them.
So again, don’t lick your wounds—instead, jump right back to Submittable and send those same poems to a bunch of new places.
Then you’ll soon also have some actual acceptances to go alongside your tiered rejections.
Submit again to that same journal that rejected you
In case it’s not obvious—definitely send more poems to the place that sent you the tiered rejection. They asked for more, so give it to them!
(And when you do that, mention their encouragement in your cover letter.)
If they still don’t say yes—just keep sending more!
However, I do have two caveats here:
If you don’t have other polished poems ready to send, don’t send work you know is weaker. They may have asked to see more of your poems, but they want more of your best poems! They won’t take any old thing. (Use your writers group or my Critique Service to check how strong your work is.)
You might not want to send work that’s very different from the poems that got the tiered rejection. The editors liked that other style or topic, but they might not care for this one!
For an example of the last point: my rejection from Prairie Schooner was for a group of poems that related to mental health, and I haven’t written any poems like that for a while. So I haven’t sent them any more yet—but if I do create some that are similar in tone or style, I absolutely will.
Tiered Rejections are a milestone on your poetry journey
Lastly, you might also think of the "tiered rejecton stage" as a waypoint showing your growth as a poet.
When you first start submitting, chances are you'll just get straight rejections—a lot of them!
That's OK, it happens to everyone.
But when you start to get the tiered rejections coming in too, then you know you've moved on. You're no longer a beginner, but someone who's making some really accomplished work. And from there, anything's possible—acceptances, chapbooks, books!
Next Steps: Keeping Track of Tiered Rejections
Because Tiered Rejections are so meaningful, it’s vital to keep good track of them.
If you record them in an organized way, it’s easier to know a)which poems have had this encouragement, and b) which journals you should prioritize again.
Here’s how you can do that.
Even if you haven’t had any yet, create a place that’s dedicated to logging Tiered Rejections.
What form this will take depends on how you like to keep organized.
—Myself, I have a database of journals that I have submitted to or am interested in. I record all my Tiered Rejections in this
—But a simple file on your computer would be just as good
—Or even a list on paper, if you really like the old ways!When you get a Tiered Rejection, write the following information into your records:
—The name of the journal.
—The date of the rejection
—The titles of any poems that the editors specifically praised
—Or, if the editors simply said they liked your submission as a whole, the titles of all the poems you sent them.
Then you can see at a glance who praised your poems, when they did so (the more recent, the better!), and which poems they liked.Also make a note of when this journal is open for submissions.
Keep this information in a place that’s easily accessible, because you’re going to look at it often.If the journal is open now, and you have more poems ready, submit them right away!
If the journal is not open, make yourself a reminder to submit again as soon as you can.
Find several more journals (maybe up to 10?) that seem similar to the one that rejected you, and as soon as you can, send these same poems to those editors.
Review your Tiered Rejection list often to remind yourself which journals should be your top targets, and when they are open. Then submit to them!
This way you will maximize the potential of your valuable Tiered Rejections.
