The life of a creative entrepreneur is one of gig work. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “gig economy.” For workers in many industry, this gig economy is a totally new thing. In decades past, engineers and computer programmers used to always work as employees of a company. They didn’t have to jump from project to project on their own. My grandfather worked for the same textile manufacturing company his entire working career. He even lived in a town built by and named after that company! But that has never been the case for creative entrepreneurs. Even Shakespeare had to continually be writing new plays, hoping that his next project would be as successful as the last. Paganini had to keep writing music and playing concerts in new places. Picasso had to keep painting more paintings. But no creative lands every gig every time. Sometimes, we don’t get the gig, or the release flops, or no one buys. When Moby-Dick flopped upon its release, Herman Melville immediately stopped attempting to write big, ambitious books, and not long after, he eventually stopped writing forever. Melville’s reaction to “not getting the gig” was to allow the rejection and disappointment to swallow him to the point that he left his creative industry. I don’t want that for you. I want you to have a thriving, satisfying, delightful creative business and creative career for years to come. So today, we’re going to talk about how to handle the rejection that is part and parcel of living and working as an artist. Let’s figure out what to do when you don’t get the gig.

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Hello, thriving artist, and welcome to the Starving Artist No More podcast. I’m creative entrepreneur and creative entrepreneurship coach Jennifer Jill Araya, and I am so excited to be here with you today for this episode of the podcast. Every artist has times when they don’t get the gig they really wanted, or they don’t land the audition for that part that was just perfect for them, or they submit the very best of what they can do to an agent or manager or editor, and the answer comes back as a “no.” In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what you can do when those moments happen in your career, how to deal with the disappointment and find anew your creative joy. It’s not an easy task, but it is possible.

Before we go any deeper into that discussion, however, I want to make sure that you know about the next cohort of my group workshop! The workshop is titled, “Taming the Muse: Building a Creative Business that Works,” and it’s all about how you, dear listener, can build the kind of business that supports you and fulfills you personally, creatively, and financially. This next session is starting in July, coming up very soon, and it will go all the way through September. And during these three months, everyone in the workshop will grow and learn and evolve together as creative entrepreneurs, and as artists, and as people. It’s been an incredible joy watching past workshop participants take the work they do in this workshop, and the knowledge they’ve gained, to make incredible changes to their lives and businesses, and to undergo intentional growth as artists, as a result. This is the last time I’m going to offer this group workshop in 2023, and registration is limited, so if you’re even a little bit interested in participating, check out the details on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. I can’t wait to help you build the business of your dreams.

On the other hand, if you’re listening to this episode long after it’s released, and this workshop session is already past, or if registration is already full, I still encourage you to visit my website. I will always keep it up to date with any learning opportunities I have available, so who knows, maybe the exact workshop or course you’ve been looking for is ready and waiting for you. That was www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

And now, after that little news bulletin, let’s turn to our main topic for the day: what to do when you don’t get the gig.

Right off the bat, I have to acknowledge the reality: facing rejection is hard. As creative entrepreneurs, we pour our heart and soul into the work that we do, and when other people say, “I don’t want that,” it sometimes feels like they’re saying, “I don’t want you.” Learning how to think about those inevitable instances when the job goes to someone else instead of to us is vital to surviving in your work as an artist over the long term.

And that’s exactly where I want to start: talking about how you should think about these times in your artistic work. If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, or ever worked with me directly, you’ll know that mindset is almost always where I start. How we understand the world is based in how we view the world, and if our mindset isn’t one that supports and uplifts us and bolsters our creativity, then our understanding of the world is going to hold us back.

So, how should we think about, understand, process rejection? What is the right mindset to take when the job doesn’t go your way?

My first reaction when I don’t get the gig is to allow myself a moment to feel sad or disappointed, or whatever I’m going to feel about the fact that this project I really wanted and that I know from the depth of my soul I could have done really well went to someone else. The reality is that when I don’t get the gig I wanted, it is disappointing. I can have the most positive mindset in the world, and I can know all the amazing things I’m going to tell you in the next 20 minutes of this episode, and I can also still be disappointed that this audition didn’t go my way. All of those things can be true. If you receive a rejection, a notice that the casting director “decided to go in another direction” (the most frustrating six words on the planet, in my opinion), don’t immediately brush off the sadness, frustration, or disappointment. However you feel about the situation, it is a valid emotion. Let yourself feel it.

And then, let yourself move on from that feeling. Don’t stay there. Yes, the emotion is valid. Absolutely it’s valid! But it doesn’t mean that it is helpful. Acknowledge the reality of the situation, which is that it hurts, and then move yourself on to something that will help you move forward rather than staying stuck.

I have three frameworks I really love to use when I’m thinking about the gigs I didn’t get. First, I remind myself that doing the work is the win. A recent story from the world of basketball sums up this reality really well. A few months ago, on April 26, the Milwaukee Bucks lost in an upset to the Miami Heat. The Bucks were favored to win, but the loss eliminated them from the playoffs, ending their season. Talk about a huge disappointment! After the game, power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo fielded a question from a reporter asking if he considered the past season a failure. And his response was simple: “There’s no failure in sports.”

Let that sink in for a moment. After facing a season-ending loss, a loss they weren’t expecting to experience – remember they were favored to win, the star player told reporters not only that this game wasn’t a failure, but that failure itself isn’t possible in sports.

Talk about a positive, supportive, helpful mindset! Antetokounmpo acknowledged that he and the rest of his team did the best they could in the moment. Did they make mistakes? Yes. Could they have done better in the abstract? Yes. Did they do the best they could at the time? Also yes. And with all those yes’s, how could the game possibly be a failure? The answer: it can’t.

The same is true for you. Yes, you make mistakes, probably more often than you’d like. Yes, you sometimes wish the audition had turned out differently or that you’d been able to make a few more tweaks before submitting your portfolio, or that you’d made different creative choices. But it’s also important to recognize that you did the best that you could at the time, and that doing the work is the win. When you don't get job after submitting your audition, or when the casting director you so wanted to work with doesn't reply to your reach-out (or does reply but doesn't end up hiring you), that is not a failure. There were steps to it. You're taking the steps, and you're doing the work. There is no failure in creative entrepreneurship. Doing the work is always a win, regardless of the outcome.

The second framework I like to use as I’m helping myself process and move past any sadness and disappointment I feel as a result of a gig not coming my way is an old saying that you’ve probably heard before: “Auditioning is the job.” Auditioning is the job. When I get a gig, that’s a bonus! Auditioning is actually my job.

This is true in any creative industry, even if you’re not actually “auditioning” to get your work. If you’re an author, submitting manuscripts to agents and editors is the job. If you’re an artisan, posting items to your website or to your sales platform is the job. If you’re a painter, submitting to galleries is your job.

Your #1 task, your only task, within your creative business is the act of tossing your hat in the ring. It’s making sure that you’re being considered, that your work is being discussed in the rooms where the decision is being made. That is what you can control. Whether or not you’re actually hired? Not something you have any control over whatsoever. But you can control whether or not you’re one of the artists being considered by the people who do control whether or not you’re hired. Focusing on what you can control is always the way to go.

Sarah Beth Goer, one of my good friends and a fellow audiobook narrator, recently gave me a beautiful analogy that has been helping me remember that auditioning is the job. If you want to hear her describe it in her own words, you should check out Episode 8 of the Crafting Audiobooks podcast, which is the podcast that Sarah and I host together, and I’ll link that episode in the show notes. But for now, I’m going to paraphrase Sarah’s beautiful analogy.

Sarah said that she thinks of auditioning (and remember, auditioning is the job, so this really means that she thinks of her job) like getting samples of ice cream at an ice cream shop. Every audition is a delightful little taste of an ice cream that might be right for her, that might become her very favorite ice cream flavor ever. Who doesn’t love sampling ice creams? I imagine this kind of like getting a flight of ice cream flavors, like you’d get a flight of whiskey or wine at a fancy restaurant. All those delectable little tastes are so very good, and so much fun! For Sarah, every audition that comes her way is a tiny little taste of a yummy flavor in a flight of ice cream.

And sure, every once in a while, the powers that be in that particular project will decide that Sarah gets to eat a whole cone of that flavor – that she gets the gig – but even if she doesn’t, she still got a taste. And a taste is still wonderful. Auditioning is the job. If you are doing the work, if you are submitting yourself, if you’re throwing your hat in the ring, you are doing the work. You’re getting to taste the flavors of ice cream. And doing the work is always a win.

The third mental model I use to help myself move forward after disappointment is to allow myself to trust that my audience is out there. If I stay true to my creative self, and if I keep throwing my hat into the ring with consistency, I will find my audience. My audience is out there. Your audience is out there. And persistence will allow you to find it.

I have three examples of this, all from the world of books. First, let’s look at Janae Marks. Marks is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author. She writes middle grade books, which are some of my favorite books to narrate, and while I’ve never narrated any of her work, I do love it. In an interview with writing coach Dan Blank (which I’ll link in the show notes), Marks shared that she queried more than 70 agents before she got one.

That is a lot of query letters that came back with rejections, or didn’t come back at all. When you read advice to authors about how to submit to agents, often the first step is to “create a list of your top ten agents” and then submit to them. Marks had to create that “top 10” list at least eight times before someone sent back a positive reply. That is a lot of rejection to endure. But because Marks kept going, because she trusted that her audience was out there, she’s now changing lives and touching readers around the world.

Cartoonist and author Mo Willems has a similar story. In early April, Willems was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (I’ll like that interview in the show notes), and in the conversation with Jimmy Fallon, Willems talked about his experience trying to get his first book published. He was taking his sample manuscript around to agents and publishers, who kept calling it “unusual.” But finally, he found someone who was willing to take a chance on his work and who told him, “Unusual is not pejorative.”

What a beautiful reminder to us as we’re facing rejection after rejection, like Willems and Marks did, like every artist or creative ever alive throughout all of history did. Unusual is not pejorative. Whatever your unusual work is, there is an audience out there for it. Be bold enough to be unusual, and be persistent enough to find the audience that is looking for exactly your brand of unusual.

The third example of finding your audience is less happy. I’ve talked about Herman Melville’s work before. Melville’s 1846 book, Typee, was a blockbuster success, or at least what was blockbuster at the time. It sold 16,320 copies. So when time came in 1851 to publish Moby-Dick, Melville, and everyone who worked with him, expected another home run. But that’s not what happened. Moby-Dick flopped. During Melville’s lifetime, the novel only sold 3,715 copies, less than a quarter the number of sales of his previous book. Yet I can say with absolute certainty that the audience for Moby-Dick was out there. Goodness, Moby-Dick is one of the novels that is always mentioned when someone gives a short list of contenders for the “great American novel.” I don’t know enough about book marketing, and especially not book marketing in the mid-1800s, to say what was wrong with the marketing for Moby-Dick. I don’t know what Melville or his publisher could have done differently. But I do know that the audience for this novel was out there – still is out there – and that they could have done something to help the book find that audience.

Unfortunately, Melville let the disappointment of Moby-Dick’s flop impact his career in the most catastrophic of ways. After Moby-Dick, Melville stopped writing for publication. No more sweeping, grand novels. And eventually, no more writing at all. The one gig that Melville didn’t get caused him to lay down his pen for good.

That doesn’t have to be you. Your audience is out there. Trust that truth, and be persistent enough to find it.

Now, I recognize that finding that audience often isn’t as simple as I just made it seem. Finding that audience can sometimes be really hard and take years of work and of constant throwing your hat into the ring. Having a good strategy while you’re doing that hard work is super important. After all, if your audience is watching ring C and you’re throwing your hat into ring A, you’re never going to be seen by the right audience. So let’s get practical and talk strategy. If my advice to you is to stay persistent and keep submitting, how do you do that?

The short answer is to make sure you are actively engaged in ongoing growth. Make sure your skills and your techniques and your style are evolving and growing constantly. Don’t ever rest on your laurels. Continue growing as an artist.

Active engagement in ongoing growth is one of my six components of a thriving creative business, and if you’re interested in learning more about the other five components, you can listen back to Episode 16 of this podcast, which is a deep dive into all of those components. But for now, let’s dig into ongoing growth and how it can help you find your audience.

Ongoing growth is anything you do to grow your skills as an artist. It includes things like taking classes, attending workshops, going to conferences, and participating in seminars, all of which cost money, but it also includes free or inexpensive things as well. You can study the work of your peers and of those who are notable in your industry. For me as an audiobook narrator, I can check audiobooks out of my public library and listen to them critically, with a focus on learning from the work of other audiobook narrators. I can read the reviews in AudioFile magazine and note what reviewers call out as being good or not so good. For actors, you can watch movies or TV shows – again, check them out from the library if even streaming services are outside your budget – and pay attention to the acting techniques and how effective the actors are (or aren’t) in their work. Spend time studying great works of art, which can be done via books if museum tickets are out of your budget. Visit art galleries in your area, which is often completely free. Listen to recordings by the musicians who inspire you.

Whether you’re engaging in growth activities that cost money or not, anything you do to grow your skills and nourish your creativity will help your work be that much better for the next submission. The next audition will improve just a bit over the last audition. The next query letter will be phrased just every so slightly differently to convey a more positive impression. The next portfolio submission will include a new sculpture that is an example of the best of yourself and that will speak to the viewer in a new way.

When you face rejection, when you don’t get the gig, dive back into learning. To be perfectly frank, if your skills aren’t where they need to be – if you’re offering a product that isn’t of the same high quality as that of your peers – you aren’t going to get the gig. They are. If you’re struggling to understand why you keep getting rejection after rejection, recommit to ongoing growth. As a creative business owner, part of your responsibility to yourself and your art is to continually improve your own skills so that you can better create and innovate in your artistic work. Ongoing growth fosters your ability to do your creative work. And that is always time and money well-spent.

I do want to address a reality that is all-to-often faced by the creatives I work with: they need money now. They have bills to pay that are due (or past due), and their creative business isn’t giving them what they need financially, and the rejections coming in are seriously impacting their ability to feed their family and keep a roof over their head. Sometimes there are practical matters that must be addressed. It’s all well and good to trust that your audience is out there and that you’ll eventually find it, and to submit your query letter to 74 different agents, but how do you pay the bills in the meantime?

If you need money right now, sometimes that means altering what you’re offering in the immediate term so that you can do the kind of work that you want to do in the long term. Sometimes that means accepting work that isn’t as creatively fulfilling because it’s financially fulfilling, while you’re working to be in a place where you can consistently land work that is both. Building a thriving business takes time. The marketing and networking work that you’re doing now in your business won’t bear fruit for at least three months, and sometimes not for six to nine months. Goodness, I once had an author reply to my email, in which I had told her that I wanted to narrate the audio version of her book, over three years after I sent it! The projects you are getting right now in your creative business are a result of the outreach work you did at least three months ago, more likely the work you did six to nine months ago. These things take time.

And in the meantime? While you’re waiting for your improved marketing and networking efforts to pay off? Take the work that does come. If the work that has your heart and soul isn’t what the market is buying in the short term, find ways to offer what it is buying in the short term. Yes, it might not be the work that lights you up inside, the work you always dreamed of doing, but it still pays the bills. It’ll keep the lights on long enough for that improved marketing and networking that you’re now doing to begin bearing fruit. You’re buying yourself enough longevity in your creative industry so that you’ll still be around, still creating and still making art and still persistently throwing your hat in the ring, when the time comes that the market is ready and does want the kind of work from you that most fulfills you creatively.

Do the work that is financially fulfilling right now, even if it’s not the most creatively fulfilling, so that you have time to gradually move your focus toward your Creative and Financial Sweet Spot. It is possible for you to eventually have a schedule full of projects that are in your sweet spot, but it takes time to get there. Do what it takes to stay in the game in the short term so that, in the long term, your audience has time to find you.

All of this boils down to a single action step, composed of two words: submit again. When you don’t get the gig, submit again. When the job you really wanted goes to your colleague, submit again. When you get a rejection notice, submit again. When you don’t hear anything back but just have to assume after weeks or months of waiting that the answer is no, submit again. Always and forever, submit again. Dan Blank says, “If you are struggling with your work, remember it only takes one person to change your life and get behind your work.” Keep throwing your hat in the ring. Submit again.

Thank you so much for your time with me today. I hope this episode gave you a bit of hope, a bit of practical advice about how to process the inevitable rejections that are part of life for every creative entrepreneur. Rejection will never be easy. It will never be enjoyable to find out that you didn’t get the gig. But you’re not helpless. There are very practical things you can do to help yourself process the disappointment and get back up again.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider subscribing to this podcast using your podcast platform of choice, and I also always appreciate ratings and reviews, especially on the Apple Podcasts platform. Subscriptions, ratings, and reviews are a big part of how new creative entrepreneurs learn about this little podcast. And if you know fellow artists who you think would be helped or encouraged on their journey by this episode, or any episode, please share this podcast with them. Sharing is caring! If you have questions or comments for me, or if you have any topics you’d like me to cover in future episodes, you can always reach out to me via my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. That’s also where you’ll find all the information you need if you’d like to work with me, either in a one-on-one setting or in one of my group workshops or seminars. The website has all the details! As always, a huge thank you to my husband, Arturo Araya, for handling the technical side of things for this podcast, making sure that the audio engineering of every episode is completed to perfection so that I sound good when you listen to me. And thank you, thriving artist, for joining me today. Rejection is hard, but it doesn’t have to kill your creativity. You can do something to help yourself get back up after the fall. When you don’t get the gig, adjust your mindset, commit to ongoing growth, and submit again. I can’t wait to see what you create.