Rejection: It Happens to the Best
6 August 2009
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I recently covered the topic of rejection, Are You Passionate and Excited Enough to Handle Rejection?

Today I want to list a few rejections received by some of the most famous and well-established authors in the industry–past and present.
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter was rejected 7 times before Beatrix self-published. One of the previous publishers, who had rejected the book, had a change of mind and is still selling the book today.
- Peyton Place by Grace Metalious received 14 rejections.
- Lust for Life by Irving Stone had 17 rejections, then went on to sell over 25 million copies.
- The cult classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert W. Pirsig was rejected 121 times.
- Pulitzer Prize winner Ironweed, by William Kennedy, was rejected 13 times.
For more famous rejections: http://susiesmith13.tripod.com/id12.html
The moral of the story is: Don’t give up. The one thing that sets a published author aside from a non-published author is persistence. This is the reason you have to be passionate enough and excited enough about your craft to keep trying.
Develop a thick skin and keep sending those submissions out!
image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myloonyland/349811110/
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