Rejection: It Happens to the Best

I recently covered the topic of rejection, Are You Passionate and Excited Enough to Handle Rejection?

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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  1. [...] Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford (for example, Respect Your Readers and the contrarian post Give your writing a natural flow by combining sentences (We recommend Jonathan Vos Post: Raymond Chandler’s Hamlet not only for its excellent sentences, but because it’s funny. Especially if you like Shakespeare. Or mysteries. Maybe both). If you’re feeling discouraged, or someone you care about is, check out Rejection: It Happens to the Best. [...]

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