11 Famous Writers Who Were Rejected Before Making It Big

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Rejection and writing go hand-in-hand, but sometimes it feels that those pesky publishers simply don’t know what they are talking about.

Here’s eleven reasons writers might just be right after all…

  1. Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was turned down 29 times before she found a publisher.
  2. C.S. Lewis received over 800 rejections before he sold a single piece of writing.
  3. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by 25 publishers.
  4. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.
  5. Johathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 40 times.
  6. Louis L’Amour was rejected over 200 times before he sold any of his writing.
  7. The San Francisco Examiner turned down Rudyard Kipling’s submission in 1889 with the note, “I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.”
  8. An editor once told F. Scott Fitzgerald, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby Character.”
  9. The Dr. Seuss book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected for being “too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant selling.”
  10. George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected with the comment, “It’s impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”
  11. The manuscript for The Diary of Anne Frank received the editorial comment, “This girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity level.”

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Filed under Get Published, Publishers.

  • http://twitter.com/Jane_lou Jane

    A great post to remind us to keep going. Thanks.

  • David O’Connor Thompson

    Damn! And I was in a fantasy where people would write, ‘Can you believe DOT’s work was turned down six, yes, SIX times before he got published.’

    So I guess your advice is for wannabes to accumulate as many rejections as possible early on to hasten the eventual arrival of the acceptance letter. Perhaps I should be mailing out a hundred letters at a time.

  • Jackie Buxton

    Brilliant! Should be printed out and pasted above every submitting-wannabe-published-writer’s desk!

  • Suzannaenelson

    Shared. Thank you.
     

  • J.P. Lane

    If ever there were words of encouragement for us struggling authors, it’s that list. Thanks for sharing!

  • J.P. Lane

    If ever there were words of encouragement for struggling authors, it’s that list. Thanks for sharing!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ellis-Amburn/100000182862561 Ellis Amburn

    So true. Editors’ and publishers’ opinions, sometimes proferred as the gospel truth, are entirely subjective. The only opinion that should matter to any of us is our opinion of ourselves. The joy of writing is in the process, not the result. To expect satisfaction from publiction is a premeditated resentment.

  • http://twitter.com/thejimparker Jim Parker

    Greatly encouraging.  Thanks for sharing.

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  • http://www.RightLineEditing.com ChristineH

    ‘Twould be interesting to see the marketing plans and sales stats for each of those eleven. How much time was required for each to capture an audience and become a best-seller? And how did each become widely known?

    Is also a good heads-up for publishing professionals. Genuine gems are passed over due to haste, nescience, or lack of thoughtful consideration.

  • Snorris2

    Can’t leave out James Joyce’s novels as well! Rejected by all but a small-time book shop publisher in France!

  • Maria

    Think I’ll dust off my query letter tonight..

  • Sandraej95

    And just think about how many times Harry Potter was rejected.. 

  • http://www.naturalparentsnetwork.com Jennifer

    Some of these made me laugh out loud, and most made me feel very grateful these amazing authors didn’t give into the criticism but kept at it so we could all enjoy their writings!

  • http://twitter.com/BreatheDreamGo Mariellen Ward

    Don’t forget JK Rowling — Harry Potter was turned down by 17 publishers. Imagine how they feel now.

    • Vivi-dragon

      so true and look at her now shes one of the riches women in the world

      • Crowley

        I think she IS the richest woman in the world. Definitely the richest author.

        • Mdfbianchi

          Oprah is actually the richest woman in the world.

    • http://sorchaogle.wordpress.com/ nordie

      And the girl who did “find” her did it by sheer fluke. She was working in an agent’s office as an temp, didnt have anything to read one lunch time, asked if it was ok to go through the slush pile……and found this little book about some boy wizard.   Went back after lunch and told the agent to read the book. Rest as they say is history….

  • jj

    800 rejections! It takes an incredibly confident man to make it even half that far.

    • http://www.LifeAfterCaregiving.WordPress.com Linda Brendle

      It takes an incredibly resourceful man to find that many places to send submissions!

  • jj

    Also, I’d like to know how many times Twilight was rejected.

    • Nitti1985

      not enough

    • Junkadunk

      Twilight rejection letter would read: Please do not write anymore. If you choose to write. We beg you to stop wiping your ass with your keyboard, and create something more inspiring. We do not care for your sacrilegious depiction of a sparkly, pedophile fruitcake of a vampire. We would also like to ask you to refrain from capitalizing on young, easily swayed, and otherwise insecure teens. If we were to accept your verbal diarrhea, it would only be met with five conditions

      1. Remove high school from the setting. Japan has milked the high school stories into oblivion.
      2. Remove the insecure twat who has the fetish for old men that look and act like kids. e.g. PeeWee Herman with fangs.
      3. Turn “PeeWee” into a ravenous, bloodsucking fuck-head with an insatiable thirst for blood and 24-hour erection.
      4. Beg Bram Stoker for forgiveness, then proceed to impale yourself while praying to Vlad Tepes.
      5. Cut yourself open and look closely at the blood. See teen love in that? Neither should vampires.

      If you cannot meet these conditions, we urge you to take your story to other publishers, as they are in as much need of toilet paper as we.

      Thank you for submitting your steamy stack of shit-paper. We hope we did not upset you. However, if you would like. We can send your copy of “Sparkles: The pedophile vampire” to any rap label of your choosing. As we are confident you will be a big sucess! Good day madam.

      • donthateappreciate

        I think the point of this list in the first place was to show that whether or not someone likes a book is a very subjective thing.  So while I do respect the fact that you strongly dislike the Twilight series, keep in mind that lots of people enjoy the books.  I was personally not impressed either, but I do try to remember that what I appreciate, someone else probably couldn’t care less about and vice versa.  I would recommend trying to find something you can appreciate in everything.  Doing so allows me to learn much more from everything I experience.  If I were to focus on hating something, I might miss out on some pretty awesome parts of that thing.

        • imaginativeART

          yyyyeeaaa I tried appreciating something that others enjoyed, and I could not even get through half of that book.. it is complete rubbish and filled with horrible dialogue, characters that a fourth grader could come up with, and her writing is in desperate need of an English professor. Her writing is bland and leaves something to be desired.

          • Alena

            So why don’t you come up with something better? No one’s comparing Twilight/Stephanie Meyer to C.S Lewis or George Orwell, or any other author for that matter… her series did well with what it was supposed to do well with, preteen girls! Why can’t people just let it be?! 

      • Anastasiya Maslova

        Her audience was pre-teen and teenage girls so I think she
        wrote an amazing book considering it’s become such a hit among them.

         

        She’s not the greatest writer in the world – it’s obviously
        her first published work, the story is pretty dumb (again, if you’re not a
        teenage girl) and her characters aren’t very well developed. But, throughout
        her books, you go through a lot of emotions – good, bad, sad, sickening (who else has written about a vampire child clawing it’s way from your inside) – and I
        think that’s the main point of a book – to evoke emotions and for the readers
        to actually care for the characters in some way or another.

         

        What I commend her for is that it is the only series I have
        ever read which had a satisfying ending. She answered all the questions she
        posed throughout the four books (which is more than I can say for Rowling who
        put so many questions into the HP novels that by books 7, she abandoned all
        hope of answering most of them). She ended it perfectly – there is no need for
        a bunch of fake sequels or a look at “10 years from now”

        Have you actually read all the books and hated them? or did you see the poor and ridiculous movies that Hollywood produced – cuz they really need to fire the director and actors from any future productions of anything

        • http://twitter.com/Leofwine1 David Halle

          I only have one thing to say.

          The point of a book, at least a work of fiction, is to tell a story the emotions are a secondary point. If the book has a poor story it will generally fail even if it evokes strong emotions.

          • Alena

            $300 million dollars later…
            oh yes, the books “generally failed”. 
            By the way – no one’s asking you to read it, as you are not the target audience. The Twilight series did incredible, and I don’t see the point in people having this intense dislike for it. What’s the enjoyment from it? 

    • ImprobableMoose

      Most amusingly, it had I think it was 9 different publishers fighting over it and was published less than a year after she started writing it – which she did in under three months.  My sister and I have a theory that being rejected repeatedly actually shows you have original and interesting ideas that are probably way better than the crap that is churned out automatically.  The constant fixing and rewriting of books while they attempt to get published most likely gave these authors the chance to improve themselves and their writing.  Although, unlike with Twilight, they probably had decent ideas in the first place.

    • awkwardbrains

      not enough

    • Lynn

      From what I heard, it was around 13.

    • mandbear

      Twilight is successful because the masses don’t want smart or thought provoking. They want entertainment that’s cheap and easy, just like their mothers.

  • Shahamananadingdong

    lets not forget how many times writers have written pieces of crap and publishers have published them. Subjectivity can be a fickle pickle. 

  • Leah J. Prewitt

    One of my poetry friends writing a poem that began “Daniel Boone must of been plum crazy” received it back from an editor with the grammar corrected and a rejection letter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Stuart-Reid/542859266 Stuart Reid

    My first book, Gorgeous George and the Giant Geriatric Generator was also rejected 17 times before being accepted.

    It’s available in stores now!!!!! ;-)

  • Cyndie Todd

    Author of The Help was rejected 60 times over 5 years, until she finally got a letter of acceptance upon her 61st submission.

  • http://dbakeca.com Dbakeca Italia

    That means the editors didn’t like (or even read) the books…

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  • Jenni_summers

    Wow I can’t even believe the comment about the Diary of Anne Frank… Some great trivia here, very encouraging for writers tempted to give up on their dream!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003018971782 Ade Hodges

    Makes me smile when publishers and agents expect us to submit to them
    one-at-a-time just in case more than one accepts, especially given how
    long a manuscript can sit on a slush pile and let alone the time it takes
    them to read our sample pages and cover letter. I’m sure Kipling must have
    been sending them out ten at a time!

  • Ckostroski

    Charles Bukowski was rejected a TON before the New Yorker picked up one of his poems.

  • http://bharatbuysell.com Free India Classifieds

    Its sad to see that not everyone gets a oppurtunity like others do 

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  • Anoggs28

    I still think they should have had more……. And to tell of their sucsess 

  • Hdbaekr07

    there is a reason why zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance was turned down so many times. 

  • Michael Hudson

    You have to wonder whether John Kennedy Toole renamed his famous novel to A Confederacy of Dunces after he gave up on getting it published.

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  • http://www.tiecoon.com/boysties.html Boy’s Ties

    Tiecoon.com, ties rejected 186 times.

  • http://www.lilidauphinblog.com/ Lili Dauphin

    Everything in life requires patience. The only time we fail is when we give up. So let’s do what we love and eventually we’ll win. We must never give up our dreams because we’re strong enough.

  • Neri

    One of my favourite anecdotes is from Tad Williams.  Apparently his first book Tailchaser’s Song was turned down by one publisher with the reason being that they “don’t do non-human protagonists”.  It was also rejected several other times, but not for such an odd reason!