How Editors Rejected Famous Writers - Proof that Publishers Have Never Known What They Are Doing, So Don't Worry
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT was told to stick to teaching. If she had, we would not have LITTLE WOMEN.
MADELEINE L’ENGLE’S A WRINKLE IN TIME was rejected 29 times. It went on to win the Newbery Medal in 1963.
FRANK HERBERT’S DUNE was rejected 20 times.
STEPHEN KING received dozens of rejections for his first novel, CARRIE. Is there anyone who now has not heard of that book?
BEATRIX POTTER’S THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT was turned down so many times she self-published it. Is this the first cross-over success story (from self-publishing to traditional publishing)?
ANNE FRANK’S DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL was rejected 16 times. Publishing house Knopf said it was “a dreary record of family bickering.” Over 30 million copies are now in print.
MARGARET MITCHELL’S GONE WITH THE WIND was rejected 38 times. It was made into a successful movie and, of course, is still in print.
J.K. ROWLING’S HARRY POTTER was rejected a dozen times. It was finally accepted by Bloomsbury because the publisher’s child begged the father to print it. The rest is history.
DR. SEUSS was told his work was “too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” So… different is bad?
RICHARD BACH was told JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL “will never make it as a paperback.” It sold over 7 million copies.
H.G. WELLS submitted WAR OF THE WORLDS and was told “it is an endless nightmare…I think the verdict would be, ‘Oh, don’t read that horrid book.’”
AYN RAND was informed that ATLAS SHRUGGED was “unsaleable and unpublishable.”
EMILY DICKINSON published just 7 poems during her lifetime. An editor said her work was “generally devoid of true poetical qualities.”
VLADIMIR NABOKOV was told that LOLITA should be “buried under a stone for a thousand years.”
WILLIAM GOLDING’S LORD OF THE FLIES was called “rubbish and dull.”
JOHN LE CARRE’S THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was passed up by one publisher and given to another with the words, “You’re welcome to Le Carre - he hasn’t got any future.”
GERTRUDE STEIN received a mocking rejection for THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS that included: “Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one.”
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If a publisher declines your ms., remember it is merely the decision of one fallible human being, and try another. - Stanley Unwin
The manuscript of THE HELP was rejected by 26 literary agents. Just sayin’
