Writers and rejection: don’t give up!

Every writer, unless they are extraordinarily lucky, will be rejected during their career. Possibly many, many times. The purpose of this page is provide some perspective and encouragement to anyone who is going through the rejection process.

NOTE: This page will eventually be replaced by Writers and Rejection.

If you’re a successful fiction or nonfiction writer who went through many rejections, or who managed to turn rejection(s) into something Good, please do post it below.

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Kathryn Stockett stopped counting her rejection letters from agents after 45. Agent Susan Ramer finally saw its potential, snapped it up, and sold it within a few days. Publisher Amy Einhorn chose it to launch her own imprint at G.P. Putnam’s Sons. SFGate.com.

Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl was rejected numerous times and she revised it dozens of times (cutting 200+ pages in all) before it finally got published by Bloomsbury. A woman in my critique group shared a writers’ conference anecdote where Hale was a presenter at a conference session. Apparently she walked into the session with a laminated roll under one arm, then unfurled a roll of rejection letters that went out of the room and into the hallway.

Ray Bradbury has had about a thousand rejections over his 30 year career according to a B&N interview, and says he is still getting rejected.

Ellen Jackson’s Cinder Edna was rejected more than 40 times before it was accepted for publication. Since then, it has won many awards and sold more than 150,000 hardcover copies. EJ has posted quotes from her rejection letters.

Jasper Fforde received 76 rejection letters from publishers before his first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2001. (Thanks to Shane McEwan)

Judy Blume received “nothing but rejections” for two years. “I would go to sleep at night feeling that I’d never be published. But I’d wake up in the morning convinced I would be. Each time I sent a story or book off to a publisher, I would sit down and begin something new. I was learning more with each effort. I was determined. Determination and hard work are as important as talent.”

Excerpt from a rejection letter to Ursula K. Le Guin: “The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable. The whole is so dry and airless, so lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have had is entirely dissipated by what does seem, a great deal of the time, to be extraneous material. My thanks nonetheless for having thought of us. The manuscript of The Left Hand of Darkness is returned herewith.” (Thanks to Susanna, who points out that the novel won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.)

Jeffrey Carver advises writers to be determined, and to be thick-skinned. “I collected rejection slips for 6 years before I finally sold my first short story. Why did I keep going? Was I crazy? Probably. I was convinced I could do it, and I refused to take no for an answer.”

Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time was rejected by 26 publishers before being accepted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It ended up winning the John Newbery Medal as the best children’s book of 1963 and is now in its 69th printing. (Thanks to Mark Bernstein)

Dr. Alma Bond says: “I am the author of 13 published novels, all of which met many rejections. My favorite is this one: “”‘Who Killed Virginia Woolf? was in the hands of a publisher who wrote me, ‘The book is not publishable.’ The next day I got a contract in the mail from Human Sciences Press. The book went out of print and I republished it with ASJA Press. The book is still selling, after 18 years.’”

Meg Cabot said that her Princess Diaries got rejected seventeen times before it was finally bought. (Trashionista Interviews)

“After spending six years writing the first instalment of her “Harry Potter” novels, J.K. Rowling was rejected by 9 publishers before London’s Bloomsbury Publishing signed her on.” Source: IMDB.com

Marcel Proust decided to self-publish after being rejected three times.

“Lois Bujold wrote three books (Shards of Honor, Barrayar, The Warrior’s
Apprentice) before her third book The Warrior’s Apprentice was accepted
after four rejections.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs was repeatedly rejected when he tried to sell a book sequel to his successful “Tarzan of the Apes.” After Tarzan serializations became popular in newspapers, book publishers suddenly became interested. (Source) Thanks to Walter K. for the tip!

Stephen King got the following rejection for his bestselling novel, Carrie: “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.” (Rotten Rejections)

Shockingly, The Diary Of Anne Frank received the following rejection comment: “The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity’ level.” The book was rejected 16 times before it was published by Doubleday in 1952. More than 30 million copies are currently in print, making it one of the best-selling books in history. (Rotten Rejections)

The Dr. Seuss books got rejected more than 15 times before the author finally found an editor who accepted his work. (CollegeAndUniversity.net)

William Saroyan collected a pile of rejection slips thirty inches high (about 7000) before he sold his first short story. (Right-Writing.com)

Alex Haley, author of Roots, wrote every day, seven days a week for eight years before selling to a small magazine. (Right-Writing.com)

Richard Hooker’s book, M*A*S*H was rejected 17 times.

John Kennedy Toole received so many rejection letters for his novel, A Confederacy Of Dunces, that he finally killed himself. Only the persistence of his bereaved mother led to the eventual publication of his novel and its receipt of the Pulitzer Prize in 1980. (Lulu.com)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was rejected 140 times before it was eventually published.

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was rejected 38 times.

Watership Down by Richard Adams: 26 rejections.

Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected nearly 20 times before being published.

Advice and Quotes re: Rejection

Jane Yolen: “A writer never gets used to rejections. But if enough manuscripts are out there, each small rejection is less important. Less important? Well, each one hurts less.”

Isaac Asimov re: rejection: “I personally kick and scream, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t if it makes you feel better. However, once you’re quite done with the kicking and screaming [segue into practical advice on revising, resubmitting, etc]…” (Thanks to Steve Brinich)

Barbara Kingsolver: “This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.”

Irwin Shaw: “An absolutely necessary part of a writer’s equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.”

Kate Braverman: “Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big. The entire process is beyond intoxicating.”

Barbara Demarco-Barrett has a great blog post about rejection. Pen on Fire went through dozens of rejections before being accepted. She says that the best way of dealing with rejection is to write your way through it. “Take heart and don’t let rejection stop you. Learn from it. Learn to decipher what the rejection letters are really saying. And move on, allow yourself to progress and eventually you will be victorious.”

Also see:

RejectionCollection.com: Tagline reads “the writer’s and artist’s online source for misery, commiseration and inspiration.”

Literary Rejections On Display: a personal blog with the tagline “A Vast Public Collection Of Real-Life Rejections.” The author invites rejected writers to submit their own rejections (anonymously, if they’d like) for adding to the archives.

Books:

Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections by Bill Henderson and Andre Bernard

Rejections of the Written Famous by Joyce Spizer