Photo by MrBG*
Many new or mid-level writers have received nasty or rude rejection letters. But when famous author rejection letters come to light, people laugh and say “What were those editors (or literary agents) thinking?” Many big names faced the same kind of adversity (and even hostility) in rejection letters that you may be facing now. Famous author rejection letters teach us a lot!
When you get a harsh rejection letter, keep these famous author rejections in mind.
Happens To The Best Of Us: Famous Author Rejection Letters
Check out these excerpts from REAL famous author rejections:
- Sylvia Plath: There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.
- Rudyard Kipling: I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.
- J. G. Ballard: The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.
- Emily Dickinson: [Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities.
- Ernest Hemingway (regarding The Torrents of Spring): It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it.
Obviously, these famous author rejection letter phrases have gone down in history for how outrageous they seem to us now. The comments probably had more to do with the mood of the person writing them than with the quality of work.
It seems odd to us now that Plath, Kipling, Ballard, Dickinson, and Hemingway were rejected so cruelly. But these comments show us that famous author rejection letters are no different than not-so-famous author rejection letters!
Thank goodness these authors kept writing and submitting. Ask yourself: Where would we be if they had given up? We would have missed a lot of important literature!
Famous Author Rejections: Hitting A Dry Spell
Feel glum over oodles of rejection letters? Please note that the examples below are often referenced and we’ve done quite a lot of research, but as with so many things, there’s always a chance for error. Do not cite this article for your academic thesis! Go to the original sources.
- John Grisham’s first novel was rejected 25 times.
- Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul) received 134 rejections.
- Beatrix Potter had so much trouble publishing The Tale of Peter Rabbit, she initially had to self-publish it.
- Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) received 121 rejections before it was published and went on to become a best seller.
- Gertrude Stein spent 22 years submitting before getting a single poem accepted.
- Judy Blume, beloved by children everywhere, received rejections for two straight years.
- Madeline L’Engle received 26 rejections before getting A Wrinkle in Time published—which went on to win the Newberry Medal and become one of the best-selling children’s books of all time.
- Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 20 times before being published and becoming a cult classic.
- Stephen King received dozens of rejections for Carrie before it was published (and made into a movie!).*
The Most Rejected Novelist In History?
Author Dick Wimmer passed away on May 18, 2011, at 74 years old. He received 160+ rejections over 25 years! He spent a quarter of a century being told “no.”
He could have quit after 20 years, or 150 rejections, and no one would have blamed him. But he kept at it (maybe he had his own list of famous author rejection letters to keep him going!).
Finally, his novel Irish Wine (Mercury House, 1989) was published to positive reviews. The New York Times called it a “taut, finely written, exhaustingly exuberant first novel.”
Assuming the author’s submissions were well-targeted, how could 160+ people have passed over Wimmer’s book? And what does that mean for YOUR writing career?
Wimmer’s self-proclaimed legacy is of being the “most rejected novelist,” but we think his legacy is hope and persistence.
What’s Your Rejection Letter Threshold?
Famous author rejection letters teach us that there are lots of reasons why great works do not get chosen for publication right away (or after 25 years!). But there is only one way to get published: submit, submit, submit!
QUESTION: When you’re feeling down and out, what keeps you going?
(Leave your answer by clicking “COMMENTS” at the top of this article and scrolling down).
*Photo by MrBg
Next week: The #1 WORST thing a writer can do when making submissions.
*Editor’s note: Some of these numbers may vary (to varying extents) across the Internet and scholarly sources. We’ve tried to provide the most accurate info possible.
I’m still working on the initial draft of my first novel and have spent the past 5 years learning a great deal about how not to write a novel. But what I’ve also absorbed from my experiences over the previous two years that I have been attending writing workshops is how fickle the mainstream publishing industry is. Times are hard and companies, when they fall on such times, tend to focus on playing it safe, just as people do. Not every editor who rejects a great manuscript is an idiot. He or she may simply know that their particular publishing house isn’t well-equipped to handle that submission. Would it be nice if they forwarded it on to someone who would be better? Sure, but that’s the writer (or agent)’s job, not theirs. The market is harder to break into, no doubt. But people will always want to read to be both informed and entertained. If you believe in what you’re doing, keep at it. I don’t think there are more than a handful of writers that aren’t themselves survivors of their own submission-process nightmares in all of publishing history. Just consider it part of the dark charm of the craft and use it to justify being bitter. (j/k) *cheeky grin*
The story behind that Hemingway rejection is quite a bit different than you present it. Hemingway wrote The Torrents of Spring precisely in order to force the publisher to reject it. He had a contract with them where they had right of first refusal, but he didn’t want to publish with them. So he wrote a parody of Sherwood Anderson, who was that publisher’s star, their golden boy. They could not publish a parody of their golden boy, so they rejected Torrents, allowing Hemingway out of his contract.
Ezra, Thanks for adding some additional backstory on that particular quote in our list.
I wrote my first book two years earlier when I was in my eleventh standard. So far I have received over 15 rejections and now I want to self publish it.
The most encouraging thing about rejections?
When they say: “You are an excellent writer but…”
The most discouraging thing about rejections?
When they say: “You are an excellent writer but…”
I have several books published, but even so the one thing that keeps me going through rejections is that I really love writing and would write even if being published were never an option.
P>S> – Loved Ezra’s explanation of Hemingway’s Machiavellian strategy for rejection!