The day I received The Call about the sale of Blood of Eden, I opened a SASE and read a generic Dear Author rejection. The timing couldn’t have been better. I got a good laugh out of it. Is this the first time it’s happened to me? Nope. Will it be the last? Probably not. And I know I”m in good company.
Recently, The Examiner listed 30 famous authors who were repeatedly, and sometimes rudely, rejected before they became a household name. Care to hazard a guess at a few of them? If you’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing, you know he’s one of them. Would you have guessed Anne Frank and JK Rowling? William Faulkner received this rejection from a publisher, for his book Sanctuary,
Good God, I can’t publish this!
And Judy Blume?! I just loveloveloved her books as a kid.
What can a writer take from this? First, the assurance that some very talented writers received rejections. Rejections don’t mean your writing is good enough, marketable enough, or ground-breaking. It simply means the editor didn’t see its potential. And second, it teaches us that, as Judy Blume said,
Determination and hard work are as important as talent.
Amen to that!
Now, go be inspired. Read the full list at The Examiner.