Whether a writer is published by an established entity (newspaper, magazine or publisher) or ventures out on their own, there is one shared experience that few can escape—rejection. Artists (yes, writers are artists!) face the “Big R” regardless the discipline. Rocker/Musician/Lyricist David Bowie was hip to it.

Is it any wonder, I reject you first?
Fame, fame, fame, fame.
Is it any wonder, you are too cool to fool?
Fame.

—David Bowie, “Fame”

In the writing world, several published superstars exhibited matchless stamina with stunning results. Here are a few FAMOUS REJECTIONS:

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck was returned fourteen times, but it went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Mary Higgins Clark was rejected forty times before selling her first story. One editor wrote: “Your story is light, slight and trite.” More than 30 million copies of her books are now in print.

Roots author Alex Haley had received 200 rejections.

Robert Persig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, couldn’t get started at 121 houses.

John Grisham’s first novel, A Time To Kill, was declined by fifteen publishers and thirty agents. His novels have more than 60 million copies in print.

Louis L’Amour received 200 rejections before he sold his first novel. During the last forty years, Bantam has shipped nearly 200 million of his 112 books, making him their biggest selling author.

At Jack London’s estate in Sonoma County you will see some of the 600 rejection slips that London received before selling his first story.

Eight years after his novel Steps, won the National Book Award, Jerzy Kosinki permitted a writer to change his name and the title and send a manuscript of the novel to thirteen agents and fourteen publishers to test the plight of new writers. They all rejected it, including Random House, which had published it.

MORAL TO THE STORY— in the words of Winston Churchill—Nevah, nevah, nevah, nevah give up!

—Lowry McFerrin, Proforma Mactec Solutions