Seven Authors Who Beat Rejection To Find Success

Have you been rejected by a publisher or a Medium publication? I certainly have, and it hurts. After spending hours or days writing and fine-tuning your article, to have it turned down by publications is painful. 

After several rejection it could be easy to give up. 

But don't. We need to take each rejection as an opportunity to grow as a writer and remember that we are not alone. The literary history is full of writers who found fame and fortune after several rejections.

Take inspiration from these successful authors who did not take no for an answer and have sold millions of books.

J.K. Rowling

I know Rowling has received a lot of negative press lately for her comments on gender issues, but it doesn't take away the fact that she is an incredibly successful writer. Not only have her Harry Potter books sold in millions, she is also making fortunes from the film adaptations and other merchandise.

But it could have been a very different story for Rowling had she given up when her manuscript was rejected several times. 

Her manuscript for Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone in the USA) received twelve rejections before it was accepted by Bloomsbury. The editors who rejected the book, and must have been kicking themselves since, reportedly cited reasons such as it was too long, the setting was too exclusive, and that children weren't interested in wizards. How wrong were they!

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone has since sold over 120 million copies. It is one of the best-selling books of all time and has been translated to 80 (some say over 80) languages. Rowling herself is now worth $670 million by careful estimates. However, some estimates say she is worth $1.2 billion.

After the success of Harry Potter, Rowling has written a series of books under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Interestingly, when she offered the manuscript of her first book as Galbraith to the publishers, they rejected it. She recently shared the rejection letter on Twitter to encourage other writers. 

Agatha Christie

Christie is undoubtedly the queen of detective books. She is also the best-selling author of all time, having sold over 2 billion copies to date. She is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare so she is in very good company.

Christie started to write at an early age. Her official website states that she was already writing poems as a child and short stories by the age of eighteen. It was during the First World War when she started to write detective stories.

She wrote her first manuscript at 22-years old but this was never published as it received many rejections. It is reported that a family friend introduced Christie to his own publisher, who also rejected the manuscript but encouraged her to write another one. Her first published book, featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, also received rejections before being by John Lane of The Bodley Head.

Even when Lane accepted to publish The Mysterious Affair at Styles, he insisted that Christie changed the ending. It was he who suggested the ending which became a trademark for Poirot. Lane also showed a lot of faith in Christie as he contracted her to write five more books, paving the way to her success as a crime writer.

C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis is probably best know for his Chronicles of Narnia. However, he is the author of over thirty books. His other popular publications include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters. 

When researching authors who faced several rejections before finding success, most sources stated that Lewis was rejected 800 times. 

With that number of rejections, he wins the trophy for most rejections and perseverance. 

I'm sure I would have hung up the pen way before getting to that figure.

I haven't been able to find an exact figure on how many books Lewis wrote in total. Some say at least 23, others about 30. The Britannica biography on Lewis says about 40 books. Whatever the exact number is, after the record number of rejections, Lewis has sold millions of books.

The Chronicles of Narnia alone have sold over 100 million copies worldwide and transferred into film three times.

Stephen King

A list of authors who publishers rejected at first would not be complete without the master of horror, Stephen King. 

Before publishing his first book, Carrie, King wrote short stories for men's magazines. He had his first professional sale to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. 

Despite having successfully published short stories in magazines, Carrie received 30 rejections and reportedly King got so frustrated that he threw the manuscript in the bin. 

His wife found it and talked him into resubmitting it.

Carrie was finally accepted by Doubleday in 1973 and published a year later. King received a $2,500 advance for the book. The hardback copy wasn't a huge sales success selling 13,000 copies. However, when it was published in paperback a year later, it sold over million copies in the first twelve months.

Since the early days of Carrie, King has sold over 350 million books many of which have been turned into movies. He is estimated to be worth $400 million.

George Orwell

Orwell differs from most of the other authors on this list because it was not his first novel that was rejected by publishers. He was already an established writer, though not yet prospering from his writing, by the time Animal Farm was rejected by several publishers.

Orwell's first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, which was based on actual events was published in 1933. His first novel, Burmese Days came out a year later. By the time he wrote Animal Farm, he already had several published books under his belt.

Orwell finished writing Animal Farm in 1944. It was a political story based on the Russian Revolution. The timing of the book couldn't have been much worse. The Second World War was still raging and publishers worried the book might create tensions between Great Britain and their allies, the Soviet Union.

The novel was turned down by four publishers including T. S. Eliot from Faber & Faber. (T. S. Eliot is also know to have rejected W. H. Auden and James Joyce.)

Since it's publication, Animal Farm has been translated into at least 70 languages and sold millions of copies.

Beatrix Potter

Potter is the rebel and the most persistent author on this list. Not taking no for an answer, she self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Potter was born into a privileged London family in 1866. Her family used to spend their holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, which inspired her to paint the animals and landscapes she observed. She had a desire to share her art and despite her family's objections, who believed that she should marry and not work like a proper respectable lady, had some of her illustrations published as greeting cards.

She offered her story of Peter Rabbit to several publishers who all rejected her. Determined to publish her work, she printed 250 copies to share with family and friends in December 1901. 

The book was a success and prompted one publisher she had offered it to change their mind. Frederick Warne & Co. published the books re-illustrated by Potter in colour in 1902.

To date, the book has sold over 450 million copies.

Stephanie Meyer

In Meyer's own words, the whole publishing process from query letters to submissions is intimidating and she almost quit there. It was the love she had for her characters that made her forge ahead with the whole process.

At the time she began writing Twilight, she had not written anything for six years. She began writing it after an exceptionally vivid dream about a normal girl and a vampire. 

On her author's website, Meyer says she received seven or eight rejections out of the about fifteen queries she sent out. However, if you Google the number of rejections she received, you get fourteen. I'm going to go along with Meyer on this since she says she has kept all the rejection letters.

Meyer's road to a published author is unusual because her book was accepted for publication within six months, not anywhere near the same wait times that some other author's on this list had to endure. 

The Twilight series has sold over 100 million copies across the world, translated into 37 different languages and transferred onto the big screen.

The Takeaway

As a writer, we need to develop a thick skin. Having your work turned down or critiqued is part of the parcel. Not everyone is going to like your work. But there are those who will. 

When you receieve a rejection it is worth remembering that most writers have been rejected at some point during their careers. Even writers who went on to sell millions and become household names. Some of them, like Rowling, even got rejected after making millions. 

So be persistent. Have faith in your work and resubmit. Somewhere there is a publisher who will recognise your talent and the value of your work.