50 Best-Selling Writers Who Were Repeatedly Rejected

In this post, we write about 50 best-selling authors who were repeatedly rejected.

Even famous, best-selling authors have stories of rejection and heartbreak to share. Here are 50 writers who were repeatedly rejected before they found fame.

1. Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie had to wait four years for her first book to be published.
2. Alex Haley: The Roots author wrote every day for eight years before finding success.
3. Anne Frank: One of the most famous people to live in an attic, Anne Frank’s diary had 15 rejections.
4. Beatrix Potter: The Tale of Peter Rabbit had to be published by Potter herself.
5. D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers faced rejection, and D.H. Lawrence didn’t take it well. “Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the sniveling, dribbling, dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery its a marvel they can breed. They can nothing but frog-spawn — the gibberers! God, how I hate them! God curse them, funkers. God blast them, wish-wash. Exterminate them, slime. I could curse for hours and hours — God help me.” Letter to Edward Garnett, expressing anger that his manuscript for Sons and Lovers was rejected by Heinemann (3 July 1912)
6. Dr. Seuss: This is a list of all the books that Dr. Seuss’ publisher rejected.
7. E.E. Cummings: E.E. Cummings named the 14 publishers who rejected No Thanks in the book itself.
8. Frank Herbert: Before reaching print, Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 20 times.
9. Gertrude Stein: Gertrude Stein submitted poems for 22 years before having anything accepted.
10. Irving Stone: Irving Stone’s Lust for Life was rejected by 16 different editors.
11. Isaac Asimov: Several of Asimov’s stories were rejected, never sold, or eventually lost.
12. Isaac Bashevis Singer: Before winning the Nobel Prize, Isaac Bashevis Singer was rejected by publishers.
13. J.K. Rowling: J.K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejected it.
14. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: Chicken Soup for the Soul received 134 rejections.
15. Jack Kerouac: Some of Kerouac’s work was rejected as pornographic.
16. James Baldwin: James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room was called ‘hopelessly bad’.
17. James Joyce: James Joyce’s Ulysses was judged obscene and rejected by several publishers.
18. James Patterson: Patterson was rejected by more than a dozen publishers before he found an agent who sold his novel.
19. Jasper Fforde: before getting The Eyre Affair published.
20. John Grisham: John Grisham’s A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 publishers before finding an agent who eventually rejected him as well.
21. John le Carre: John le Carre’s first novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, was passed along because le Carre ‘hasn’t got any future’.
22. Jorge Luis Borges: It’s a good thing not everyone thought Mr. Borges’ work was ‘utterly untranslatable’.
23. Joseph Heller: Joseph Heller wrote a story as a teenager that was rejected by the New York Daily News.
24. Judy Blume: Judy Blum received nothing but rejections for two years and can’t look at Highlights without wincing.
25. Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows was not intended to be published, and was rejected in America before appearing in England.
26. Laurence Peter: Laurence Peter had 22 rejections before finding success with The Peter Principles.
27. Louisa May Alcott: Louisa May Alcott was told to stick to teaching.
28. Madeline L’Engle: Madeline L’Engle’s masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time faced rejection 26 times before willing the Newberry Medal.
29. Marcel Proust: Marcel Proust was rejected so much he decided to self-publish. Remembrance of Things Past received this critique from one publisher: “My dear fellow, I may be dead from the neck up, but rack my brains as I may I can’t see why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep.”
30. Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind was rejected 38 times.
31. Meg Cabot: The bestselling author of The Princess Diaries keeps a mail bag of rejection letters. It took her three years to find an agent.
32. Patrick Dennis: Auntie Mame received 17 rejections.
33. Pearl S. Buck: Pearl Buck’s first novel, East Wind: West Wind received rejections from all but one publisher in New York.
34. Richard Adams: Richard Adams’s two daughters encouraged him to publish Watership Down as a book, but 13 publishers didn’t agree.
35. Richard Bach: 18 publishers thought a book about a seagull was ridiculous before Jonathan Livingston Seagull was picked up.
36. Richard Doddridge Blackmore:  Was turned down 18 times before getting published.
37. Richard Hooker: The book that inspired the film and TV show M*A*S*H* was denied by 21 publishers.
38. Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance faced an amazing 121 rejections before becoming beloved by millions of readers.
39. Rudyard Kipling: In one rejection letter, Mr. Kipling was told he doesn’t know how to use the English language.
40. Shannon Hale: Shannon Hale was rejected and revised a number of times before Bloomsbury published The Goose Girl.
41. Stephen King: King received dozens of rejections for his first novel, Carrie; he kept them nailed to a spike in his bedroom.
42. Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath had several rejected poem titles.
43. Thor Heyerdahl: Several publishers thought Kon-Tiki was not interesting enough.
44. Tony Hillerman: Tony Hillerman was told to ‘get rid of the Indian stuff’.
45. Ursula K. Le Guin: An editor told Ursula K. Le Guin that The Left Hand of Darkness was ‘endlessly complicated’.
46. Vladmir Nabokov: Lolita was rejected by five publishers in fear of prosecution for obscenity before being published in Paris.
47. William Faulkner: William Faulkner’s book, Sanctuary, was called unpublishable.
48. William Golding: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before becoming published.
49. William Saroyan: William Saroyan received a 7 000 rejection slips before selling his first short story.
50. Zane Grey: Zane Grey self-published his first book after dozens of rejections.

Source for original article: OnlineCollege.Org (Some of the links have been updated by Writers Write)

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