Was canvassing the Internet for some ideas and somehow came up with this one. We often read about famous authors, their writing habits, famous quotes, etc. But we very rarely read about the rejections they received along the way. You’ll never believe who’s on this list.

Many of the most celebrated authors in history faced massive rejection before achieving literary success. Rejection is a nearly universal hurdle in publishing, proving that persistence is just as important as talent. [

• Robert Pirsig: His philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance received 121 rejections before finally being published.
• Stephen King: His first mainstream bestseller, Carrie, accumulated dozens of rejections. In fact, King famously kept all of his rejection slips on a nail on his wall, eventually replacing the nail with a spike as he received hundreds more rejections.
• Dr. Seuss: Theodor Seuss Geisel’s first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by 27 publishers.
• Frank Herbert: The sci-fi classic Dune was rejected more than 20 times by major publishers before being accepted by Chilton Books—a company then best known for printing car repair manuals.
• J.K. Rowling: The manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by 12 different publishers in a row before Bloomsbury finally accepted it.
• William Golding: His dystopian classic Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times before finally being published.

While these authors share legendary stories of perseverance, the scale of rejection in publishing is often surprisingly massive for famous works.

The point of this post is… a winner never quits, and a quitter never wins. It seems to me that rejection is just redirection to where we need to be or go to that door that will open if we keep knocking. Because the answer will always be “no” if you don’t try.

So, all of you clever creatives…Keep clicking those darn keys and honing those manuscripts for brighter days!

Thank you so much for your continued readership and support. Until next week…Be and stay blessed!

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