I’m sorry, but after all these years I must ask: What’s the secret to JK Rowling’s success? No one, and I mean no one, hits it out of the park right out of the gate. Where’s the sob stories of hundreds of rejections? I simply cannot believe someone was instantly enamored with her writing with no experience, etc. It’s a fairy story. It just doesn’t happen that way unless she’s a wizard herself. So, what’s the literary SD on this? There must be a story behind the story.
From Wiki:
" The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.[25] A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.[25][58] The decision to publish Rowling’s book owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.[59]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling
So, poor, single mother writes a book in her spare time and has it rejected by 12 publishers before another has a child read it. The book is accepted based on only that child’s enthusiasm for the story. It would seem there is your story of rejection. No adult in the publishing world liked the book well enough to buy it. It took the opinion of someone outside of the field to get it published.
Kinda makes you wonder why they don’t have more children take a look at submissions. That IS the target audience.
And it’s not as if this was unique. Robert Heinlein sold the first story he wrote.
Some people just have a gift.
A combination of talent, luck, and business acclaim.
She wrote a good book and then got better. I don’t know of another book series that had such a sharp rise in quality.
She wrote many, many drafts of the book, too. The first chapter those twelve publishing houses got wasn’t the first chapter Bloomsbury got wasn’t the first chapter the rest of us got. She’s eminently willing to play the revision game, which helps.
Not to hijack this, but I can’t help but mention how many times Siegel and Shuster got turned down by adults when pitching their stupid idea about a do-gooder who dresses up like a circus strongman to leap tall buildings in a single bound; don’t you get that kids want stories about private eyes? Maybe gunslingers out west, or pirates on the high seas? They don’t want to see a costumed hero who can pick up a getaway car with one hand; that’s just crazy talk.
Yeah, but he was Heinlein.
Bolding mine.
Tom Clancy did it, too. As did Thomas Wolfe (with editorial help). Grace Metalious of Peyton Place. E. L. James. Stephenie Meyer. Stephen King.
It happens. Sometimes a writer has the right combination of talent and good luck and timing to put their first effort over the top.
Harper Lee. Margaret Mitchell.
Add Roald Dahl to that list. He stumbled into publishing when he wrote some “notes” for C.S. Forrester, who submitted them to his agent, who submitted them to a publisher, who bought them for $1,000 and started Dahl’s career.
When Dahl got the letter and check from Forrester, he thought “It can’t be this easy.” It can if you’re Roald Dahl.
OK, you may sell the first story, but to have an instant blockbuster hit???
a) I read the start of that link (before posting my question), but the article repeated what is well known and soon broke into her private life. I guess I did not give the article a chance and did not read far enough assuming the article would not explain.
b) You are correct that kids should read more submissions. I guess the adults feel they know it all and a child cannot have discriminating taste. Meanwhile, the adults are tainted by adulthood and can no longer see the world through the mind of a child. 
c) I did not know she had a battery of rejections. Figures. They are programmed to reject. Like, the Patent Office is jokingly called the Rejection Office!
To borrow a quote: “You [in this case, the agents] wouldn’t know a diamond if they held it in their hands.” - Steely Dan
But Clancy’s first book was rejected by several publishers.
Gone With the Wind was rejected by thirty-eight publishers.
Right. Much like Rowling, who’s success is the subject of this thread.
Rowling was rejected by a bunch of publishers, too, so I don’t see what point you’re trying to make. Yes, they were rejected, but that doesn’t matter; the point is that they all hit a home run with their first published book.
Well, it’s a combination of luck and timing. The book reading and movie going public wanted a multi-part story about an underdog wizard at wizard school, told with her level of whimsy. She wrote that book at the right time. I wasn’t interested, but a lot of people were, including my already once retired father.
I know it seems like a just-so story, but sometimes that’s the only way to explain someone’s success in the real world.
She’s a talented writer who wrote a series of stories millions of people identified with and enjoyed.