Which are talking about then? Authors who never received a rejection? Or authors whose first published work was a major success?
In fact the publisher that finally accepted the book is the Naval Institute Press. I suspect that most of what they publish is more academic.
To be honest, I had just heard this on the “On This Day” podcast covering her birthday. I had it queued up in the brain as it where.
On topic, many authors will be rejected a number of times and then have a hit with their first book. Perhaps the real question is not amount of rejection it takes to get published initially, but how many books does it take to reach fame or at the very least established author status?
Do most start high and drop off, and then vary from there. Or is there a career path that allows for a steady building of sales?
Heh. I’d remembered this, but checked Wiki to make sure: HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER didn’t sell all that great at first, but Ronald Reagan enjoyed the heck out of it and said as much at a televised press conference. “Un-putdownable,” he called it.
Much sales ensued.
I seem to recall that King claims to have papered his room with rejection notices before he made his first sale.
Didn’t Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels get a similar boost from JFK?
Regards,
Shodan
I have a little trouble saying taking a year and 12 rejections before getting published is much of a “story of rejection”. Seems pretty damn quick to me. She got lucky. Can you imagine a band saying “It took us a whole year to get a record deal!”.
It was the first novel they ever published.
Another surprising publisher was Chilton, which published the first edition of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Chilton is best known for their technical manuals.
Why not both?
There are as many career paths as there are authors, but the most common “successful” arc is get published –> modest success (defined as outselling your advance) –> get published again –> more modest success. Keep going for thirty years, maybe get a few reprints of your bestsellers, and you might have made a comfortable living … but never had a forward-facing placement at B&N, and still the average person on the street has no idea who you are.
Many authors have multiple names for multiple genres: a Western nomme de plume, a police procedural nomme de plume, and their real name for the occasional foray into science fiction, say. Taken individually none of these names will make many waves, but put together, it pays that writer’s bills.
Amen. I think the thing that has really made her successful is that she didn’t just have one good book in her, she learned from her good book and continued to write better and better. I think the 6th Harry Potter book is one of the finest novels I’ve ever read, while the first couple of them are just really good kids fiction.
Harper Lee also pulled off a massive hit with Mockingbird. She just chose not to go any further with her talent.
Brandon Sanderson’s first novel was Elantris. It’s great and won some awards. His follow ups(Mistborn, etc.) really showed that he also was learning/growing.
an author with several published novels told me that if your first published book bombs, it can be hard to get another book published. Some publishers would rather try someone new than to give an author who failed a 2nd chance.
Which is why Alis Rasmussen now writes as Kate Elliott and John G. Hemry writes as Jack Campbell.
It almost seems that the reason for the number of rejections and the huge sales are related.
<Publisher> We won’t print this book. It’s not like the other ones we are publishing.
<Readers> We love this book. It’s so different from the one the publishers are putting out.
A reviewer of the first “Harry Potter” movie said the books are great to read to children at night.
There was also a brief controversy about witchcraft and whether it was appropriate for children. A little controversy usually helps sales.
Another odd one is that Jane Austen’s first publisher (for Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice) was Military Library, which as you might guess from the name specialized in books about military history, etc.
If only this were true. Readers are like movie goers; we’re happy to have another serving of the stuff we already know we like. And publishers and studios give us what we want.
True, but he wrote a novel before that which he deep sixed - a wise move, if you have read it.
Heinlein’s advice to write, revise once, and then ship, is about the worst advice for any writer who is not Heinlein ever. And I just read the uncut Stranger in a Strange Land. The cut one is better.
And the publisher who accepted Harry Potter in the US was Scholastic, a good publisher but not one know for novels.
That wasn’t the first book he ever wrote or submitted, though. I do think Rowling’s experience can be categorized as unusual.