Don’t feel badly if your book has been rejected. It’s happened to the best writers.
Alfred Knopf rejected George Orwell’s Animal Farm, on the grounds that it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” An agent told William Golding that Lord of the Files was “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”
Mental Floss has put together an enlightening list of rejection letters from famous authors for acclaimed works. Check it out:
When Rand sent her manuscript out for The Fountainhead, a request from Bobbs-Merrill for her next work-in-progress came back with a curt “Unsaleable and unpublishable.” Not to be deterred, the author called upon Hiram Haydn, newly appointed editor-in-chief of Random House. After an “infinite number” of questions and an assurance that Ms. Rand would not be censored, she signed on with Random House and, to date, has sold over 7 million copies in the U.S.