Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about publishers.
One thing that bugs me (and which I constantly seem to run into) is people who have achieved (or usually placed themselves) in elevated positions of judgement with the power of life and death of other people's hopes, dreams and ambitions.
Personally nowhere is this (and its inherent issues) plainer than in the publishing industry.
There are undoubtedly countless unfortunate souls whose slaved over creations never saw the light of day as they failed to please the people to who they were submitted and on whose approval their distribution depended. The reason I say this has inherent issues is that it is undeniably flawed. As demonstrated/For example, here is a list of books that were rejected by the publishers who received them:
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling: This global phenomenon was rejected by 10 publishers before an agent's daughter persuaded him to take a chance
- Chicken Soup For The Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: After 33 rejections, this book finally found a publisher and has sold more than 80 million copies in 37 languages
- Dubliners by James Joyce: 22 publishers turned down Joyce's debut novel before it finally hit the bookshops
- Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore: This 19th century classic was rejected 18 times before finally being published in 1899
- M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker: The book that inspired the classic TV series was turned down 21 times before finding a home
- Carrie by Stephen King: After getting 30 rejections for his book even King rejected it. Fortunately, his wife persuaded him to try again.
- Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell: This book was rejected 38 times but ultimately earned a Pulitzer Prize and a film adaptation
- Dune by Frank Herbert: 23 publishers rejected this Hugo award-winning cult classic that spawned 5 sequels and 2 film adaptations
- Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery: After 5 publishers rejected her novel, Montgomery buried it in a hat box. 2 years later she tried again
- The Diary of Anne Frank: This was rejected 15 times before Doubleday agreed to published it and subsequently sold 25 million copies
- Twilight by Stephanie Meyer: 14 agencies rejected this vampire romance novel which subsequently sold 17 million copies and spawned a film franchise
- The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks: 24 agencies turned down this film-inspiring novel which was sold by the 25th agency for $1 million
- The Thomas Berryman Murder by James Patterson: This bestselling author faced 31 rejections before going on to produce 19 consecutive No. 1s
- A Time To Kill by John Grisham: 16 agencies and 12 publishers turned down his debut which sold out immediately on publication
- The Help by Kathryn Sockett: Rejected by 60 agents, it ended up on the bestseller list for over 100 weeks, sold 7 million copies and spawned a film adaptation
- And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street by Dr Seuss: After 27 rejections, Theodore Geisel had lost hope until he encountered a editor friend
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller: Rejected 22 times (which is supposedly the reason for the title of this new famous book
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding: Golding faced 20 rejections before finding success with a less critical publisher
Other rejected authors include: Agatha Christie, L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, Dan Brown, Beatrix Potter, Judy Blume, Kenneth Grahame, Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, John Le Carre, Ursula K. LeGuin, J. D. Salinger, Meg Cabot, Alice Walker, H. G. Wells, Herman Melville, George Orwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Shelley, Joseph Helier, Richard Adams, Vladimir Nabokov, Paulo Coelho and The Diary of Anne Frank
To me, this says the said publishers don't actually know what they are looking for, what will be popular and therefore what they should accept and/or reject.
A suggestion further demonstrated by the fact that an experiment conducted in 2007 showed that Jane Austen would even struggle to be published nowadays(!)
Thankfully nowadays there is the option of self-publishing so we run a decreased risk of being without the aforementioned rejected classics. Still, it makes you think how many more there might have been...
