“Rejection-math” can feed your fire and heighten your hope
Rejection is a universal experience in the writing world
Writers know about rejection. It happens to everyone who has ever submitted a piece of work for publication.
Wait.
That’s just my assumption. Maybe everybody else sells whatever they pitch on the first attempt. Maybe other writers get an agent on their initial query. Maybe not every writer suffers from rejection.
What if it’s just ME being rejected? (In a weird, twisted way, I’m hoping other writers understand the paranoia exhibited here.)
If there is an aspiring writer out there who has NEVER been rejected, please let me know.
I’m going on the theory that most writers feel the sting of rejection
Whether you’re turned down by magazines, book publishers, or agents, rejection is a fact of life for authors. An occupational hazard that knifes into our psyches and cuts into our creative souls.
I’m shopping my manuscript to agents. Right now, I’ve got 44 rejections, either by a definite “This doesn’t fit with my needs,” “This isn’t for me,” or a rejection-by-non-response.
All those refusals are part of my long-term plan. Truly. I understand the probability of landing an agent on the first query would be a gazillion to one. I know that it takes a resilient spirit and a belief in your work to keep trying to sell it.
Still, sending a one-page query letter dozens of times to a multitude of different agents and always being told “no” can play with your pride. ..and not in a good way.
A survivor’s approach to dealing with rejection
So I developed a new perspective with a funky, English-teacher’s kind-of math.
A perspective that makes me feel better.
Backasswards. Rejections in hindsight. To quote Edith Wharton, I’m taking “a backward glance” by envisioning my book and the sales AFTER it’s been published. I’m calculating how many copies of my book I’ll sell for every rejection that led up to my eventual success.
I call it “rejection-math.”
You can try it, too. It lessens the pain. (NOTE: Rejection-math is NOT a misery-loves-company-approach, but a let’s-put-things-in-perspective-approach. The benefits are enhanced if you wear rose-colored glasses as well.)
Rejections don’t predict the success of a book
We’ve all heard about writers who were rejected many times only to have their work become an unparalleled best-seller. It does happen.
But there’s more to the story.
The focus shouldn’t be on how many times they were rejected. It should be on how many copies they eventually sold.
I call my new perspective, “Rejection Math.” Simply calculate how many books were purchased against the number of rejections received.
It’s like an “I-told-you-so” — “Nah-nah-nah-boo-boo” finger-shaking at the magazines, agents, or publishers whose short-sightedness and lack-of-creative-vision rejected the original manuscripts.
“Work like hell. I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story.”
Even great authors, immensely popular books, and award-winning novels were rejected before they made it big. My new “rejection-math” tells the true story of perseverance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald had 122 rejection slips before he sold a story. Eventually, he made his mark. He sold 25 million copies of The Great Gatsby, and that was just ONE of his 13 novels. Do the calculation: 122 rejections into the sales of “Gatsby.” Fitzgerald sold 204,918 copies for each one of the rejection slips he had collected before he got going.
Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times before publication. 14 million copies have been sold to date. That means that for each rejection L’Engle received, she sold 538,462 copies of her book. (One rejection = more than a half-million books! ) A Wrinkle in Time won the Newbery Medal for 1932 and has been remade into two major films.
Alex Haley sent in lots of manuscripts and got lots of rejections as an aspiring author. In fact, he collected 200 rejections on various submissions before the publication of Roots. If you take those 200 rejections and divide them into the 6 million copies of Roots that he eventually sold, you’ll find that for each one of those rejections, 30,000 copies of Roots were sold. Haley also won a Pulitzer and a National Book Award.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, was rejected 20 times. It sold 25 million copies just in English alone. That works out to 1,250,000 copies for each rejection received, and that doesn’t even count sales in other languages.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett had 60 agent rejections. Eventually, The Help sold 7 million copies + movie rights. 116,666 copies per rejection. (Makes me feel better since I’m only at 44 agent rejections.)
“In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help, but letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60?” — Kathryn Stockett
Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic, Dune, was turned down 23 times. After it was published, 20 million copies were sold. That’s 869,565 books sold for each denial of his dream.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig was rejected 121 times. (Are you counting? One-hundred-and-twenty-one times!) Since it was published, it has sold 5 million copies, been translated into 27 languages, and equates to 41,322 copies per rejection slip.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected 12 times. To add insult to injury, some agent told J. K. Rowling that she should find a teaching job because she’d never make a living writing children’s books. The first book in her Harry Potter series sold 120 million copies, which is 10 million copies for each rejection of her book. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has now sold 450 million books worldwide. She is estimated to be worth a billion dollars. (Take that, rejectors!)
What do Stephen King and Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Suess, have in common?
They both were ready to throw away their manuscripts.
Stephen King actually did throw away his manuscript of Carrie after it was rejected 30 times, but his wife pulled it out of the trash. Once it was published, Carrie became an instant best-seller and changed the world of horror books forever. After it was made into the movie, 4 million books were sold, and Stephen King’s career skyrocketed. 133,333 copies of Carrie were sold for each rejection he received. Stephen King went on to write 54 novels, 200 short stories, and is considered to be the father of modern horror.
Theodor Geisel’s manuscript was rejected 27 times. He was on his way home, ready to burn his To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street manuscript because no one would publish it. He ran into Mike McClintock, an acquaintance he had known in college. That very morning, McClintock had been named as the children’s book editor at Vanguard Press and offered to look at Geisel’s book. Vanguard Press purchased it the next day.
Theodor Geisel went on to become Dr. Suesss, a man who wrote 60 more books after “…Mulberry Street.” His book, Green Eggs and Ham sold 8 million copies alone. The combined sale of Theodor Geisel’s books is 600 MILLION. Every day, 11,000 Dr. Suess books are purchased by parents and grandparents around the world. If you take his total book sales and divide it by the number of rejections he received for his first manuscript, you see that each of those rejections equaled 22 million books sold.
“If I’d been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today.” — Theodor Geisel
Finally, think about the iconic Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. It was rejected 144 times. When it finally sold, it became not just one book, but a series with over 250 titles, and a powerful franchise. Currently, the book is published in 100 countries, in 43 languages. Chicken Soup for the Soul books have sold 500 million copies worldwide, for a whopping 3,472,222 copies per original rejection.
“If we had given up after 100 publishers, I likely would not be where I am now. I encourage you to reject rejection. If someone says no, just say, NEXT!” — Jack Canfield
“Reject Rejection”
I’m rejecting rejection. I’m betting on future sales to overcome the sting of each refusal. I’m fueling my dreams with funky rejection-math, a new perspective on the power of numbers, and a backward glance from a future success.
One of Melissa Gouty’s favorite quotes came from the feminist movement. “Nevertheless, she persisted.” She applies the sentiment to writing and the hope of future success based on her perseverance. If you are inspired by stories of achievement — at any age — check out authors who made it late in life: “Success After Sixty.”
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