Famous Rejection Stories

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Theokles

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If someone's goal is to 'get read,' self-publishing is an unlikely route to accomplishing it.


Guess you've never heard of Hugh Howey. Not everyone's experience is identical to his, but plenty of self published authors are getting read. The group Author's Earnings recently reported that 31% of the e-books sold on Amazon are by self-published authors.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/07/self-published-ebooks-on-amazon-study.html

What has been your experience? What would you recommend?
 

cornflake

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Guess you've never heard of Hugh Howey. Not everyone's experience is identical to his, but plenty of self published authors are getting read. The group Author's Earnings recently reported that 31% of the e-books sold on Amazon are by self-published authors.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/07/self-published-ebooks-on-amazon-study.html

What has been your experience? What would you recommend?

Christ on a cracker.

Saying 'guess you've never heard of Hugh Howey,' is like saying 'guess you've never heard of JK Rowling,' in response to someone saying that planning a career in novel-writing is an unlikely path to wealth. Or like saying 'guess you've never heard of Bill Gates,' if someone says, 'perhaps dropping out of school isn't the best career path.'

Exceptions to the rule are exceptions to the rule - not the rule.

That chart does not, in any way, say that 31% of e-books sold on Amazon are by self-published authors.

Even if it did, that wouldn't mean anything in terms of how likely it is to 'get read' as a self-published author, but it doesn't.

It says that on one specific day, 31% of 50% of the Amazon bestseller e-books were self-published. So instead of 31 out of 100, it's now god knows what. If there were 1000 books on Amazon (there are not), and 500 were ebooks, and of those, 10% were 'bestsellers,' it's now 15 out of 1000, which would be 1.5% of the books on Amazon.*

Even if there were 31 of 100, wouldn't mean anyone was actually buying or reading them; it'd mean they existed.

Lots of places besides Amazon sell books; lots of places besides Amazon sell e-books. Physical books still sell a whole lot of the market. There are millions of books languishing on Amazon, and other places, that aren't on any bestseller list. There are several more issues (what constitutes a bestseller, etc.,), but they seem fairly obvious.

I recommend people do what they feel is best for them, after actual research, not after listening to Hugh Howey.

*Gotta get slh to check my maths.
 
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blacbird

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Many writers would kill to only ever receive twelve rejections like JK Rowling. I know plenty of people who racked up 100+.

The Rowling example is even sillier than this. Her AGENT got twelve rejections before finding a publisher for her work. She had managed to secure the services of an AGENT.

Oh, the angst!

caw
 

Fuchsia Groan

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Yeah, 12 editor rejections on a wide agent submission is hardly unusual. It means they didn't all see the bestseller potential and start bidding on it, true, but it just underlines the importance of You Only Need One.

I'd be more interested to know how long she had to wait for that offer, and whether it was indeed the only one.
 

Lady Chipmunk

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I think it is heartening to remember that all writers get rejections. This is a tough field, and you need a thick skin whether you do traditional or self-publishing or something in between. Knowing others have been where you are can help keep the walls of self-doubt from closing in.

There are authors that have been massively successful as traditionally published, as self-published, as hybrids, and it's pretty normal to dream of achieving something similar. But, the truth is, regardless of the path you take, most writers find a smaller level of success.

How you choose to pursue that success is as individualized as the writing process to create the novel in the first place. But, some things remain the same regardless of methodology--there will be people that love your work, hate your work, or are utterly indifferent to it. Taste in reading is highly subjective.

So, yes, rejections happen, and sometimes those people that reject something miss out, but, at the end of the day, readers (and editors are readers) can only do the same thing as writers--follow their passions.
 

slhuang

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Saying 'guess you've never heard of Hugh Howey,' is like saying 'guess you've never heard of JK Rowling,' in response to someone saying that planning a career in novel-writing is an unlikely path to wealth. Or like saying 'guess you've never heard of Bill Gates,' if someone says, 'perhaps dropping out of school isn't the best career path.'

Yup. An outlier is never proof of anything!

That chart does not, in any way, say that 31% of e-books sold on Amazon are by self-published authors.
Yup. In fact, a lot more than 31% of ebooks on Amazon are by self-published authors . . . which serves to disprove that self-publishing is generally a good path to lucrative sales, because a much smaller percentage of self-published authors make their way to a high rank. I think I read somewhere that 8 million out of 12 million books on Amazon are now self-published. I don't have time to dig up a cite right now but to explain the statistics let's pretend that number is right. ;) Then 67% of books on Amazon are by self-published authors . . . but only 31% of the top-selling 120,000 books are.

That says terrible things about how well self-publishing does! If self-publishing was equal to trade publishing in the efficacy of getting your book out there, 67% of books on Amazon being self-published should mean 67% of the top sellers are self-published. The fact that the percentage is less than half (!) of that suggests that self-publishers do not do nearly as well for their books in general as trade publishers do for theirs. SPers don't even maintain their percentage into the bestseller list, let alone exceed it.

And this doesn't even take into account the other problems (below) . . .

It says that on one specific day, 31% of 50% of the Amazon bestseller e-books were self-published.
(red highlighting mine)

We don't know whether these are the same self-published books every day or different ones bopping up and down the list. If you're looking to make a living as an author, popping up the ranks for one day thanks to a promotion and then sinking to the basement will mean crap.

Other things we don't know:


  • How these books were priced. If many of them were at, say, 99 cents, even though they're top sellers, they could account for a very small percentage of the revenue brought in by those 120,000 books. Just because those 120,000 books bring in 50% of Amazon's revenue doesn't mean the self-published books in that number are contributing 31% of that 50%. They could be contributing 1%. We don't know.
  • How this compares to the overall market. Amazon is a large retailer, yes, but they're far from the whole picture. A lot of trade-published authors make good chunks of their income through things like print and sub rights.
  • Whether these numbers are even close to accurate given that Amazon is notoriously close-mouthed about the way its sales ranks are calculated, and that's what Howey uses.
  • How this all equates to which authors are making a living -- or even getting read.
  • How a particular book will do if sent down a trade pub route versus a self-pub route. Some genres and niches are much easier to do well in self-publishing. Some are not. Some authors are better at what self-publishing requires. Some are not. These numbers are absolutely meaningless when trying to determine the right path for your book. They don't prove anything for self-publishing OR for trade publishing -- they're meaningless.


So instead of 31 out of 100, it's now god knows what. If there were 1000 books on Amazon (there are not), and 500 were ebooks, and of those, 10% were 'bestsellers,' it's now 15 out of 1000, which would be 1.5% of the books on Amazon.*
Yah, you got it. :D

As mentioned above, though, there IS a large percentage of self-published books on Amazon, and this makes things worse overall for the self-publishing advocates (not that they admit it). Because, to piggyback off corny's example, in that case we'd have 1.5% of the books on Amazon being bestselling ebooks that are self-published. But what if EVERY SINGLE ONE of the non-top selling ebooks was a self-published book? (And in real life a significant chunk of them are.) Then we'd have 500 ebooks with 50 top sellers, and 465 of those 500 are self-published and 35 of them are trade published and EVERY SINGLE ONE of the trade published books is in the "top selling" ten percent. Which would mean 100 percent of trade published ebooks are on that list but only 15/465 = three percent of self-published ebooks are on that list. This example is, admittedly, extreme, but the point is, the way Howey does his (horrible, misleading) math, we would STILL have that 31% number from it when only 3 percent of self-published books are hitting a top-selling list. Which goes to show just how misleading Howey's "math" is.

And in our example, those 15 books could all be from the same author, or from hybrid authors whose self-publishing is piggybacking off their successful trade pub deals. Those 15 could all be in one genre. Those 15 might not be the same 15 every day. Those 15 might all be listed for 99 cents.

This isn't a rant against self-publishing. I self-publish and I love it. This is a rant against Howey's math, which is doing its damnedest to misinform authors about the choices out there.

Even if there were 31 of 100, wouldn't mean anyone was actually buying or reading them; it'd mean they existed.
Yah, I'm comfortable with agreeing that the ones on the top seller list are probably being bought and read -- at least on the one day we know they hit it -- but again, that says nothing about the vast vast vast majority of SPed books. It also says nothing about what happens to those books after they drop off the top sellers list. My book has occasionally spiked for a day, and let me tell you, it didn't take a lot of sales. In fact, for the majority of its life (I think it's dropped below that now), my book's rank has been over 120,000, putting it in Howey's top seller category* for the majority of that time. And I haven't made close to a standard trade-pub advance in my genre with it. I haven't even grossed close to a standard trade-pub advance for it.

* Amazon ranks are a notorious black box, so we can't say my book was really a top seller, but rank is what Howey uses anyway. Let me tell you, my book has not contributed more than a fingernail to that "50% of Amazon's ebook revenue." ;) I want to highlight this again because I think it's exceedingly likely that the top handful of bestsellers make up most of that 50% of revenue, with a long tail of other books contributing -- my book being in the top 120,000 for a long period of time has not meant squat. And who's in that top handful of bestsellers? We don't know! :D

Lots of places besides Amazon sell books; lots of places besides Amazon sell e-books. Physical books still sell a whole lot of the market.
Yup, and sub rights, don't forget those. A lot of trade pub authors make income through many sources. Most self-pub authors make the vast majority of their income through ebooks. So even IF we had accurate, informative numbers (which we don't!), we would be comparing close-to-100% of a self-publisher's income with a small portion of a trade published author's income. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE IT MAKES SENSE.

There are millions of books languishing on Amazon, and other places, that aren't on any bestseller list. There are several more issues (what constitutes a bestseller, etc.,), but they seem fairly obvious.
Oh, yah.

I recommend people do what they feel is best for them, after actual research, not after listening to Hugh Howey.
This. Self-publishing is not for everyone. I love that it exists -- so much! -- and it's good for me, but I really cannot stand the way Howey misinforms people about it.

Do your research. Choose the route that is the best for you as an author and the best for your book as a book. Not everyone will be happy self-publishing, just as not everyone will be happy partnering with a trade publisher. It's both a personal and a business decision.

Self-publishing is not, for God's sake, a marginalized class like some people make it out to be. And trade pubbed authors are not Stockholmed idiots who haven't seen the light yet. The choice is a freakin' business decision.

*Gotta get slh to check my maths.
Thanks so much for dragging me into this thread, corny. ;) I was supposed to be writing!

Just kidding. Always happy to come poop in a math thread.

While I'm happy for any writer to find the path that his right for him/her, I disagree that self-publishing is easy. Successful self-publishers do a tremendous amount of work.

^^^THIS.

I find it personally insulting when people dismiss self-publishing as the "easy" path. Sure, some people do it that way, but a lot of us take self-publishing very seriously as a business we're investing in. Do you want to know one reason why a lot of my close writing friends are reluctant to self-publish? Because they see the freakin' crap ton of work I put into it (and they'd want to self-publish to a similar standard that I do).

It depends what your goals are self-publishing. If people just want an ebook for their friends and family to buy and are using Amazon to get that, then cool. Throw it up there. I don't have a problem with that. But don't claim self-publishing in general is easy, cheap, or less work than querying, because there are plenty of people self-publishing with other goals, and the ease, affordability, and work involved with self-publishing will depend entirely on what your creative and business goals are, and to say self-publishing must or should be cheap or easy is dismissing all those self-publishers who have goals different from yours and put in a fuckton of work to see them happen.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Why don't you self publish?

There's no reason to go through the agony of finding an agent or a publisher when it's quite easy to do it yourself.

I received only three rejection letters, one as flippant as, "We'll pass," when I discovered self publishing. Am glad I did. It gives you total control over your book's destiny.

When you sell 450 million copies, let me know. For that matter, when you sell forty thousand, let me know. When you even make as much money as my very first novel made decades ago, let me know.

Complete control is the worst possible thing any writer can have.

I've never had a desire to publish bad writing or bad story, and so far, out of several hundred read, only two self-published books I've read were even close to being professional level, and most were very close to, well, semi-literate.

Gatekeepers are good things. Writers with talent may get rejected here and there, but good books always find a home.

"We'll pass" is not flippant, it's usually being kind.
 

Old Hack

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To prove how hard it is for new authors to get published, Jerry Kosinski

*Jerzy*

He was a lovely man. So helpful and kind. I miss him.

used a pen name and submitted his bestseller Steps to 14 publishers and 13 agents. All of them rejected it, including Random House, the people who had published it.

Yep. I was cross with him when he pulled that stunt.

When I was acquiring books I would have rejected it too, if I'd recognised it. The alternative would have been to warn the book's author, agent or publisher that someone was plagiarising the book, or to enter into a conversation with the submitting author which couldn't possibly end well, all of which I really didn't have the time for. Far easier just to reject the book.

If I didn't recognise the book, chances are I wasn't the right sort of editor for it and so I'd have rejected it anyway, regardless of its quality. I refer you to Making Light's Slushkiller.

Laugh if you like at JK Rowling's experience, but I'm sure every one of the publishers that rejected her are kicking themselves now.

No, they're really not. I've spoken to some of the editors concerned.

They rejected the book because it wasn't right for them, or because they couldn't have published it effectively. If they'd published those books they might not have been the success they were.

Guess you've never heard of Hugh Howey. Not everyone's experience is identical to his, but plenty of self published authors are getting read. The group Author's Earnings recently reported that 31% of the e-books sold on Amazon are by self-published authors.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/07/self-published-ebooks-on-amazon-study.html

What has been your experience? What would you recommend?

There are several threads on AW which detail the huge flaws in those reports. You might find them interesting.
 

Theokles

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As you can see from my post count, I'm a newbie. I joined AW because I'd been reading about the 'cyber bullying' that goes on here, and wanted to see for myself if it was true.

I've made exactly two threads on this site, one introducing myself, and this one. The responses to the first were polite. The responses here on this board have taken me by surprise. I'm not exactly sure where all of the ire is coming from. All I did was post a few stories, and was immediately thrown on the defensive. Why, because I haven't been a member of your club for the past 10 years and haven't subscribed to the local wisdom?

You can chalk me up as an idiot who doesn't drink your Kool-Aid. You can also label me as a liar, because in an earlier post I commented that you wouldn't run me off that easily. Well, I was wrong. You've run me off.

I'm sure there's lots of valuable information on this site, and even in the responses to my posts, but the packaging is a bit vitroilic for my tastes.

Buh-bye.
 
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Cathy C

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Theokles, I'm sorry you feel people here have been negative. But you have to understand that you posted in a room where people are working toward the goal of commercial publishing, which they've chosen knowing that other options exist, and then post this:

Why don't you self publish?

There's no reason to go through the agony of finding an agent or a publisher when it's quite easy to do it yourself.

I received only three rejection letters, one as flippant as, "We'll pass," when I discovered self publishing. Am glad I did. It gives you total control over your book's destiny.

Can you see where the people who regularly visit this thread might take issue with this suggestion? It tells them, "You've chosen poorly." "You're upset for no reason," "Publishers are jerks who don't know what they're doing."

Instead of what (I hope) you intended, creating a rah-rah thread of "Don't feel bad. It'll happen soon!" it wound up being a discussion of self-publishing versus commercial publishing. Except the people in this room have already made the choice to go with commercial publishing, so it was the wrong audience for the SP discussion.

Still, I'm sorry you felt on the defensive. We're not cyber-bullies. Some people have simply chosen a different path. Let's return the thread to the rah-rah sort that makes people feel good as they go forward in querying. :)
 

Jamesaritchie

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To prove how hard it is for new authors to get published, Jerry Kosinski used a pen name and submitted his bestseller Steps to 14 publishers and 13 agents. All of them rejected it, including Random House, the people who had published it.

.

I hate it when silly people do this. It happens every year. It actually happens a lot more often than reported, and it means nothing. You have to assume editors are pretty stupid to think this matters. In most of these cases, the novel never actually sees anyone at all who could buy it. They;re submitted against guidelines, and receive an automatic rejection without being read.

Even more often, editors recognize the novel, and reject it as coming from one more dummy who thinks it has meaning. Every editor I know receives previously published novels from writers trying to prove something.
 
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