NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!

For writers, rejections aren't just inevitable – they are a way of life. Every writer gets rejections. Every. Single. One. There are no exceptions. Here is a tally that should, if not encourage you, at least bring you back to reality. The reality is this: keep your day job, but KEEP WRITING!!

The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot, was rejected by 17 publishers

Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 20 times.

Thor Hyerdahl's Kon-Tiki was rejected 20 times.

Richard Hooker's novel M*A*S*H was rejected 21 times.

James Joyce's Dubliners was rejected 22 times.

John Grisham’s first novel was rejected 25 times.

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by 25 publishers.

Madeleine L"Engle's A Wrinkle in Time was turned down 29 times.

Stephen King's Carrie was rejected 30 times.

Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 40 times.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen received 134 rejections.

Louis L’Amour was rejected over 200 times before he sold any of his writing.

And the grand prize goes to:

C.S. Lewis, who received over 800 rejections before he sold a single piece of writing.