To all fellow writers, if you haven't got the book, do it! Here are just some sample rejections and below I'm pasting my favorites. This is truly hilarious. I've been laughing aloud for half an hour. http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
Rotten Rejections
The Letters that Publishers Wish they'd never Sent
Jorge Luis Borges
'utterly untranslatable'
Isaac Bashevis Singer
'It's Poland and the rich Jews again.'
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence
'for your own sake do not publish this book.'
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
'an irresponsible holiday story'
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
'an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.'
Crash by J G Ballard
‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
'This will set publishing back 25 years.'
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
'Do you realize, young woman, that you're the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex.'
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
(which was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies)
‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
‘You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.’
Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
‘My dear sir,
I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.’
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
‘... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.’
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