My first novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in the interim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literary agent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.
I think I made my first short fiction sale in 2005. I had been writing unsuccessfully before that.
I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.
I had the easiest publishing experience in the entire world. I sent out fifteen courier letters to agents, got five no replies, nine rejections and one I want to see it. A month later I had an agent. Another month later I had a three book deal with Little Brown.
Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.
I had an agent who spent eight years - eight years! - trying to sell my stories. She sold other people's work; she just didn't sell mine.
My first book was rejected nine times. It turned out to be a best seller, Battle Cry? in 1953.
After being rejected for years, I found a publisher for 'Keeper,' and it won prizes, and then I had to write a second and a third book because I kept taking the money and spending it.
Over a four-month period, I sat down and wrote every day. And then there was a novel, and all of a sudden, there were agents and offers.
I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.