Keep Going
Publishers don’t like to take a chance on anything too different from what they have already published. … As one publisher famously said, “We want the same thing … only different.”
Acceptance criteria for large publishing houses are based almost exclusively on what they have sold before. … These pointed— and completely misguided — rejections should not only encourage you on your path to publication (you are in good company!), they should steel you against the frustration of the inevitable “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Zane Grey, who wrote a lot of western literature and eventually sold over 40 million books was originally told ‘You have no business being a writer and should give up.’ He ended up writing about 90 novels about a quarter of which were made into films. Read the full post from Erica Verillo.
Zane Gray was a member of Penn’s varsity baseball team in 1895 and 1896 and the picture is of him there.