Harry Potter author JK Rowling has publicly aired two rejection letters she received for her first novel using the pseudonym “Robert Galbraith” in a bid to encourage young writers to persevere against the odds.
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She explained: “The Potter ones are now in a box in my attic, but I could show you Robert Galbraith’s?”.
By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath‘s rejection letters!
She continued: “I wasn’t going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen”.
One of the letters, from publishing house Constable & Robinson, said: “I regret that we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish it [your book] with commercial success”. It later recommended for her to double check a bookstore to find out the names of the current publishers and editors of the fiction genre.
Reddit user upyourjuicebox was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and noticed a detail that suggests J.K. Rowling foreshadowed Dumbledore’s death in the third book.
In a series of tweets this morning, Rowling offered advice to a fan who had experienced rejection – and said she had even pinned her first rejection letter to the wall as motivation.
Derby-based publisher Crème de la Crime wrote: “We are unable to accept new submissions at the moment”.
When fans asked how she found the strength to continue on after being shot down so many times, Rowling replied, “I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you fearless enough to try…”
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Harry Potter has become the most successful literary franchises in the world and is now worth around $15 billion – $1 billion of which has gone straight in into the 50-year-old’s pocket.
