In their blackest moments, aspiring authors often cling to anecdotes about wildly successful books that were rejected ad nauseum before some acute publisher saw in them what the reading public would later see. Everyone from James Joyce to JK Rowling had to contend with a spirit-killing number of rejections (not to mention the odd insult) while finding a path to publication
But has any author ever shared his or her submissions record? If so, I’ve never come across it. Well, here’s mine.
It’s not complete, of course; before I moved to a digital format in 2006 I kept my records in an exercise book. That contained two acceptances and a whole trove more rejections.
Anyway, I hope this file provides some solace to the unpublished and neophyte writers out there. If you keep writing, improving and submitting, chances are the warm light of acceptance will disperse what can sometimes seem like never-ending darkness.