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Lynn Vielh's blog - Paperback Writer http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/
PBW posted a list of actual rejections and authors, then asked her readers to match them. Here are the answers.
1. "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell."
Stephen King received this one for his SF negative utopia fest, Carrie.
2. "We found the heroine as boring as her husband had."
Dull old Mary Higgins Clark snagged this one for Journey Back to Love.
3. "This is a work of almost-genius – genius in the power of its expression – almost in the sense of its enormous bitterness. I wish there were an audience for a book of this kind. But there isn’t. It won’t sell."
Just not smart enough: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
4. "It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A."
And yet George Orwell didn't tear up Animal Farm.
5. "I am sorry, [author's name], but you just do not know how to use the English language."
"I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English anguage."
6. "The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable."
Yeah, Ursula K. Le Guin is kinda wordy in The Left Hand of Darkness.
7. "I loved it. I stayed up all night reading it. There is no way in hell we can publish this."
PBW copped this one for my first paranormal novel, Night of the Chameleon (the same editor who told me this later bought six other novels from me, so I forgave her pretty fast.)
8. "My dear fellow, I may be dead from the neck up, but rack my brains as I may I can't see why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep."
So too, apparently, was Marcel Proust.
9. "...too different from other [genre] on the market to warrant its selling."
"...too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling." That king of the non-comformists, Dr. Seuss, earned this one.
10. "Get rid of the Indian stuff."
As many of you guessed, Tony Hillerman got hit with this one (and it came from his agent, ouch.)
PBW posted a list of actual rejections and authors, then asked her readers to match them. Here are the answers.
1. "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell."
Stephen King received this one for his SF negative utopia fest, Carrie.
2. "We found the heroine as boring as her husband had."
Dull old Mary Higgins Clark snagged this one for Journey Back to Love.
3. "This is a work of almost-genius – genius in the power of its expression – almost in the sense of its enormous bitterness. I wish there were an audience for a book of this kind. But there isn’t. It won’t sell."
Just not smart enough: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
4. "It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A."
And yet George Orwell didn't tear up Animal Farm.
5. "I am sorry, [author's name], but you just do not know how to use the English language."
"I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English anguage."
6. "The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable."
Yeah, Ursula K. Le Guin is kinda wordy in The Left Hand of Darkness.
7. "I loved it. I stayed up all night reading it. There is no way in hell we can publish this."
PBW copped this one for my first paranormal novel, Night of the Chameleon (the same editor who told me this later bought six other novels from me, so I forgave her pretty fast.)
8. "My dear fellow, I may be dead from the neck up, but rack my brains as I may I can't see why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep."
So too, apparently, was Marcel Proust.
9. "...too different from other [genre] on the market to warrant its selling."
"...too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling." That king of the non-comformists, Dr. Seuss, earned this one.
10. "Get rid of the Indian stuff."
As many of you guessed, Tony Hillerman got hit with this one (and it came from his agent, ouch.)
