You must try, try again! J.K. Rowling's famed Harry Potter series was first rejected by publishers. But instead of crumpling up the rejection letters, she revealed on Friday, March 25, that she actually still has a few in her possession.
The British author, 50, tweeted about her early struggles (she was homeless when she wrote the first novel of the beloved franchise) to help encourage aspiring scribe Dianne Brubaker. Brubaker got Rowling's attention when she mentioned her in a tweet.
"I pinned my 1st rejection letter to my kitchen wall because it gave me something in common with all my fave writers!" Rowling wrote. She added to a fan: "I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen."
Rowling went on to tweet that she "had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try." Indeed, and that attitude launched her career, with the Harry Potter series going on to sell hundreds of millions of copies.
By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures.) pic.twitter.com/vVoc0x6r8W
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016
Fans quickly asked Rowling to share a photo of the Potter rejections, but she said that they were in the attic. So instead, she posted two letters that she received when she was trying to publish 2013's The Cuckoo's Calling. She wrote the novel, which is now a mystery series, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
"By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures)," she captioned the Twitter photo. "Yes, the publisher who first turned down Harry also sent @RGalbraith his rudest rejection (by email)!" In one particularly scathing letter, Rowling was schooled on how to correctly send her drafts to a publisher. She was also told to never spoil the ending.
Read the letters above!
