How do you get a GOOD book published?

How likely is it that a well-written novel will actually be published? Here are some interesting statistics...John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was declined by 15 publishers and 30 agents (I’ll bet they’re all kicking themselves now). Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected 24 times. Before he wrote Roots, Alex Haley received 200 rejections. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck was rejected 14 times before it was finally accepted and won a Pulitzer Prize. Louis L’Amour received 200 rejections before he sold his first novel; he then went on to sell over 200 million copies of 112 books. If you visit the House of Happy Walls, Jack London’s estate in Sonoma County, you will see some of his 600 rejection letters.

But here’s my favorite – 8 years after his novel Steps won the National Book Award, Jerzy Kozinski permitted a writer to change his name and the title of the book and send it in manuscript form to 13 agents and 14 publishers just to test the plight of new writers. They all rejected it, including Random House, who had published it originally.

So what’s the lesson to be learned by all this? One thing is certain, do not stop writing for fear of rejection. What if that had been the reaction of any of the great authors mentioned in the last paragraph? What I tell everyone who asks me about my own experience in having my novel The Litigators published (and yes, John Grisham used the same title for his latest book - titles are not protected by copyright laws) is that they need to write for themselves, not for others.

Authors should write a novel because they truly enjoy writing and gain tremendous satisfaction from having successfully completed the enormous task of writing a good book. If the book happens to get published, or if the author chooses to self publish it on his own, that’s just frosting on the cake. But, any person who writes merely to get published is likely to be very disappointed and miss out on the great satisfaction that is realized by writing the book in the first place. And, by the way, after 12 years of writing 8 complete drafts, 250 literary agents rejected The Litigators before Scarletta Press finally picked it up. That was one very happy day.

Join me next week for the start of my mini-series How to win a lawsuit.