If at First You Don't Succeed...

Sure, it's a tad cliche to point out that "If at first you don't succeed, try try again." In The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, however, Leonard Mlodinow provides a few great literary examples of the premise:

John Grisham's manuscript for A Time to Kill was rejected by twenty-six publishers . . . . Dr. Seuss's first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. And J.K Rowling's first Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by nine.

(Page 10). Publishers passed on three of the bestsellers of the modern era sixty-two times! The authors, of course, highlight the benefit of persistence. Rowling alone went on to sell more than 400 million copies in the Harry Potter series (not to mention the popular movie series).

Posted by Philip Miles, an employment lawyer with McQuaide Blasko in State College, Pennsylvania.