Many first novels are written with no audience, tens of thousands of words written, edited, re-written, before the writers know whether they’ll get published. Thousands of hours put in, with no promise of the external world meeting your belief, but the belief is necessary; it’s a beautiful process, really, and has gifted us many incredible books... See more

Many first novels are written with no audience, tens of thousands of words written, edited, re-written, before the writers know whether they’ll get published. Thousands of hours put in, with no promise of the external world meeting your belief, but the belief is necessary; it’s a beautiful process, really, and has gifted us many incredible books... See more

Robert Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected by 121 publishers. How do you keep going after “just” 100 rejections? After 20, even?

Then it was published by William Morrow & Company in 1974 and stayed on best-seller lists for decades, with total sales of over 5 million copies. For comparison, Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and... See more