Kathryn Stockett got sixty rejections for her best selling novel The Help. Her first rejection read: “Story did not sustain my interest.” But it was her very first and she was actually thrilled with it –  a real rejection letter!  She went back to editing her manuscript.  Her fortieth rejection finally made her cry.  It read: “There is no market for this kind of tiring writing.”

She began to lie to her friends and family and sneaked off to hotels to secretly continue to work on the novel. Finally after five years the sixty-first response was from an agent who loved the book and sold it three weeks later.

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“The point is, I can’t tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how not to: Give into the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript – or painting, song, voice, dance moves…in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good.” –Kathryn Stockett   (The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives  edited by Katy Couric.  Random House  NY 2011)