Origins of Harry Potter

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  • Origins of Harry Potter

    "The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a small publishing house in London. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first c...hapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children's books."
    Harry Potter's rough start! Makes you wonder about the "gatekeepers" that man the portals of our creative endeavors..

  • #2
    Re: Origins of Harry Potter

    Watership Down had a rocky start,

    Tom Clancy had to self publish Red October,

    Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach 18 rejection letters

    Chicken Soup for the Soul 140 rejections ~ too positive

    Carrie by Steven King

    Dune by Frank Herbert

    so on and so forth... I guess it's only through perserverence that anything good is published (or filmed)
    I heard the starting gun


    sigpic

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    • #3
      Re: Origins of Harry Potter

      Clive Cussler used "borrowed" agent stationary to get read.
      "Write every day. Don't quit. The rest is all bullshit." - Brian Koppelman

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      • #4
        Re: Origins of Harry Potter

        Isn't this true to most novelists? They all seem to struggle for years and years, getting rejected repeatedly, until someone picks them.

        It's a highly competitive field. Much like screenwriting.

        The lesson to learn from this is that all great writers DO get published eventually.

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        • #5
          Re: Origins of Harry Potter

          Originally posted by tuukka View Post
          The lesson to learn from this is that all great writers DO get published eventually.
          Well, we don't know that. We only know about the ones who got published.
          "Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.-
          ― Ray Bradbury

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          • #6
            Re: Origins of Harry Potter

            It's a wonderful story - but I've never been able to figure out why that shows that her talent was unappreciated by the publishing industry.

            A writer who picked up an agent with her first batch of query letters - her first novel ... and she only had a partially complete manuscript !?? That's a great achievement.

            Then when the manuscript was complete the agent had a sale within the first dozen calls - with the US rights being snapped up by one of the big US publishers ! That's another amazing achievement.

            That sounds like evidence that the 'gatekeepers' have a great eye for spotting talent ... picking up an unfinished novel by a first time novelist?

            If an agent picked you up as a client after seeing your unfinished script .. which they were then able to sell with a handful of phone calls - would you consider that evidence that Hollywood is overlooking writers with talent !!?

            It's impressive .. but I can't see it as evidence that the 'gatekeepers' don't see talent.

            Mac
            Last edited by Mac H.; 04-29-2012, 10:02 PM.
            New blogposts:
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            • #7
              Re: Origins of Harry Potter

              IIRC, over *sixty* rejections for the THE HELP.

              IICR, over forty major re-writes, based on rejection notes.

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              • #8
                Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                Originally posted by Ravenlocks View Post
                Well, we don't know that. We only know about the ones who got published.
                Those who don't get published these days, often choose to do it with self-published eBooks. It's cheap and easy, and makes your novel available to millions of readers. Some people actually make a lot of money with this method.

                I've heard of competent novels being published this way, but so far I haven't heard of any great ones, written by unknown authors. Tracking the overall quality of self-published eBooks should be a pretty good way of tracking the quality of unpublished work.

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                • #9
                  Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                  Originally posted by tuukka View Post
                  Those who don't get published these days, often choose to do it with self-published eBooks. It's cheap and easy, and makes your novel available to millions of readers. Some people actually make a lot of money with this method.

                  I've heard of competent novels being published this way, but so far I haven't heard of any great ones, written by unknown authors. Tracking the overall quality of self-published eBooks should be a pretty good way of tracking the quality of unpublished work.
                  Please don't believe the hype.
                  Most of the people who self-publish will never sell more than if they published with an obscure small publisher.
                  When there are no gates, the crap flood is on, and your book drowns in it immediately.

                  And there's plenty of hype, most of it resembling Amway convention speeches (he made million bucks.... she was rejected and had a self-published ueber-mega-bestseller...)

                  You can sell, but only if you're prepared to spend 5 hours a day promoting yourself on the internet. Great life for a writer.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                    Oh, I thought the thread was going to be about this film - about a boy named Harry Potter who must learn to become a powerful wizard to save his family from an evil sorcerer who is after a magic ring which will give him unlimited power: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/

                    Originally posted by tuukka View Post
                    The lesson to learn from this is that all great writers DO get published eventually.
                    Yes - that it's a freakin' tough thing to get published (or make money writing screenplays) but that if you have the goods you eventually break through.

                    The thing about self published e-book stuff is that it *is* a fairly level playing field, yet 98% of those folks sell a handful of books to friends and family and the other 2% actually make a living. What is the difference between the two? Well, you can promote the hell out of a book that nobody wants to read - and nobody will still want to read it. It you go on the "publisher's" forums on Amazon there are a pile of disappointed writers who did the free book thing - and had free books *returned* and after the promotion was over - no one bought any books. John Locke wrote a book on how to promote your books and make millions... but most people who try his methods don't make millions like he did - because it's not just promoting the book, it's having a great book.

                    Same with scripts.

                    I have no idea what the actual response from all of those HARRY POTTER (book) rejections were - but my guess is that if she was doing rewrites each time the book got turned down (which is what I do with scripts) she reached a place where publishers *almost* said yes again and again - and that's a very different type of rejection. In the screenplay world that may mean a meeting or a very open door to read other screenplays (often those e-mails where they ask if you have anything new, which means they were thinking of you).

                    So not all rejections are the same. One person could get 12 doors slammed in their faces, the other could get 12 people who meet with you and say they love it but it's not really for us or the story doesn't seem like it would work in today's market.

                    If you are a screenwriter and getting doors slammed in your face, your scripts aren't there yet.

                    - Bill
                    Free Script Tips:
                    http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                    • #11
                      Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                      +1 to what Bill said.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                        Originally posted by goldmund View Post
                        Please don't believe the hype.
                        Most of the people who self-publish will never sell more than if they published with an obscure small publisher.
                        When there are no gates, the crap flood is on, and your book drowns in it immediately.

                        And there's plenty of hype, most of it resembling Amway convention speeches (he made million bucks.... she was rejected and had a self-published ueber-mega-bestseller...)

                        You can sell, but only if you're prepared to spend 5 hours a day promoting yourself on the internet. Great life for a writer.
                        They don't sell, because people are not interested in buying. In other words, the books are not good enough.

                        That kinda proves that there aren't countless of great unpublished books out there - Which was my point. If those great books would be out there, they could be self-published.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                          Originally posted by tuukka View Post
                          They don't sell, because people are not interested in buying. In other words, the books are not good enough.

                          That kinda proves that there aren't countless of great unpublished books out there - Which was my point. If those great books would be out there, they could be self-published.
                          I think you're too optimistic. I self published some short stories that received amazing critical acclaim in my country. Then I sat down and took a while to think. What now?

                          Post on goodreads: "Hey, I'm selling some great stories"?

                          Force friends and family into buying and giving five star reviews? (because to sell, a self-pub needs some reviews)

                          Pretend I'm a third party and praise my work to high heavens?

                          And remember -- now they're published, so first pub rights are gone and no market will buy them.

                          The good thing about self-pub -- everyone can publish without waiting years for some publisher's recognition -- is at the same time its greatest drawback. Everyone can publish, so good books drown in the flood of shitty ones.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                            It's not entirely true that no market will buy books that have been published already.

                            '50 Shades of Grey' was originally a Twilight Fan-Fic published online. A tiny Aussie publisher agreed to do a print run if the Twilight references were removed. And then it took off from there.

                            (Here's a textual comparison of the revisions between the online fanfic version and the new version :

                            http://dearauthor.wpengine.netdna-cd...0.50.45-PM.png

                            Full article on the history of it:
                            http://dearauthor.com/features/indus...es-comparison/

                            )

                            Mac
                            New blogposts:
                            *Followup - Seeking Investors in all the wrong places
                            *Preselling your film - Learning from the Experts
                            *Getting your indie film onto iTunes
                            *Case Study - Estimating Film profits

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                            • #15
                              Re: Origins of Harry Potter

                              Originally posted by goldmund View Post
                              I think you're too optimistic. I self published some short stories that received amazing critical acclaim in my country. Then I sat down and took a while to think. What now?

                              Post on goodreads: "Hey, I'm selling some great stories"?

                              Force friends and family into buying and giving five star reviews? (because to sell, a self-pub needs some reviews)

                              Pretend I'm a third party and praise my work to high heavens?

                              And remember -- now they're published, so first pub rights are gone and no market will buy them.

                              The good thing about self-pub -- everyone can publish without waiting years for some publisher's recognition -- is at the same time its greatest drawback. Everyone can publish, so good books drown in the flood of shitty ones.
                              There isn't much of a market for short stories, never has been. Only collections from established authors, who have made their name on full lenght novels, can sell.

                              In order to use self-published eBook approach effectively, you should preferably have *several* full lenght novels out. They advertise each other. If someone is serious about being a novellist, he should have written several novels before even hoping to get a publishing deal. Only few people strike out with their first work.

                              BTW, some people have gotten real publishing deals out of their eBooks.

                              Also some well known writers have started to put out their unpublished novels out as eBooks. Some do the same with old novels where the rights have returned to them.

                              If you want to successfully self-publish eBooks, write several full lenght novels, including at least one great one, and then put them on sale. Needless to say, there should be some kind of pre-established audience for your work. Genre fiction generally sells better than obscure, avant garde, navel-gazing "high" literature.

                              And yes, you have to promote your work. Same thing with "real" authors. King or McRowling don't need to market themselves, but non-names have to do it. Unfortunately for writers, the publishers often leave the marketing for the writer.
                              Last edited by tuukka; 05-01-2012, 03:39 AM.

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