JK Rowling has shared some of the rejection letters she received when submitting her first pseudonymous novel The Cuckoo's Calling for publication.
The crime novel was published in April 2013 by an imprint of Little Brown under the pen name Robert Galbraith. Rowling was not known as the actual author until a Sunday Times report revealed the news several months after the publication.
The reveal saw the book enjoy a huge boost in sales - jumping from 43 copies one week in the UK to 17,662 the next.
Today, the Harry Potter author has posted some of the Cuckoo's Calling rejection letters, with one publisher suggesting "we could not publish it with commercial success":
By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures.) pic.twitter.com/vVoc0x6r8W
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016
Rowling posted the letters as an inspiration to budding writers. In a previous tweet, she said, "I pinned my 1st rejection letter to my kitchen wall because it gave me something in common with all my fave writers!"
I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen. https://t.co/bMKu4zJ3nm
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016
The author also says the publisher "who first turned down Harry also sent [Robert Galbraith] his rudest rejection (by email)!"
Two further Robert Galbraith books - The Silkworm and Career of Evil - have been published since The Cuckoo's Calling.
Rowling has co-authored a play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is set to open in London in July. The script to the Harry Potter sequel - set 19 years after the final novel - is due to be published alongside the play's premiere.
