Timex Authors

Many years ago the Timex watch company produced commercials featuring their timepieces. In these ads a watch would be subjected to torturous test. Taped to a baseball bat shot through glass or various other trials. At the end, a camera zoomed in on the watch to prove it was still running.  ‘It took a licking and kept on ticking’ become the motto for the Timex company.

Some authors are like the watches in these advertisements. They were rejected criticized and told they had no talent. However they didn’t listen to the critics. They kept on writing. Today we consider them among the greatest writers and their works classics.

  The difference between these authors and 99 percent of those who put their words on paper is they didn’t give up. Pure and simple this is the answer to their success. No hidden secret, no magic formula they didn’t quit. They became flustered they threw their manuscript away picked it out of the wastebasket and kept on. They may have given up for a short period ,however they always returned to the task.

They wrote, revised and revised again until the book was finished. Some authors took rejection letters and torn them up stomping them into the ground others shot them.

Would you consider William Faulkner    unpublishable? What about James Joyce? Jack London papered his walls with rejections all 600 of them. He kept a running tally of the ones who turned down his work. Louis L’Amour  was rejected 350 times. Later Congress awarded him a gold medal. John Creasy 774. One hundred and twenty publishers turned down Chicken Soup for the Soul.C. S. Lewis was turned down 800 times before his writing was sold.

Only 50 copies of Moby Dick were sold During Herman Melville’s lifetime. He died in obscurely. Yet today it is considered a .masterpiece 

Often discouraged these authors kept going. Today their   books are still in print.

How would you like to be the agent or publisher who turned down London falkenter Steinbeck or Hemmingway?  Would you kick yourself each time you rest the list of best sellers.

Are you a Timex author? Can you take a beating and still come back for more? When you get knocked down you do get back up? If you do, you have a good chance of being a success.