Everybody knows that the “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” manuscript was rejected more than ten times before being picked by Bloomsbury, at the time a small publshing house. What few people know is that “The Cuckoo’s Calling”, the first book by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, was also rejected. Rowling brought up the subject in an inspiring conversation this morning on Twitter.

It all started when a fan and non-published writer called Dianne Brubaker tweeted “Not getting down… because this WILL happen. J.K. Rowling got rejected, I will too! #ItsAllGood #AmWriting”. Rowling saw the tweet and answered:

After that, other user asked to see pictures of Rowling’s rejection letters, when she answered:

And then Rowling tweeted two relatively recent pictures with one rejection letter each from the publishing houses Constable and Crème de la Crime:

An interesting fact is that the first publisher who turned down “Harry Potter” also committed the same mistake with “The Cuckoo’s Calling”:

When asked about what kept her motivated and if in any moment she thought about giving up, Jo said:

The conversation ended when a fan asked from where she could take the courage to risk it all in the stuff she loved, and Rowling wisely said:

Who would have thought that after such a big stardom and talent a work from Rowling would be rejected? This is really inspiring for all writers who dedicate themselves so much to their stories and many times take years and years to be picked up by a publisher – something very common in Brazil, for example.

Currently, Galbraith has three published books; the third one, “Career of Evil”, was released on October 22th 2015 in the UK.

News translated to English by Marina Anderi.