Some of the world's most successful authors were initially rejected

In 1953, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies manuscript was perused for seven months by assorted publishers, who all returned it.

Faber’s reader rejected the submission as “absurd & uninteresting... rubbish & dull”.

Charles Monteith, hired as an editor by Faber a month before, plucked the book from the bin and persuaded colleagues to buy it for £60.

As a set text for schools, Lord of the Flies went on to sell millions of copies.

Harry Potter - by JK Rowling

JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as a struggling single mother on benefits and faced 12 rejections, eventually selling the book for £1,500 to Bloomsbury.

The series went on to break sales records and was turned into the blockbuster films. Rowling is now worth an estimated £570million.

Carrie - by Stephen King

While trying to persuade publishers to accept Carrie, 20-year-old Stephen King was told by one it wasn’t interested in sci-fi concerning negative utopias because it didn’t sell.

Thirty publishers rejected Carrie before Doubleday took it on. King has now sold 350million books globally.