What connects JK Rowling, Dr. Seuss, Andy Warhol and James Dyson?

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Harry Potter is one of the best selling series ever, with more than 500 million copies sold. It is the 3rd-most-read book of all-time after The Bible and China’s Quotations from Chairman Mao. JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, was rejected 12 times. We learned this during our trip to Edinburgh where Rowling wrote day in and day out. You can check out our reflections here if you haven’t already.

Dr. Seuss’ first book was rejected 27 times. After the 27th rejection, the author was walking home on Madison Avenue, ready to burn the manuscript in his apartment’s incinerator. As fate would have it, he happened to run into a college friend who just happened to be starting a new job at Vanguard Press as a children’s book editor. Dr. Seuss signed with Vanguard the same day, and his book was a massive hit. Dr. Seuss later wrote, “If I had been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today.”