This is the remarkable story of how John Grisham overcame rejection to become an icon and one of the bestselling writers of all time. Let’s go:
John Grisham has sold 400+ million books.
But few outside his family know his career began with an avalanche of failure & rejection.
This is going to be one of your favorite author success stories:
1/ It’s 1984 and a 29-year-old lawyer is sitting in a courthouse in northern Mississippi
John Grisham.
He’s listening to horrific testimony from a young girl.
A victim
“Every juror was crying,” Grisham said. “I remember staring at the defendant wishing I had a gun.”….
2/ It stays with him. Haunts him
The emotion. The rage of the parents.
“And with that, a story was born,” he said.
But Grisham is a trial lawyer.
With a full case load.
When the hell is he going to write a book?….
3/ Grisham can’t shake the idea. Decides to write it as a hobby.
A SERIOUS hobby.
He commits to getting up at 5AM every day to write the book for one hour before work.
It’s slow. Painstaking at times
He sticks with it.
Immerses himself in it…
4/ After three straight years of 5AM writing sessions, Grisham finally has a book he’s proud of.
Now onto the next step every author dreads: pitching.
He sends the manuscript to one publisher.
Rejected.
Then another.
Rejected.
And another.
Rejected….
5/ John Grisham repeats this process 27 times:
Pitch. Send. Reject.
Damn.
Nobody will publish his book
After nearly TWO YEARS of pitching… along comes lucky number 28…
Wynwood Press agrees to a small print-run.
Awesome, right!
Nope….
6/ John Grisham’s debut novel, A Time To Kill, launches with a thud.
“Five thousand copies were printed and we couldn’t give them away,” Grisham said later
He’s desperate
He grabs boxes of books. Stuffs his car
Decides to pitch libraries one-by-one to show readers his book:
7/ It doesn’t work.
A Time to Kill is… dead
And perhaps so is Grisham’s writing career.
He’d spent 5 years chasing his dream.
He had a young family
He could have easily called it quits
But he’d been toying with another idea and…
8/ John Grisham decided he wasn’t quite ready to give up.
“‘I told myself’, I’m going to write one more book,” he said
The 5AM writing sessions begin and he cranks out a manuscript for:
The Firm
Sells it
It spends 47 weeks as a bestseller and is the #1 book of 1991.
And….
sitting on a lottery ticket: Grisham’s 1st book.
They relaunch it.
Reprint it.
Sold the original 5,000 copies.
Then ANOTHER 1.5 MILLION!
All because Grisham decided to write ONE MORE BOOK…
10/ The key to Grisham’s historic literary success is consistency & confidence:
“Write every day. At the same time. No excuses.” he told the NY Times.
If you enjoyed this behind-the-books story on John Grisham, here are a few other author breakdowns you’ll like: