Even potential prize winning authors can be rejected repeatedly by publishers

Rejection by publishers is a common experience of authors, regardless of their quality, or even of their being potential prizewinners. Two of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Booker award have been turned down by many publishers before being successfully published. One is by Tan Twan Eng whose novel is published by Myrmidon, a small publisher in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The other author is Deborah Levy, whose novel Swimming Home is co-published with Faber by the  subscription publisher And Other Stories. It is her first to be published for 15 years after her last one, since when she has struggled to find a publisher.