Famous Books or Authors Who Met Rejection
Rejections     Book/Author
7,000             William Saroyan
140                Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
38                 Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
30                 Carrie by Stephen King
26                 Watership Down by Richard Adams
22                Dubliners by James Joyce
20                 The Kon Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl
16                 The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter
15                 The Enormous Room by ee cummings
(Cummings self-published this, his first work, now rated a masterpiece, dedicating it to the 15 publishers who had rejected it.)
12              Harry Potter by JK Rowling
(Rowling is vague on the number of rejections she got, saying, "I'm not sure if it was a dozen, but it was plenty...")
7              The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (Potter finally published it herself.)