Writers Tricks of the Trade Volume 6 Issue 3 | Page 34

Books That Almost Weren’t Published (Cont’d)

#4. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anyone who's ever taken a high school English class and read George
Orwell's Animal Farm would probably agree that it is a symbolic story of the Russian
Revolution and the subsequent Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Orwell used the
Available on Amazon imagery of filthy pigs who take over a farm for the supposed benefit of all its
inhabitants, only to run it according to their own hoggish desires to represent Stalin
and company.
It was a scathing view of Stalin’s regime, but at the time Russia was an important
ally in the war against the Nazis, and people still held Stalin in high regard. So Orwell
presented all of it in an ingenious form of an easy-to-digest children's book starring
adorable talking animals—a book that is now considered one of the 100 greatest
novels of the last century and it is included in collections of The Great Books of the
Western World.

GEORGE ORWELL
1943

Unlike some of the other authors in this article, Orwell wasn't some nobody living
in a van in England trying to get publishers to recognize his talents. He was already
well-known by the time he wrote Animal Farm. Still publishers in the U.K. weren't
about to touch a manuscript that criticized their main Stalin, so even as a well
regarded author he suffered through several outright refusals. Then publisher
Jonathan Cape almost published it but backed out of the deal because the Ministry of
Information advised against it.
Four publishers passed the book before it finally got published in 1945—after the
war was safely over when nobody cared whether Stalin was offended or not. U.K.
publishers were not the only ones nervous about Orwell's masterpiece. One American
publisher supposedly rejected the book on the grounds that there was no market for
"animal stories" in the USA.
#5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
That brings us to the fairytale story of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling.
The Harry Potter series is, quite simply, one of the most lucrative ideas in the
history of human civilization. The movies alone have made nearly $8 billion worldwide. Add book sales and merchandising, and it's probably closer to $25
billion, not counting the theme park. One hundred years from now it is likely that the
franchise will still be making money for someone as it gets repackaged for generation
after generation.
With success like that, one would think the first editor who opened the
manuscript box and saw something called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone would have immediately envisioned an unbelievable success. Right?
Wrong. Not even close.

MAY - JUNE 2016

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WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE