"Dear Sir,
No, you may not send us your verses, and we will not give you the name of another publisher. We hate no rival publisher sufficiently to ask you to inflict them on him. The specimen poem is simply awful. In fact, we have never seen worse."
Amazingly, the recipient of this letter not only did not commit suicide, he continued self-publishing his poetry for another decade.
The Daily Mail quotes some lines of his "poetry," which support the notion that the writers of the rejection letter were absolutely right, but I don't want to dwell on that. Rather, I plan to inscribe the name of Frederick Charles Meyer upon my heart, as a guiding light to follow.
Henceforth, when tempted to say, "This indie publishing is too damn hard, I don't know how to market my books," I shall respond, "Did Frederick Charles Meyer allow such minor obstacles to stop him? He did not!"
When growsing, "I don't get any reviews," I shall remind myself that Frederick Charles Meyer didn't either.
And when whining, "I don't have any talent," the response will be, "Neither did Frederick Charles Meyer!"
Funny...
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