If At First You Don't Succeed

Gone With the Wind -– one of the most enduring (not to mention best-selling) novels and movies of all time, was rejected first by 38 publishers (who apparently really didn’t give a damn). When Margaret Mitchell finally found a publisher in Macmillan, the book sold in stores for $3 apiece – quite a sum for 1936. Even at this high price, the book sold more than one million copies by the end of the year. It won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, and of course became an Academy Award-winning film in 1939.