From the Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society’s July/August 2012 issue: In an article entitled “Between Friends,” Pastor Mark Koonz provides extracts from reminiscences by George Sayer (who wrote the Lewis biography, Jack), in which he recounts a visit by J.R.R. Tolkien to his home in the summer of 1952. Tolkien was depressed, having had his The Lord of the Rings manuscript rejected by several publishers.
To entertain him in the evening I produced a tape recorder (a solid early Ferrograph that is still going strong). He had never seen one before and said whimsically that he ought to cast out any devil that might be in it by recording a prayer, the Lord’s Prayer in Gothic, one of the extinct languages of which he was a master.
He was delighted when I played it back to him and asked if he might record some of the poems in The Lord of the Rings to find out how they sounded to other people. The more he recorded, the more he enjoyed recording and the more his literary self-confidence grew.
When he had finished the poems, one of us said, “Record for us the riddle scene from the Hobbit,” and we sat spellbound for almost half an hour while he did. I think I asked him to record what he thought one of the best pieces of prose in The Lord of the Rings, and he recorded part of The Ride of the Rohirrim.
“Surely you know that’s really good?” I asked after playing it back.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s good. This machine has made me believe in it again. But how am I to get it published?”
I thought of what I myself might do in the same difficulty. “Haven’t you an old pupil in publishing who might like it for its own sake and therefore be willing to take a risk?”
“There’s only Rayner Unwin,” he replied after a pause.
“Then send it to Rayner Unwin personally.”
And he did. And the result was that even during his life-time over three million copies were sold.
When he got back to Oxford Tolkien wrote to us to thank us for having him, a letter in Elvish that is one of my most valued possessions.
You can buy the recordings here.
Wonderful. It’s remarkable how many of these Can’t-Get-A-Great-Book-Published stories there are. Could make one believe that a story published easily isn’t good enough.
This speaks to the importance of marketing. A great book with the wrong publisher is almost worse than a great book with no publisher. Reminds me of the discussion of gifts in 1 Cor. 12:15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.(ESV)
Just as a hand needs a foot to get it to the spot where it can do its hand stuff, a writer needs a marketing department that can get his book in front of those who will most appreciate it.
It’s also wonderful how sometimes someone steps forward to buck up a despondent author.