"The Kite Runner" mystery

I read that Khaled Hosseini, the author of "The Kite Runner," said he was rejected by 30 agents before the intelligent Elaine Koster signed him on.

I'll have another post about Elaine Koster later, but for right now, I cannot get past my astonishment that 30, THIRTY, THREE-ZERO agents rejected "The Kite Runner." Oh, my good Lord.

This is beyond discouraging.

Because how much worse are either of my novels than "The Kite Runner"? The scale has not been invented to map such a difference. It would have to be on the order of parsecs.

And, remember, this is by MY judgment. I wrote the novels and think they are damn fine pieces of work (he said with an air of humility), but they are not "The Kite Runner."

Here is the only optimistic thing I can gather from this story. I happen to know that 30 agents did not read "The Kite Runner" and reject it. Probably 25 of them read and rejected a query letter. Another four read and rejected the 30 sample pages he sent with the original query. One asked for the first 100 pages and rejected it.

Then along came Elaine Koster. Damn smart woman.

More later on her.

Yours in rejection,

Phil