Have you heard about The Domino Project? It’s a new publishing venture that Seth Godin is launching via Amazon.com. For those less familiar with Seth’s work, he has written a number of books since the mid 1980, and many of them have been bestsellers. He writes about the way ideas spread and his blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual. In short, Seth is a very successful writer.

Back to The Domino Project, on the Amazon page for this publishing venture, there is a short introductory video in which Seth shares with us an interesting story about his professional journey. Here is a little taste:

I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forgive Vanna White. You may remember Vanna; she was the one who turned the letters on Wheel of Fortune. My very first book was written in 1985 with Chip Conley, called Business Rules of Thumb. It came out in 1986 from Warner Books. And that week, the week we handed it in, was the week our editor met his new author: Vanna White. And I have to think that his head was turned by her, and because he was so distracted by Vanna and her autobiography—yes, Vanna wrote an autobiography—he didn’t pay any attention to our book, and our book failed. Now, we’d only been paid a five thousand dollar advance, which is hardly a way to make a living. In the year that followed, I got rejected 900 times with 30 different book proposals sent to 30 different publishers, and it took five years after that for me to figure out this whole book packaging thing.
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My 2¢: Not that long ago, when he was just starting out as a writer, Seth Godin was rejected

900 (nine hundred) times

with 30 different book proposals sent to 30 different publishers.
What if that was the only story that Seth ever told?