… from Joe Konrath:
No matter how talented you are, no matter how hard working, no matter how awesome and committed your publisher might be, statistically you are far more likely to lose the game of publishing than you are to win it. This isn’t a bad thing. Nor is it good. It’s just the nature of the beast. You could argue it’s the nature of life itself. Our job is to do what we can to influence the odds, but it’s foolish at best to argue the odds don’t matter, or don’t even exist.
(Incidentally, the whole (long) post is worth reading.)