More people read your paper if it's rejected

I recall reading some years ago that scientific journal articles were read by such a small number of people that having your paper rejected (and resubmitted? once? twice?) actually resulted in more people reading it (as opposed to getting it accepted outright).  I have been unable to track down a reference to this but think it was based on the sort of analysis that de Solla Price used to do ("Little Science, Big Science")