You can tell it's the silly season ...

... Because you have to put up with ridiculous pieces like the one I heard on the Today programme on BBC's Radio 4, this morning, and which you can also read about at the Guardian. In summary, the short interview between John Humphrys and David Lassman - a frustrated, unpublished author and, more laudably, director of the Jane Austen festival in Bath - told us that eighteen publishers and agents received the first three chapters of Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which, according to Humphrys, Lassman had retyped, changing only a few names, retitling the books and then submitting them under the name Alison Laydee. Naturally, he received eighteen rejection letters, when he heard from anyone at all. Only one publisher – Jonathan Cape – took the trouble to write to him suggesting that he might want to consider something more original in future. In the Today programme piece, Penguin was singled out for a mention since we'd actually republished Pride and Prejudice a couple of months ago. The standard rejection letter he received said: 'Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book First Impressions [Pride and Prejudice]. It seems like a really original and interesting read.' You could perhaps concuss yourself on that boiler plate rejection. Lassman has said that his reasons for submitting these books was partly out of frustration at not getting his own - original - work published and partly wondering whether Austen's work would be considered worthy of publication today.

I can't begin to describe the ignorance of the way publishing works (not to mention the self-serving nature of the enterprise) displayed by this 'deception'. Oh wait, yes I can. Let me count the ways that this 'experiment' fails to even address its own parameters:

1) The slush pile: Anyone who thinks this is read first by a decorated, badged and gunned Editor is deluding themselves. Editors have enough to do publishing books from their own stable of authors and reading manuscripts from agents to add to that stable to bother about those people who haven't done the proper research i.e. if you've submittted your work to a major trade publisher that says it does not accept unsolicited submissions you're going to get short shrift. So who does look at this stuff? Well, I hate to break it to you, but, if you're lucky, an editorial assistant might glance at it between their long hours reading the stuff they get from agents and their own authors. Most likely, though, it will be looked at by someone doing a spot of work experience. Yes. A student or someone who has just graduated and who wants to know what it is like to work at a publisher. Familiarity with the works of Jane Austen is not an essential requirement for work experience - which leads to my next point.

2) No one got rich reinventing the wheel. Jane Austen was writing two hundred years ago; even then her work was rejected (most famously Pride and Prejudice - as First Impressions - was turned down by Thomas Cadell in London in November 1797 with the now infamous words 'Declined by Return of Post'; in other words he hadn't read it, much like, I suspect, his modern counterparts). Publishers of yesterday as well as today are trying to make money and one of the ways to do so is to publish books that they think people will buy. Mostly, this is guesswork - yet agents and editors often know a good thing when they see it (hence some of the stupendous advances we see once a bidding war erupts). Yesterday's books are not a good bet. By that I mean books that are clearly not of this time. That is not to say that historical pastiches are not successful. The Quincunx, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Fingersmith and The Crimson Petal and the White are all books set in the past, but they could have never been published and almost certainly never even written then. So unless you've got a two-hundred-year-old manuscript you can prove is such, as a first-timer handing in something to a publisher that reads like it was written in the early nineteenth century you'll find that it ain't gonna cut much ice.

3) Typing up a classic. According to Humphrys Lassman typed it up. Really? Is this story from the last century? Why would you type this book up? You can cut and paste it from the Internet. This is barely relevant, but seems to suggest some graft on the prankster's part. Well done, you wasted your own time as well as that of the publishers and agents.

4) Jokes. Does Lassman think publishers have got time to give a proper response to every prankster out there? Did you expect a 'well done, good joke'? The sad truth is the slush pile is a place of last resort. There is very little good stuff in there because the good stuff - the stuff that will sell, we're a business not a charity - has almost certainly been creamed off by agents. And with the chances of finding anything any good, is a publisher really going to waste any more time on someone that is already wasting their time?

5) 'We wondered if Jane would find a publisher or agent if she were around today.' This is the parameter Lassman set out to test, but what does it actually mean?  The only thing that matters to a publisher or agent is whether a book has a chance of selling - i.e. can they make money off it. So the first three chapters of a world-famous novel written two hundred years ago submitted to the slush pile under a nom de plume is hardly something that anyone is going to give a serious, proper response to. If the experiment was simply: will anyone notice if we submit a Jane Austen manuscript? I think the only proper response is: why should anyone care? And the sad truth of the matter is nobody did. Publishers are on the whole a polite bunch and so he got a polite reply. That is it.

And yet we get acres of news coverage and I get irritated enough to write the longest post I've ever written on this blog. Er. Yes, I can see that it is a joke. And, yes it is the silly season so the newsdesks need to fill the air and their columns with something. And yes it probably is sad that many people - like me - haven't read Jane Austen. But what did anybody really expect?

Colin Brush, Senior Copywriter

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Comments

[Ariel]

Dear Mr Brush -

I have this idea for a novel: it's about this Danish kid, who's Dad was killed and he thinks his Uncle - who's now shacked up with his Mum - might have done it, 'cose his Dad told him only - and here's the good bit - he told him *from beyond the grave* and now the Danish kid is all confused and doesn't know what to do and has an identity crisis and everything.

I call it 'Toby or not Toby' (on account of his psychological state and all). Would you like to see the first couple of chapters?

[Ed]

Jokes. Does Lassman really think publishing companies can take a joke at their own expense? Well, maybe he does. But he's wrong. We can't.
WE CAN'T!

[Mark]

Well, as a magazine editor, I understand the publishers' replies. In addition to your response, I want to mention that publishers sent standard rejections rather than get into a discussion with a submitter. You don't want to encourage a submitter with any ink on the form rejection because you don't have time for a discussion.

Mark

[PD Smith]

I think it's a pity that publishers rely so much on agents now and don't spend more time reading their slush piles. In a sense they have introduced a barrier between themselves and writers. I think publishing is poorer for not having that direct contact with aspiring writers...

[Mark]

Agents are not a barrier. They are just another layer in the selection process.

[Anthony]

Well, maybe Penguin editors are uniquely dedicated and gifted people. My hideous look into the world of publishing has left me with the impression that that is not normally the case. In fact, I'm amazed that such a generally inept bunch could be found employment outside the corridors of local government. In the two years it took me to get my book accepted for publication I have come across every possible type of crass and stupid behaviour. From the agent who declared my opening chapters "delicious" and then failed to respond to any further communications for 13 months, to the publisher who would have printed the book, but couldn't because she didn't like the name of the town where it was set.
Honestly, if publishers had the first clue about what would sell, surely they would all be publishing best sellers all the time. And yet, somehow, the remainder shops are still crammed with unsold tripe.
Yes, agents are another layer in the selection process. They bring their expertise to bear. That's why 27 of them rejected J K Rowling. They demand 15% for reading the slush piles which publishers can't be bothered to read or which they would otherwise delegate to "a student or someone who has just graduated and who wants to know what it is like to work at a publisher.'' And, apparently it's possible to graduate without having heard of Jane Austen. Mr Brush, you stand condemned out of your own mouth.

[Mark]

I have no idea how qualified are the
Penguin editors. They did reject my own novel, which was subsequently picked up by a publisher as good as they are. So what? Publication success is partially luck. Maybe an editor who read me at Penguin had a headache? And the first readers are so low on the ladder that to pass by them is almost impossible. That's why we need agents.

As for JK Rowling, her language is so bad that I have trouble reading her. Yet she sold more books than any other mortal. Go figure.

[Anthony]

Well, now I'm confused.Was JK Rowling's work rejected because she was never going to be a saleable proposition or was Jane Austen's work rejected because it was badly written?

[A Real Laydee]

Does this story have anything to do with the fact that there is a Jane Austen Festival in Bath in September and that you can book tickets now?

[A Real Laydee]

Er.. I loved your post Colin and completely agree but I think it wise to point out that David Lassman is NOT the director of the JA centre - it's David Baldock!

[Colbie]

Bookman did it better: http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2006/01/sunday-times-tests-publishers-and.html

[A Real Laydee]

Hi

Colin - are Davbid Baldock and David Lassmann the same person?

If they are then I have a sneaky suspicion he has landed a huge PR coup for his upcoming festival in September. That may possibly be what this story is about, rather than his thwarted publishing ambitions.

PS I work in PR in my day job; by 'night' I am a published author with a big publisher (not Penguin).

[ZS]

Why is familiarity with Jane Austen not a requirement for work experience at a good publishers? Would you give an internship at the Royal Opera House to someone who had never heard of Mozart?

I second Anthony. Assuming it is even possible to graduate in the humanities from a good university and not be familiar with the backbone of English literature, work experience is a two-way experience. Wouldn't you want a well-read graduate who knows their field and not just any random student? According to the intense competition, it should be more than possible to pick only the very best for work experience/jobs.

If you have no idea who wrote one of the most famous opening lines in history, you are probably not well-read enough, or passionate (or curious) enough about literature. And I would certainly lack confidence in an editor (or even editorial assistant/intern) who wasn't well-read or enthusiastic about books. Literature is their living after all.

As for excuses of lack of time, I've done the slush pile and it takes just 5 seconds to scan the first few lines. Instead of rejecting something you didn't actually read and toying with the sender, why not just throw it away and stick to the 'no unsolicited submissions' policy?

Maybe someone should try this prank with the opening of 'Anna Karenina' - to fail once may be a mistake, to fail twice would be ignorance.

[RfP]

I do agree that it's a pity not to recognize those famous first lines of Austen. Colin Brush, go read P&P. NOW.

But really, the Lassman article is ridiculous. It would have made a decent "News of the weird" article, but it's a pity Lassman and the Guardian oversold it as a publishing exposé. They would really have a story if an editor read it, didn't recognize it, and accepted it for publication. That would be an easily-interpreted story! As it is, it's a non-story: Lassman is the one who acted oddly, not the publishers or agents.