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jemck at 06:22pm on 19/07/2007
jemck at 06:22pm on 19/07/2007Just heard a piece on the BBC Radio 4's PM programme about some chap doing a piece for (I think) Regency World magazine or some such Janeite publication. I didn't get his name or such details as I was making watercress soup at the time and took a few moments to mentally tune in, so to speak.
Anyway, he sent an array of publishers and agents the opening chapters of three Austen novels with the character names and titles changed. and lo, he collected a stack of standard rejection letters, along with one from a Jonathan Cape imprint which made it plain they recognised the source and didn't much appreciate the joke (my interpretation).
So Mr Man, who it turns out from other stuff he said is an aspiring/unpublished author, reckons this proves how rubbish the publishing system is, and went off on one about how the Catch-22 of need an agent to get a publisher, need a publisher to get an agent etc, is stifling talent and all that kindathing.
Excuse me if I take that with a large helping of salt, since I'd put money on quite a few of the folk who got these packages recognising the source material and deciding that actually, just sending the standard thanks but no thanks was the quickest/safest way of dealing with some loon who thought ripping off Jane Austen and running it through a word processor name-change would actually be a successful route into print and the easy megabucks that inevitably follow. Because such deluded nitwits most assuredly exist.
Happily, Liz Foley of Vintage was also along to talk a good deal of common sense, pointing out the need for perseverance, the need for your submission to land on the right desk to find the agent/editor who will have the passion to champion your book and to assure Mr Man that her company at least really does read the slushpile. I've not come across her as a publishing talking head before but, as you see, noted her name as someone worth listening to.
She cited Roddy Doyle and Bill Bryson as slush-pile finds. Now I didn't know that and it's interesting. It's even more interesting to note that Roddy Doyle had been a teacher before he was published while Bill Bryson had been a journalist. Because almost every unagented writer I know who cracked it without an agent has a history like that. Y'know, something that meant they had already learned a good deal about writing, deadlines and generally being a professional.
Anyway, I'm sure you can find the bit via the Listen Again facility on the BBC's website if you want to listen to the whole thing.
Anyway, he sent an array of publishers and agents the opening chapters of three Austen novels with the character names and titles changed. and lo, he collected a stack of standard rejection letters, along with one from a Jonathan Cape imprint which made it plain they recognised the source and didn't much appreciate the joke (my interpretation).
So Mr Man, who it turns out from other stuff he said is an aspiring/unpublished author, reckons this proves how rubbish the publishing system is, and went off on one about how the Catch-22 of need an agent to get a publisher, need a publisher to get an agent etc, is stifling talent and all that kindathing.
Excuse me if I take that with a large helping of salt, since I'd put money on quite a few of the folk who got these packages recognising the source material and deciding that actually, just sending the standard thanks but no thanks was the quickest/safest way of dealing with some loon who thought ripping off Jane Austen and running it through a word processor name-change would actually be a successful route into print and the easy megabucks that inevitably follow. Because such deluded nitwits most assuredly exist.
Happily, Liz Foley of Vintage was also along to talk a good deal of common sense, pointing out the need for perseverance, the need for your submission to land on the right desk to find the agent/editor who will have the passion to champion your book and to assure Mr Man that her company at least really does read the slushpile. I've not come across her as a publishing talking head before but, as you see, noted her name as someone worth listening to.
She cited Roddy Doyle and Bill Bryson as slush-pile finds. Now I didn't know that and it's interesting. It's even more interesting to note that Roddy Doyle had been a teacher before he was published while Bill Bryson had been a journalist. Because almost every unagented writer I know who cracked it without an agent has a history like that. Y'know, something that meant they had already learned a good deal about writing, deadlines and generally being a professional.
Anyway, I'm sure you can find the bit via the Listen Again facility on the BBC's website if you want to listen to the whole thing.