By Mursi Saad El-Din The publishing world really is a world apart. It has its own rules, undercurrents and surprises. Publishing houses compete to secure would-be bestsellers. Some of them succeed in this task while others fail miserably. Stories abound of books refused by publishers or agents that then become bestsellers, selling millions of copies, going into endless reprints and being turned into film scripts. The question often asked is whether there are any hard and fast rules governing the selection of titles to be published, and, if so, what the gauge of these criteria would be. In an attempt to answer this question The Sunday Times carried out an exercise which, according to Jonathan Calvert and Will Iredale "draws the attention to concerns that the industry" seems to have "become incapable of spotting genuine literary talents". The Sunday Times sent a number of typed manuscripts to publishers and agents, including chapters from Booker Prize-winning novels by V S Naipal and Stanley Middleton. The two texts were sent to some 20 publishers and agents. The surprising result was that none recognised them and, according to the article, "all but one were rejections". So on what basis do publishers make decisions on whether to accept or reject a manuscript? Critics say the industry has become obsessed with celebrity authors and, in the words of the writers, "bright marketable young things", at the expense of serious, so- called "high-brow" writers. "Most large publishers," claims the article, "no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts from first-time authors, leaving literary agents to discover new talent." But this is not an easy task for the agencies which find it hard to cope with the volume of submissions. One agent apparently claims she receives up to 50 manuscripts a day. Under the title "Booker winners need not apply" Calvert and Iredale show how neither publishers nor agents seem to be able to spot potential winners. The article quotes some of the replies received. One of London's major literary agents, sent the Naipal extract, wrote, with hardly any semblance of tact: "Having considered your material, we do not feel, we are sorry to say, sufficiently enthusiastic or confident about it." Another agency commented: "In order to take a new author several of us here would need to be extremely enthusiastic about both the content and writing style. I'm sorry to say we don't feel that strongly about your work." According to a former editor of The Bookseller magazine, publishers feel they can no longer afford to take risks on untried authors now that supermarkets have forced down prices. Now, he says, "they're putting big promotional efforts behind just a few titles." None of which quite answers the question of just what it is that readers are buying in bulk. One new trend, it seems, that is proving popular is the "misery memoir", autobiographical accounts of men and women who suffered the most appalling deprivation and abuse as children. The fascination with such grisly subjects and those who "let it all hang out" is exemplified by an American afternoon TV show in which members of the public are invited to call in with their own tales of abuse. Each caller has two minutes to tell their harrowing tale after which the audience is invited to vote for "the most disturbing" of these tales of rape, incest and addiction. The six winners are then placed on a shortlist, from which the winner is selected. The prize? A contract with Random House. According to the Observer Review the winner was a "vivid tale of child abuse, submitted by a woman telling the story of the psychological torture" her six-year-old daughter was subjected to by her boyfriend.
