Could Austen find a publisher today?
David Lassman, the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, who has had difficulty finding a publisher for a novel he has written, wondered what kind of reception Austen’s novels might get from publishers these days. So, The Guardian reports, Lassman did a cheeky experiment – submitting chapters of some of Austen’s novels with minor changes to names and places to disguise them.
Lassman expected his plagiarism would be quickly spotted, but was amazed and dismayed when only one of the 18 U.K. publishers he sent submissions to called him on it. The rest, he says, merely sent “polite but firm ‘no-thank-yous.’”
Lassman began his experiment with Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, but when those novels were not identified, he sent the opening chapters of Pride and Prejudice.
And he did not change the opening line, one of the most famous in world literature: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Still the deception was not spotted and the rejection letters thudded on to Mr Lassman’s doormat, most notably one from Penguin. Its letter read: “Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book First Impressions. It seems like a really original and interesting read.”
…
A spokeswoman for Penguin pointed out that its letter had said only that it “seemed” original and interesting. “It would not have been read,” she insisted.
Quillblog finds Penguin’s defence interesting. How would anyone know if it even “seemed” original and interesting, if no one read it? It also sadly makes you wonder how many masterpieces might languish in a slush pile and be returned without anyone so much as looking at them.
This misleading experiment must not be taken seriously.
Publishers DO NOT READ over-the-transom submissions. The fact that ONE publisher apparently did–and identified the MS as a plagiarism–is more remarkable than if NONE had.
If you want a publisher to read your dreck, it has to come through an agent. Agents are the gate-keepers of the industry. If an agent has agreed to represent the book, that indicates to the publisher that two or three other people MIGHT want to read it. If an MS comes direct from the author, it’s because it had been shopped to agents already, and rejected–and publishers know this.
This is a bit of an odd experiment. I’m fairly certain Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be published either nowadays, at least not the way it’s written, yet that ’s why books like that are called “classics” or “pioneers.” They paved the way for other great books while maintaining impressive popular appeal themselves.
It’s a shame to be wasting publishers’ time with this silliness, and then embarrassing them by accusing them of not remembering Jane Austen’s opening lines (gasp!). They are after all busy people, trying to discover the new diamonds in the rough that will become the classic reads of future generations.