The author and the Austen plot that exposed publishers’ pride and prejudice

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I can understand entirely how this would have happened (if, for example, I was skimming this week’s submissions and saw someone sending me Austen, could I be arsed writing a specific rejection?  Probably not).  But…

It does, however, make me think of a current colleague of ours, who has written 4 novels, none of which have been accepted.  Instead of getting a straight rejection, though, she has been asked to send more work (hence the 4 novels and still working with us, rather than 1 novel and an easy life in the South of France).  Seems to me that as the publishing industry undergoes it’s own crisis akin to music and films getting that publishing deal is just going to get harder and harder.

No longer is the powerful debut novel enough; instead they want to see if you’ve got a series in you that they can milk for the next few years.  The literary equivalent of Die Hard 4.0 or the 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th anniversary edition of Dark Side of the Moon.  Oh joy.