There is two-fold pressure on young editors to pursue only the big ticket projects: firstly, because anything less won’t compute; and secondly because there are fewer books being acquired so that, to earn their spurs, upwardly mobile editors need to make a splash.
You are not going to do that by buying a quiet book for £5,000. One sometimes feels an editor would rather end up with £70,000 unearned on a £100,000 advance than with a book bought for a modest sum, published to some pleasing reviews, selling 3,000 in trade paperback and 7,000 in A format, earning out and paving the way for a step-up with book two. Going simply for the potential bestseller every time is the quickest route to publishing oblivion for many authors, condemning us all to reinventing the wheel every time.
There is a game I often play. It’s called “Name the Second Book”. The rules are simple: you look at the pre-Frankfurt Bookseller of a few years ago, read the announcement of the “Six-figure pre-empt for début author” and try to remember what happened next. The game doesn’t take long, because 90% of the time you can’t remember the author’s first book, let alone their second.
