Jane Austen 'rejected'

Doesn't this pop up every six months or so?

Maybe the agents who rejected it recognised her work, but just sent a form rejection rather than bothering to say, "We know what you're doing." They probably thought it was beneath them to even acknowledge it.

I think it would be a greater experiment to take a novel by, say, Richard Russo and change it a bit and find out what the reception would be. I think one might find the very same results. As an agent told me last spring, if you are a debut novelist, you better come from a famous family or be famous. Otherwise, your chances are remote at best.

And untrue.

Plenty of first-timers are published each year.

Maybe good books are rejected (I don't believe so but I know others here hold different views) but good writers never are. Eventually, talent will out.

scarletpeaches said:

And untrue.

Plenty of first-timers are published each year.

Maybe good books are rejected (I don't believe so but I know others here hold different views) but good writers never are. Eventually, talent will out.

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You are right, scarletpeaches! I think too many people just don't have the staying power to continually get rejections. If your writing is good, you will eventually prevail.

However, I think there has been a ton of good books that have never seen the light of day.

Oh, and by the way, even my own agent told me the same thing. Agents may see your talent, and even editors may see the same thing, but that doesn't necessarily translate when it comes to the money people at publishing houses.

I think my books have thus far been rejected for one reason and one reason only:

They're not good enough.

scarletpeaches said:

I think my books have thus far been rejected for one reason and one reason only:

They're not good enough.

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I wouldn't know about that, but I always remind my friends that F. Scott Fitzgerald papered his office walls with rejection slips. I don't think anyone surpassed him with careful and consciencious writing. But, he finally did prevail.

Serenity said:

Doesn't this pop up every six months or so?

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Yeah, I suspect plenty of writers try that, with plenty of famous authors, say VS Naipaul. Some hit the news. I suspect most don't. How many "rip-offs" do you think editors receive?

I wish people would stop doing this. It's been done before, and not only once. Once you realise that they could have read your real manuscript instead...

gerrydodge said:

I think it would be a greater experiment to take a novel by, say, Richard Russo and change it a bit and find out what the reception would be. I think one might find the very same results. As an agent told me last spring, if you are a debut novelist, you better come from a famous family or be famous. Otherwise, your chances are remote at best.

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*jumps off cliff*

gerrydodge said:

As an agent told me last spring, if you are a debut novelist, you better come from a famous family or be famous. Otherwise, your chances are remote at best.

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Fortunately, that's a pantsload of crap. Debut novelists from unfamous families get published all the time.

I'm with the Mighty Peachy One, I think they recognized the sample and just sent out a form reply.

"Mighty Peachy One." That'll be me, then?

scarletpeaches said:

"Mighty Peachy One." That'll be me, then?

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Yup, like a superhero. You're the defender of...uh...stuff.

Serenity said:

Doesn't this pop up every six months or so?

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Yup. The last time they tried this, somebody ripped off stories by prize-winning authors such as VS Naipul, then used the whole thing to prove Naipul couldn't get published today, etc. I think it proved the editors could use Google. Sadly, some authors on a list I moderate were sure this was proof that the big publishing companies were clods who wouldn't recognize a great manuscript and were interested only in pap. Right, whatever.

In this case, what really pisses me off is that the guy tried this three times. First he sent a copy of Northanger Abbey. When it was rejected, he decided that wasn't Austen's best book, so he'd try again, and then he sent them Persuasion. For some strange reason, that wasn't accepted, either. So he sent them Pride and Prejudice, without even changing the famous first line. One of the responses did point out that his writing was clearly ripped off Austen. Thank God somebody called him on it, or he might have sent them a copy of Emma as well. Didn't he realize that he was wasting their time with this nonsense? Editors and agents have a limited number of time in which to read giant stacks of submissions (one of the editors who gave a talk at RWA said she gets six feet of mail per week!), so he was taking time away from authors with legitimate submissions.


And what would he have done if one of his plagiarized manuscripts had been accepted? (Very unlikely, of course, but let's say that Google was broken on their computers, and the Jane Austen portion in the brains of all editors and other staff members had been destroyed in a freak subway accident. ) I can just imagine him having to explain himself. "Sorry, it was an experiment. Heh heh. I'll... heh heh... be going now."

scarletpeaches said:

Maybe the agents who rejected it recognised her work, but just sent a form rejection rather than bothering to say, "We know what you're doing." They probably thought it was beneath them to even acknowledge it.

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Fromw what I've heard about editors, this is probably what happened. Editors are in the business because they love books, after all. Otherwise, they'd be making more money marketing toothpaste. Whenever this happens, they tend to send off form rejections because they figure they're dealing with 1) a plagiarist; 2) another writer wasting their time with the same experiment that has been done dozens of times or more; 3) delusional; or 4) a reporter.

In the case of sending them Pride and Prejudice, the guy didn't even bother changing the first line, and barely changed the other lines, at least at the beginning. Come on, doesn't he think editors use Google? And I wouldn't need Google to recognize such a famous first line.

gerrydodge said:

I think it would be a greater experiment to take a novel by, say, Richard Russo and change it a bit and find out what the reception would be. I think one might find the very same results. As an agent told me last spring, if you are a debut novelist, you better come from a famous family or be famous. Otherwise, your chances are remote at best.

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Nah. I attended the Romance Writers of America conference last week, and a lot of the editors -- yes, even the ones who only take unagented submissions -- were very excited about some of their debut authors. (I met some of these authors. They really exist, and they don't come from famous families.)

I'd be realllly interested in knowing which agents are saying things like this. Often, the agents who make these sorts of claims aren't established agents who really know the business. Some of them are even infamous agents who make these claims in the hopes of driving more authors their way.

In the article, it looks like this author tried the experiment because he had been unable to sell his book. Well, gee, maybe it wasn't publishable?... The editor I mentioned above also said that despite popular conceptions, the chasm between publishable and unpublishable is "like the Grand Canyon." While you often hear of publishers whose manuscripts "almost" got published, she pointed out that you don't "almost" miss being published, adding, "People don't get published by a nose, they get published because it's inevitable." (This was particularly true with her publisher, which didn't have a "comittee" that turned down manuscripts the editor liked.) This was a commercial publisher, so maybe the situation is different for literary manuscripts, but I'll bet the competition is just as hard there.

That experiment is just dumb. First, the work were written eons ago -- styles, etc. all changed. It's like dressing up as a Templar knight at Fashion Week in NYC... Second, Austen's stories are classic and well known, and no agent would take on any work that has a synopsis that reads exactly like, say, Pride & Prejudice, without any update. Plagiarism, shall we say?

And like Scarlet said, it doesn't prove anything. First-timer gets published all the time -- if you stick around this board long enough, you will see the evidence of that. Besides, EVERY best selling author started out as a first-time published author.

gerrydodge said:

As an agent told me last spring, if you are a debut novelist, you better come from a famous family or be famous. Otherwise, your chances are remote at best.

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There are some books written by very famous novelists that I think might not have been published if they had been written by an unknown author. So yeah, I think it's easier for very well established authors than previously unpublished authors. But if what that agent told you was true, eventually, all the authors would die off and all the books we had left would be ghostwritten for celebrities. Perhaps that agent was frustrated because s/he was having trouble selling anything?

As for the OP, I do agree that experiments like this don't prove that agents don't know what they're doing. They don't prove much of anything. But I do think it's possible that standards have changed in some ways. There is no way to test that, really, but I think it could be true.

I think the only thing this little experiment proves is that misery loves company.

Celia Cyanide said:

There are some books written by very famous novelists that I think might not have been published if they had been written by an unknown author. So yeah, I think it's easier for very well established authors than previously unpublished authors. But if what that agent told you was true, eventually, all the authors would die off and all the books we had left would be ghostwritten for celebrities. Perhaps that agent was frustrated because s/he was having trouble selling anything?

As for the OP, I do agree that experiments like this don't prove that agents don't know what they're doing. They don't prove much of anything. But I do think it's possible that standards have changed in some ways. There is no way to test that, really, but I think it could be true.

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I don't know if you're familiar with Dennis Lehane (MYSTIC RIVER) and the fact that Claire Wachtel is his editor, but he had to write five or six detective novels with the same format before he sold MYSTIC RIVER and subsequently SHUTTER ISLAND. These two books were less genre driven. I don't know whether he could've sold those books before he became established. They were bought by Wachtel because it was Dennis Lehane who wrote them. Neither of those books are the quality of Russell Banks or Richard Russo. And yes, they were debut novelists at one time also. PERSEVERENCE is the issue. You can never stop having hope. If the talent is there, you will finally get recognized, I think.

Celia Cyanide said:

There are some books written by very famous novelists that I think might not have been published if they had been written by an unknown author.

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Once you're known, the game changes because, well, you have a fan base.

I stopped visiting this forum because of the arrogant behavior by the "wish I was famous" crowd. Someone emailed me saying that again the AW forum had the debate on if good work was passed over. I'm assuming this was the thread they mentioned.

Bad books do get published. You have to hit the right note with an agent or publisher to get your worked looked at. There is some talent involved and a hell of a lot of luck. Think about poor McLarty.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/art-of-getting-published/2005/09/10/1125772732702.html

Point being, write because you love it. Every year hack books are released and praised and are garbage. I've found true gems in small publishers that most of you would find unacceptable. I have no doubt that marketing runs most acquisitions.

I'm also sure someone did recognize Austen's work. Now I must return to real life. The internet version has grown too predictable.

Wow, I'm sure glad you came back to educate us.