Rejecting Jane Austen

[mcroft]

Not a bad little stunt. Some guy submitted the first three chapters of Pride And Prejudice to major publishers, and most of them didn't recognize it.

I'm not 100% convinced that the ones that didn't respond at all actually read it, but the guy is assuming that they didn't notice because they didn't comment.

I bet he could get it published by Publish America...

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

When this first happened, nihilistic_kid, who is a professional writer and editor, mentioned that people pull stunts like this all the time, to "prove" the publishing industry doesn't know what it's doing. He says editors ignore it because responding to it only encourages people.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

ISTR that the Nielsen Hayden coalition also said that they get plagiarized stuff all the time, and they discard it silently.

That is, I got the impression that they thought much of the copied material was copied for plagiaristic purposes rather than to "prove" something about the publishing industry.

[avram]

I bet that none of them failed to recognize it. Many of them just figured it was a crazy idiot who sent it in, and ignored it. Publishers get submissions like this all the time.

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

Oh, I guarantee you they recognized the books and promptly round-filed them. "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." it one of the most famous opening lines in the English languages. Why waste the stamp, letter, envelope, and ink on stunt "writers?"