Whatever the common impression may be, literary agents take no pleasure whatever in rejecting books. Nor does our skin get thicker the longer we do it. Nathan Bransford, an agent, author and blogger expresses his distaste articulately:

“Every day I have to pass on the life’s work of cancer survivors and abuse victims and war heroes and many more people who spent hours upon hours of their life writing a novel in the faint hope that it would someday find publication. I don’t enjoy sending these rejection letters, and I never forget that on the other end of the letter there’s a person out there whose day I’m probably ruining and whose dreams I’m chipping away at.”

Until the digital era most of those rejected authors would have put their books in a drawer.  Or perhaps a few who could afford it arranged for a vanity press to publish them for many thousands of dollars. That all changed with the advent of digital technology. Today those rejectees are able to produce handsome e-book and print on demand editions for next to nothing. And agent Bransford says that should be music to the ears of every agent. Why?

For one thing, it eases our conscience, shifting the crushing burden of judgment from the shoulders of the few – agents, editor, critics and other so-called gatekeepers – to the larger public. But it’s even bigger than that, for this new way of evaluating literary quality symptomizes the emerging paradigm of proleterianism replacing the elitist value system that has dominated literature for centuries.  Bransford describes the process as “The Print Funnel.”

“What’s changing” he writes, “is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up. Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a trickle of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?”

Okay, maybe no harm.  But what about good? Do we care what the masses think are good books? Will their opinion influence us?

Before you answer, take your trusty Zagat restaurant guide down from the shelf.  On whose recommendation do you decide where you’re going to dine? The fact is, Zagat‘s restaurant reviewers are your anonymous next-door neighbors. They are anybodies; they are nobodies.  But when they give a restaurant’s food, service and ambiance a high rating, you say “Let’s go!

Still looking down your nose at the masses? Perhaps a visit to Amazon.com will change your mind. Amazon boasts a cadre of reviewers who regularly cover specific genres. If you read enough coverage by the same reviewer you may conclude that this person’s judgment is reliable and enlightening and may actually motivate you to buy a book. (See Do Amazon Reviews Count?)

Amazon.com reviews are Bransford’s inverted funnel at work. We think he’s onto something.  Read The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence (And Why This is a Good Thing) and judge for yourself.

Richard Curtis

This bulletin from Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times:

“Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Review, two venerable chronicles of the newspaper and book publishing industries, are closing as their owner, Nielsen Business Media, gets out of the trade publication business.

“Nielsen said Thursday that it is selling The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Adweek, Mediaweek and other publications to a joint venture of Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners. But Kirkus and Editor & Publisher simply will go out of business. Nielsen intends to hang on to some print properties, including Contract magazine and Progressive Grocer.”

RC