Bluff Your Way In Publishing

Bluff Your Way in Publishing (1993) – Dorothy M. Stewart
Ravette Publishing | ISBN: 9780948456657
Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

Publishing. That noble profession devoted to the advancement of civilisation, the preservation of literary excellence, and the extraordinarily difficult business of persuading people to buy books they never knew they wanted. It is a world of manuscripts, editors, agents, advances, royalties, literary lunches and individuals who can reject your life’s work in seventeen seconds while simultaneously discussing where to have dinner.

Fortunately, Dorothy M. Stewart has provided the perfect solution for anyone desperate to appear knowledgeable about this mysterious industry without undergoing the inconvenience of actually learning anything. Bluff Your Way in Publishing is a gloriously irreverent guide to sounding like a seasoned publishing professional, even if your previous experience of the book trade consists entirely of rearranging paperbacks in a charity shop.

Published in 1993, when manuscripts arrived in brown envelopes, rejection letters required stamps, and the average literary agent could go an entire afternoon without receiving an unsolicited email promising the next international bestseller, this entertaining little volume takes aim at the peculiar customs, pretensions and vocabulary of the publishing world.

Here is an industry where everybody claims to be looking for exciting new talent, provided it looks remarkably similar to whatever sold half a million copies last Christmas. Where a book can be described as commercially challenging when what is actually meant is that nobody expects it to sell. And where the distinction between literary genius and an unsaleable manuscript sometimes depends on whether the author has recently appeared on television.

Stewart’s contribution to the entertaining Bluffer’s Guides tradition offers the reader a wonderfully economical alternative to acquiring years of professional experience. Why spend decades understanding editorial procedures, marketing strategies and the delicate relationship between authors and publishers when you can simply master a few authoritative expressions, adopt a thoughtful frown and announce that the real problem is distribution?

The book is also a delightful reminder of the publishing business before Amazon, ebooks, print-on-demand and the internet transformed the industry into something even more bewildering. In 1993, aspiring authors generally required the approval of actual publishers. Today, practically anybody can publish a novel before breakfast, although persuading somebody to read it remains an entirely separate challenge.

Behind the jokes lies an affectionate appreciation of an industry populated by passionate enthusiasts, commercial opportunists, hopeless optimists and people who genuinely believe the world desperately needs another biography of Napoleon.

This 1993 Ravette Publishing edition, offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books, is an entertaining addition to the shelves of writers, editors, booksellers, publishing students and anyone who has ever wondered why a manuscript can spend three years being considered before being rejected for not quite fitting the list.

Small, amusing and considerably less expensive than a publishing degree, it offers the reassuring possibility that success in the literary world might be achieved through confidence, plausible jargon and a complete refusal to admit ignorance.

And should anyone challenge your expertise, simply explain that the market has undergone a fundamental repositioning.

Nobody will dare ask what you mean.

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