Publishers reject booker prize winners

Not quite peer review, but an example of ineffectual reviewing nevertheless: It seems the UK Sunday Times sent manuscripts of the opening chapters of V.S. Naipaul’s In a Free State and a novel by Stanley Middleton to 20 publishers and agents. Both authors are Booker prize winners and Naipaul also won the Nobel prize for literature. None of the publishers or agents recognized the books and of the 21 replies received, all but one were rejections. This sort of thing is good fun and demonstrates the subjectivity of review, but it also highlights another important issue. To quote the Sunday Times article by Jonathan Calvert and Will Iredale:

"Many of the agencies find it hard to cope with the volume of submissions. One said last week that she receives up to 50 manuscripts a day, but takes on a maximum of only six new writers a year."

This is the real sticking point for most forms of expert review - too few experts and too much material to be reviewed.