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Editor's note: CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling authorwhose 25 books include "Late Edition: A Love Story"; "When We Getto Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll,Friendship, and Dreams"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle ofthe North Platte Canteen."
(CNN) -- The J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith tale is a great andirresistible publishing story -- but it's only the second-best I've everheard.
You may have read about Rowling and Galbraith last week. Rowling,whose Harry Potter books have sold more than 450 million copies, isthe most successful author in the world. Galbraith, whose newdetective novel "The Cuckoo's Calling" had been selling dismally,doesn't exist.
Rowling is Galbraith.
Fast facts: J.K. Rowling
She wrote and published "The Cuckoo's Calling" under Galbraith'sname, to see what would happen if readers and critics didn't knowshe was the author. The book received glowing reviews, but fewreaders purchased a copy.
Then, last weekend, the secret was revealed, and "The Cuckoo'sCalling" zoomed to No. 1 best-seller status. Massive reprintings wereordered. Rowling, in a statement, said, "It has been wonderful topublish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to getfeedback under a different name."
Part of complete coverage on
Opinion on the news
Part of complete coverage from
Bob Greene
A better story than J.K. Rowling'sBy Bob Greene, CNN Contributorupdated 9:50 AM EDT, Sun July 21, 2013
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Rowling's secret is out, sales are up
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Bob Greene: J.K. Rowling usedpseudonym to publish book thatdidn't sell, but critics liked
She was outed as author, salesof the book soared
Greene: If publisher hadn'tknown it was Rowling, it wouldhave been a more telling tale
He says once an unknownauthor retyped a famous novel;no publisher would take it
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Opinion: A better story than J.K. Rowling's - CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/21/opinion/greene-rowling-author/in...
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Yet top-echelon executives at Rowling's publisher knew allalong that she was Robert Galbraith -- that she had writtenthe book. And they presumably knew that, once the wordgot out, they would have an enormous and profitableblockbuster on their hands.
But what if Robert Galbraith really had been RobertGalbraith? What if an unknown author by that name hadtried to sell "The Cuckoo's Calling" to a publisher?
Best-selling female authors with male monikers
As good as the book is, would a publisher have taken a chance on it?
Before you answer "Of course," consider the case of Chuck Ross --the protagonist of the most instructive, the most damning, and themost hilarious true story about publishing there ever has been.
I interviewed him and reported on his story almost 35 years ago.Ross, in the 1970s, was a young would-be author who was tryingwith no success to get his first novel published. He was receivingnothing but rejection slips.
He wondered whether his writing really was that unappealing, or ifpublishers were simply turning him down because he was anunknown.
So he decided upon a clever, if highly unconventional, way to findout.
In those pre-personal-computer days, he sat down at a typewriterand copied every single word of the novel "Steps," by Jerzy Kosinski."Steps" had won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1969, hadreceived superlative reviews and was a big best-seller.
Once Ross had finished typing up the manuscript, he made sure notto put a title on it. He did put a byline on it: his own.
He made copies, and he mailed them off. The recipientswere 14 major publishing houses. Four of those houseshad published books by Kosinski. One of them hadpublished "Steps."
The manuscript was turned down by all 14 houses.
None realized that it was rejecting "Steps."
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which had publishedKosinski's "Being There," wrote to Ross:
"While your prose style is very lucid, the content of thebook didn't inspire the level of enthusiasm here that apublisher should have for any book on their list in order todo well by it."
Houghton Mifflin, which had published three of Kosinski's books,wrote Ross to say that it did not wish to publish what Ross had sent.Not that the editors thought he was a bad writer -- they said theyadmired his style: "Jerzy Kosinski comes to mind as a point ofcomparison when reading the stark, chilly, episodic incidents youhave set down." But, they said in their rejection letter, what Ross hadsent them "doesn't add up to a satisfactory whole. It has some veryimpressive moments, but gives the impression of sketchiness andincompleteness." They wrote that they would be happy to considerfuture efforts by him, but that this one just didn't work.
Random House, which had published "Steps," sent a form letterrejecting the retyped "Steps."
Ross thought that maybe the problem was that he was submitting his
Bob Greene
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Bob Greene says the J.K.Rowling/Robert Galbraith taleis a great and irresistiblepublishing story -- but it's onlythe second-best one
A better story than J.K. Rowling'supdated 9:50 AM EDT, Sun July 21, 2013
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novel -- that is, Kosinski's novel -- without the assistance of a literaryagent. So he sent the manuscript to 13 top agents, asking if theywould represent it.
Not one of them was interested.
Some excerpts from the agents' rejection letters:
"I'm afraid the novel's episodic nature and the lack of strongcharacterization would not allow this book to compete in a very toughfiction market."
And:
"From the section I read of your untitled novel, it seems toofragmented and dreamlike to be a good commercial bet."
And:
"Thanks for having sent me your untitled novel. You write clearly andwell, but I felt that the novel jumped around so much that it did nothold interest, and I would not be the right agent for it."
When Ross went public with what he had done, he expected thepublishers and agents to be a little embarrassed that they had turneddown a National Book Award-winning novel.
But, he told me when I interviewed him at the time, "I guess not. Iwent to the American Booksellers Association convention to talk tothe publishers about what I did. They all thought that it was veryamusing or silly. They agreed that it probably could happen againtomorrow. But the attitude was, 'So what?'"
As lovely as the J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith saga is, what wouldhave made it even better, and turned it into more of a cliffhanger, is ifRowling had gone the Chuck Ross route:
If she had, without revealing her identity, sent "The Cuckoo's Calling"to publishers cold -- if she had submitted it and let them think that itreally was by a novice named Robert Galbraith.
Would any of them have snapped it up?
It may be a terrific book -- but so was "Steps." And without Kosinski'sname on the manuscript, "Steps" couldn't find a publisher. Or anagent.
Even though it had already won the National Book Award.
What a business. It's enough to drive even Harry Potter to drink.
Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.
Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.
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633 comments
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kwiky • 2 hours ago
Eh...Song of Ice and Fire series is superior.
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Evenstar • 2 hours ago
Good to know, thanks!
Reply
Evenstar • 3 hours ago
Doesn't give me much hope of getting mine published
Reply
WisdomKing • 3 hours ago> Evenstar
Many authors right now are self publishing ebooks and putting them directlyonto sites like Amazon. I don't remember all the details of the articles I've readbut you can google for tips and videos on how to do it.
Some of them, fiction and non, have been big sellers so much so that they laterbooks were picked up by big publishing houses.
Reply
Alexander Hamilton • 5 hours ago
All of the book agents and publishers who turned down these books should be fired.They do not know talent. The same happens in every industry. There are gatekeeperswho stand in the way of true talent. It even happens in sports. After seeing Chinesebasketball sensation Jeremy Lin torch the NBA, Kobe Bryant said, "Every GeneralManager who passed on Jeremy Lin and did not see his talent should be fired." Thishappens everywhere. This world is filled with mediocrity. JK Rowling could not get abook deal for her first Harry Potter? Really? Any agent or publisher who passed on hershould be fired and banned from the industry. This just goes to show, it is not abouttalent. It is not about working hard. Its about who you know and working smart. Getmediocre people out of this gate keeper roles.
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uredumm • 19 hours ago
Bob, read the foreword to A Confederacy of Dunces. Yore guise inn second plays.
Reply
Eric Olson • 21 hours ago
Well lets be honest its not hard to best the Harry Potter story... Twilight, HungerGames, Harry Potter are not good. They are however popular which is quite tellingabout who reads and what level of intelligence they possess.
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WisdomKing • 3 hours ago> Eric Olson
And that's were the personal opinion comes in. Just like the example of theKosiniski book in the article, a reader at a publisher decided it was no goodeven though it had won awards.
For you Harry Potter was no good and you are absolutely right - for you. I mightthink its the best thing I've read in years and I'm absolutely right - for me.I'd rather let the market decide.
2
Cornelia_LO • 19 hours ago> Eric Olson
Twilight is not "good". Harry Potter and Hunger Games are multi-layered,smart, engaging, and well executed.
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Opinion: A better story than J.K. Rowling's - CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/21/opinion/greene-rowling-author/in...
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Opinion: A better story than J.K. Rowling's - CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/21/opinion/greene-rowling-author/in...
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