Quote: Failure to Please

---

---

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
- Bill Cosby
And now for some amusing news that will make any rejected writer feel a little better…

Publishers fail to spot plagiarized Jane Austen
LONDON (Reuters) – Even Jane Austen would have trouble finding a publisher today, a struggling author revealed Thursday.David Lassman sent off to 18 publishers assorted chapters from Austen novels in which he changed just the titles and the names of the characters.

He called himself Alison Laydee after Austen’s early pseudonym “A Lady.”

Seventeen publishers rejected or ignored his bid for literary glory. Only one spotted the ruse and told him not to mimic “Pride and Prejudice” so closely.

Lassman, who decided on the experiment when struggling to get his own novel published, told British media: “Getting a novel accepted is very difficult today unless you have an agent first. But I had no idea of the scale of rejection poor old Jane suffered.”

Thanks to Redshoeson for the heads-up! Article from Reuters on Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:45AM http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSL1941223720070719

Related posts:

1. Quote: Just Do It
   The best writing advice I ever received came near-simultaneously from two different sources. I was...
2. Quote: A Novel Tells the Truth
   A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; a bad novel tells us...
3. Quote: Start Straight Away
   Get the reader into the story straight away, and use crisp and unassuming language. Don't...