This from 1984
Very interesting - never knew about this
Doris Lessing published 2 books under a pseudonym as an experiment to see how new unknown writers fare in the publishing world

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/10/specials/lessing-pen.html

Didn't Stephen King do the same thing? (I think - may be remembering this wrong!)

Interesting, agreed, but it doesn't sound like a truly valid experiment. Perhaps I'm being unfair but it sounds as if too many people might have been complicit in the arrangement for it to recreate the actual scenario of a submission by a total unknown for whom the outcome would have probably been even less satisfactory.

But it's certainly better that she did it than not!

Chris

Can't read it because it's behind a paywall, but I've got a copy of the novel from when it was re-published under her name, and she says that only her agent knew: she and he decided to submit it first to her regular publishers:

"Cape turned it down forthwich, Granada kept it some time, were undecided, but said it was too depressing to publish: in these fallen days major and prestigious publishers can see nothing wrong in refusing a novel in which they see merit because it might not sell... I saw the readers' reports and was reminded how patronized and put-down new writers are.

Michael Joseph, who accepted my first novel all those years ago... said it reminded them of Doris Lessing, and were taken into our confidence and entered with relish into the whole thing... These two great publishing firms, crammed with people... were able to keep the secret as long as they wanted: it was dear friends who... could not stand the strain.

My French publisher rang up to say he had bought this book, had I perhaps helped Jane Somers, who reminded him of me?"

It sold 2,800 copies in American and 1,600 copies in the UK. The whole foreword to my edition is very interesting, with Lessing talking about all the same things that we talk about, only at the beginning, rather than this far into, the process towards... what?

Emma

It's not a paywall Emma, you just need to register. Registration is free (just make sure you tick all the boxes saying you don't want spam!)

Emma

only her agent knew: she and he decided to submit it first to her regular publishers:

If, as this suggests, the work was being submitted via an established agent, I think it supports what I was getting at. It's not quite the same as an unknown submitting direct to a publisher or trying to get an agent in the first place. The already recognised judgment of the agent would have added weight to the submission in the eyes of the publisher. Without that, things might have been considerably worse for 'Jane'. Or have I missed something?

Chris

Sure, but I don't think that's the point of what she was doing - that was in the days when all the publishers still took unsolicted submissions. There's more in the piece about what the reviews said, and so on. She was interested finding out how a book by an unknown would be received. And did - including being turned down by her own publishers. And interesting that of course she couldn't have done any publicity at all without being recognised. So in one sense you just couldn't do it now.

She's most interesting in that foreword, to my mind, about the business of writing under two names - she partly wrote as Jane Somers to deal with the reviewers who were telling her not to write spec fic but should deal with 'modern life', to see if she could circumvent their snobbery (or sexism?????) about spec fic. But she also says how "Jane Somers" did develop as a different writerly persona, from "Doris Lessing", and did write things that DL wouldn't... Unlike, say, Ruth Rendell, who says that her voice as Barbara Vine is the same - the different name is purely for marketing purposes.

Emma

Sales of +4000 copies for a work of literary fiction by a 'debut' novelist isn't all that bad, is it?

1600 in Britain wasn't at all brilliant in 1984, though. Fairly much ordinary, as I recall.

Emma

I was surprised when I Googled 'spec fic' and discovered that 'speculative fiction' is not what I imagined it to be. I thought, unless we had a deal, we were all writing 'speculative fiction'.

Jan

Ha - so true Jan! And I suppose, on some level all fiction is speculative. After all, we're all asking "what if".

The only difference is the % likelihood of the "if".

I tend to use "spec fic" because it's the only term which covers all of "science fiction" and "fantasy" and "alternate/ive reality", when you're discussing many issues that arise in all three. And because - so far, at least - it's not weighed down with the snobber that the others so often suffer from.

Though of course hist fic writers have a lot in common with all three too - the whole business of world-building, for one thing. Maybe it should be people setting their novels in our own and contemporary world who are shunted off into a ghetto!

Emma

1600 in Britain wasn't at all brilliant in 1984, though.

is this speculative fiction a book about time travel?

LoL Leila!

Emma