This arrived at my inbox yesterday.

Dear Mr Charkin,

I intended sending this as a comment to your blog. But I didn’t want to use my name, which might have embarrassed my agent. Also, there wasn’t an obvious opening. But if you would care to respond on the blog, while keeping me anonymous, that would be fine.

I realise that you are a busy globetrotter and top company executive, with a lot more on your mind than the anguish of would-be writers, but I wonder if I could drag you back for a moment to the business of publishing – or not publishing – first novels.
 
I have a number of friends who are successful novelists. They started years ago and have have continued ever since, winning a loyal following over the years and attracting, for the most part, postive reviews. I have also met several writers, Robert Harris and Sebastian Faulkes among them, who have gone on to great things.
 
In my own case, and I am now in my late fifties, the story has been very different. I have written six novels so far, none of which has been published. The first two probably deserved their fate. The subsequent four, were, however, above average (if I say so myself) and could easily have sat alongside the products of my more successful pals.
 
I don’t say this vaingloriously. The agents I have had over the years – two in the United States, three in Britain, were all convinced that I had the talent to make it to the top. Each in his (or her) turn assured me that the book they were representing would get published, make me good money and provide the basis of what would be a successful literary career.
 
Of the five, three are very big in the trade. My present agent is even, I might say, a leading luminary, much quoted on the state of the business and the difficulties of marketing.
 
In an email to me this morning, he said it was “tragic” that my latest offering had not made it. He couldn’t understand it, he said. And even though he much likes both of my latest proposals, he now fears that they may not be saleable.
 
Time after time, the responses from publishers have been that my writing is first class, my plots fascinating, my structure solid and resourceful. There has been criticism, of course, but most of it centred on detail or the foibles of individual characters.
 
In the most recent case, one leading publisher (not from Macmillan, I hasten to add) said that my main character was someone he recognised immediately. He had laughed out loud, he said. I had got the particular corner of London life that I was after exactly right. Sadly, he added, his sales people were not convinced that there would be a big enough market for what I was offering. So, in the end, he felt he had to decline.
 
One of the country’s top publishers, who years ago produced a non-fiction book of mine, told my agent that I was a “wonderful” writer Another, a former Fleet Street colleague, said she was sure I had what it took to succeed in fiction. Yet both turned me down, as did the head of popular fiction at one of your principal rivals, who said that he loved the book himself but was unable to persuade his sales team of its virtues.
 
What is going on? I don’t expect to become rich and famous. I don’t expect to be annointed in the Guardian as the new Evelyn Waugh. But I do believe that I write accomplished fiction and deserve my place, for a week at least, on Waterstone’s Big Tables.
 
Is it because I write, mainly, about men in their fifties? Is it because I have left it too late to break through? Is it because these days I lack a proper media “platform” that would guarantee me notice from the critics?  I don’t know, but I feel sure my age has a lot to do with it.

What really gets my goat is the sheer volume of truly awful fiction that does get published, only to go nowhere. In every such case, the publisher concerned must have thought, yes, this one is in with a chance, and the sales people must have agreed. The fact that they turned out to be wrong does not appear to embarrass them. Water under the bridge, dear boy ... publishing isn’t an exact science. Well, if these books are allowed to fight their corner (and lose money hand over fist), why not mine? At least once.
 
I might add that I am sticking with my latest agent, who is a prince among men and seems determined to get me published. But it has been hard pounding for both of us.
 
Your thoughts on the above would be much appreciated.
 
Best wishes,
 
Puzzled of London

What can I say? It must be deeply frustrating for the correspondent. We set up Macmillan New Writing with precisely this type of author in mind. The list is doing fine but the numbers wouldn't make an accountant's eyes light up with excitement. If we had to publish these books under the currently traditional model - advances, hype etc - the accountant would throw him/herself out of the window. Even so and even though we have had success, other publishers haven't followed suit. Why not?

Publishing fiction is tough. There are arguably more wannabe authors than readers. Of course there is rubbish published but there is more fine novels published every year than anyone could possibly read. Readers also have to be picky. We all enjoy only a limited amount of leisure time and we are likely to think twice before spending it on an unknown author. This posting on Susan Hill's blog highlights another set of issues. Even if an author does get published and does become successful there appears to be little loyalty to the publisher who took the original risk. The big profits frequently go to an author's second or third publisher and some of the most successful publishing houses deliberately and intelligently ignore first novels in order to pick up the third or fourth from an author after much of the hard work is done.

Perhaps the answer does lie in Lulu or simply web publishing under a Creative Commons licence. At least such publication allows an author some exposure. But it will do little to stem the flow of so-so or worse novels being published which will make it even harder for the reader to discern the good from the bad and encourage even less reading experimentation.

Anyone else want to contribute their thoughts?

At Macmillan we try to encourage and facilitate a decentralised, entrepreneurial culture. There isn't a company in the world which doesn't try to do that (or says it is trying to do it). But how do you measure whether you're succeeding? I've just tripped over one indicator of success.

It is the discovery that one of our businesses, ICC Macmillan, based in Portland Oregon has developed a service to allow publishers a simple way of selling their content through mobile phones and PDAs. The announcement is here. Why is this an indicator of decentralised, entrepreneurial success? Because the press release was the first I'd heard of it. It sounds great.

It's not just me that thinks the innovators at Nature are outstanding. This is an extract from the latest Outsell Newsletter:

There is an organisation with the snappy name Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre who have informed the equally snappily named British Egg Information Service that their proposed marketing campaign featuring today's title as its slogan should not run. Read the story here. In essence, the watchdog is concerned that the campaign does not promote adequately the concept of a varied diet. What a load of nonsense but it does give me the opportunity to link to these wonderful original egg commercials by Tony Hancock - brilliant. I hope this blog doesn't count as broadcast advertising. If it does, I could be in big trouble now.

I spent yesterday with the senior management team from our Latin American companies. We were reviewing performance and working on three-year plans. As you can imagine, given that there are some forty business units spread across a dozen countries publishing more than a thousand new titles a year, there were plenty of numbers - sales, stock, overheads, cash collection etc. But one line stood out. Our total number of full-time employees (excluding temporary sales staff etc) has risen in five years from 273 to 772 and we plan to grow more. That's real investment. Here's wishing all our Grupo Macmillan employees (including of course the ones in Spain) mucho suerte.

I promised a photo of Bavarian merry-making and here it is courtesy of Thorsten Jochim.

The controversy over the Google heist posting has quietened and there are the signs now of some sensible debate emerging. This piece from Even Schnittman writing on the OUP Blog is an example. There's also rather a good piece in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung marred only by their describing me: 'von Statur einem Möbelpacker ähnlich...' - not quite sure what it means but I suspect the worst. One lesson I've learned from the affair is that increased visitor traffic (visits leapt several fold for a few days) doesn't necessarily translate into increased ad revenue. Dammit!

I know some of my readers are more interested in the ins and outs of the British independent book trade than significant events in the world of scientific information. I am also aware that I've blogged about things going on at Nature Publishing Group a lot recently. But I can't help it. They keep coming up with really interesting new projects and ideas. Here's the latest, Nature Precedings (no, it's not a spelling mistake) described here by Timo Hannay:

This link will take you to the original mission statement (although I don't think that particular piece of jargon was current in 1869) of Nature. For those with click fatigue here is the essence of the objectives it was seeking:

 FIRST, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific Work and Scientific Discovery ; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and in Daily Life ;
   And, SECONDLY, to aid Scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of Natural knowledge throughout the world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time.

Now, Nature is better known for the second of these aims and that has been the core of  its, and its associated journals', success. However, it has never lost sight of the the first objective and today sees the launch of two free websites on two of the hottest topics around today.

Nature Reports Climate Change and Nature Reports Stem Cells both address highly contentious issues within the community and both have significant social, ethical, economic and medical implications for all of us. There is a range of content aimed at the non-specialist as well as the scientist. Both sites allow comment and discussion and we are building facilities for social networking and community involvement. Nature intends to be at the centre of scientific debate in all spheres.

It was a beautiful day In Munich yesterday. The afternoon was spent playing and eating Bayerische style - and milking cows (picture to follow!).

And the evening was special with a concert and dinner at mad King Ludwig's Nymphenburg Palace.

The concert was given by seven members of the Vienna Philharmonic and there was a fascinating ta about the importance (or possible obolescence) of classical music by the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. It was quite a day.

Britain has an absurd, out-dated, elitist, imperial, patronising and hugely loved and revered honours system. Twice a year or so, the Queen publishes a list of the great and not so great who have been awarded what is technically known as a gong - a peerage, a knighthood and various forms of orders, medals and companions of the British Empire. The liberal establishment tends to sneer and there's probably a real element of honours in exchange for political favours delivered - and even sometimes the sniff of money playing a part. But nonetheless, the recipients - the real ones who deserve their recognition - by and large appreciate it.

The latest list contains some celebrity heroes - Salman Rushdie, Ian Botham, and the wonderful Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna Everage below. But the gongee who gets my vote for most deserving and most decent is less well-known outside the world of Shakespeare scholarship - Stanley Wells whose Shakespeare for all time we published - and who edited the magnificent Oxford Shakespeare which we are now challenging with the new RSC Shakespeare.

Yesterday was busy. The Mayor of Munich Christian Ude told our annual Georg von Holtzbrinck conference that Munich is the second largest publishing centre in the world after New York. Sounds like nonsense to me but I guess it depends how you define large - numbers of titles, sales, profits, review inches. My own similar but unprovable statistic is that Oxford is the single most profitable publishing centre in the world (ahead of New York etc) when you include Elsevier, Harcourt International, Blackwell Wiley, Oxford University Press, Informa, Macmillan Education and a host of smaller but highly successful businesses.

In the evening we were entertained at the headquarters of the Max Planck Society where the President, Professor Peter Gruss, argued strongly for the open access availability of scientific research.

In between we were treated to great presentations by our sister companies based in Munich - Droemer Knaur, Holtzbrinck Networks and eLab. Take a look here to get a feel for the investments we are making in the digital world. It's beginning to look impressive.

I'm in Munich at a conference this weekend and this is more or less the view from the fitness centre in the hotel. It doesn't get much better.

I came across a wonderful orange juice description on the unopenable-without-squirting-everywhere carton on the plane coming here - 'slightly pasteurised orange juice'. Now, I know you can have gently carbonated water and lightly simmered peas but...I suppose they only wipe out half the germs.

I try not to use this blog as a press release distributor but sometimes linking to a release makes sense. This one is all about our efforts to develop scientific publishing in China. It's a big deal for us and a big deal for scientific communication and what's more it's been made possible by sponsorship from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for which we are hugely grateful.

I was at Barts Hospital last night for the party to celebrate a number of literary prizes administered by the Society of Authors. The full list of winners will be published later today. The event was held in the beautiful Great Hall. It made a welcome change for a book trade party to see authors outnumber publishers by 50 to one.

The last time I was at Barts was when I was editor of Oxford Medical Publications (which is celebrating its centenary this year. Happy birthday OMP). I was working with the authors (A.E.Mourant, Ada C. Kopec and Kazimiera Domaniewska-Sobczak - and I remembered the names and spelling to this day) on the second edition of The distribution of the the human blood groups and other polymorphisms. It was over 1000 very large pages crammed with incomprehensible (to me) statistics and symbols. It was typeset in hot metal and then photographed for litho printing. We had galley proofs, page proofs, revised page proofs, ozalids and I know not what else. The typesetting cost was more than £100 per page. The book was a monster. We published in 1976 at £55 (roughly equivalent to £250 in today's money). It received a rave review on the op-ed page of the Times ('Here's a book to throw at racists'), amazing coverage in the medical press and we sold more than 2500 copies in the first month (probably not many thereafter, it is true). Those were the days when a serious book was reviewed seriously, priced seriously, stocked seriously and sold seriously.

Whilst on this nostalgia theme I was slightly sad yesterday to hear that Les Editions Grund depuis 1880 has been taken over by Editis ('Where creativity meets culture' - should there be a competition for the most hifalutin publishing strapline?). Not sad because anything terrible will happan. Editis are an excellent company and will treasure the Grund business. Sad because Alain Grund and Monique Souchon have played such important roles in French and European publishing and in particular for children's books. They are staying on and Editis have promised full editorial independence but I fear it just won't be the same.

But we must loook to the future and I see that this blog has a new competitor The Charkin Group committed to saving lives at sea. I didn't know there were Charkins in Nigeria but you live and learn.

And finally for Londoners, a recommendation. King's Cross where we have our London offices is not traditionally renowned for the quality of its restaurants. At various times it has led the world indices for availability of crack cocaine and ladies of the night, but not for food. However, things are changing fast and the latest indication of this is the opening of Camino Cruz del Rey (geddit?). All very chic but great food.