April 22, 2015

Personal to authors

Wikipedia - Steps is a collection of short stories by a Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosinski, released in 1968 by Random House. The work comprises scores of loosely connected vignettes, which explore themes of social control and alienation by depicting scenes rich in erotic and violent motives. Steps won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1969.

...In 1975, a freelance writer Chuck Ross, in order to prove his theory that unknown authors always find their books rejected, sent out excerpts from Steps to four different publishers, using the pseudonym Erik Demos. All four did not accept the sample. In 1977, Ross sent out the entire book to ten publishers, including Random House, which had originally published the book, and thirteen literary agents. Again, the book was rejected, also by Random House, having not been recognized, despite being an award-winning work.

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