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The Booker is a prize for quality. Many publishers are looking for the ability to sell. As such, this makes sense.
Having tried to read some of the Booker winners, I don’t think I would go so far as to say it is a prize for quality - it is really a prize for literariness.
Your overall point is correct though.
"Literary != quality"?
If not, then solve for X in "X == quality".
It depends on what you consider quality. I personally don’t like slogging through pretentious literary twaddle and consider any book that is unreadable as low quality since it fails its primary purpose.
From the horses mouth: "The Man Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world...” [1].
The issue is similar to the black swan phenomenon. Publishers are deciding what will sell based on what sold in the past, but the next great surprise success almost definitively has to be different than those in the past. You need some ability to inject books into the system which don't fit the historical mold.
The best way to do it is probably For publishers to also publish books they think are good, even if they're prospects aren't great. Most will fail, but a few will win big. In a way, it's just like venture capital.
Maybe we need a venture publishing industry.
> For publishers to also publish books they think are good, even if they're prospects aren't great. Most will fail, but a few will win big. In a way, it's just like venture capital. Maybe we need a venture publishing industry.
They already do and we already have that. In fact, that is the reason why so many authors are dissatisfied with publishers. Publishers publish a large number of titles on the hope that one of them will take off, and spend little to nothing on promoting the majority of them. So in the majority of cases, titles are neglected and may not earn back the advance - unless the author has a significant existing audience. Then they get a better deal, too.
> Maybe we need a venture publishing industry.
I've spoken with professional authors and editors, and I get the impression that the typical mid-range fiction publishing house pretty much _is_ a "venture publishing" operation. They buy books from lots of authors, many of whom disappear without a trace. The bulk of their profits comes from a handful of well-known authors.
I just picked up the Sellout based on the hype from the Booker prize. I haven't gotten too far into it yet but the hype is certainly well deserved.
I usually don't like jumbled stream of consciousness novels, but I like this one. It reads like a really good standup comedy routine where the humor is sitting just above the surface of deeply unpleasant truth.
I'm glad a publisher finally took a chance on it.
"Turned down?" Do candidates have to go through an application process?
No, the book (his 4th one) was turned down by 18 different publishers before Oneworld, an indie, picked it up.
Turned down for publication, not for the prize.