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Curtis Brown c.e.o Jonny Geller has said he is looking for manuscripts which take the reader "on a bridge to somewhere new" during a TEDx Talk organised by TEDxOxford.
During the piece, entitled ‘What Makes a Bestseller?’, Geller said that readers look for a story that takes them on a journey from somewhere they haven't been to an unfamiliar place, but as a literary agent he is “looking for something slightly different”. Instead, he is looking for a story that starts from somewhere familiar but takes the reader "on a bridge to somewhere new,” he said.
Geller said this was because publishers find original material "very difficult" to market. He said: "By its nature original fiction changes everything from what has preceded it."
Generally if a book is to become a big bestseller, it is "absolutely crucial" that its idea is "communicated easily”. He also added that although the literary agent looks for particular things in submitted manuscripts such as voice, craft and resonance, there is no "perfect formula" for a bestseller.
Publishers “put a cover on, a blurb, even a title they manipulate, all to try and get us to buy the book. Sometimes they get it right, but sometimes they get it wrong,” he said. “I can be sent the perfect manuscript that ticks all the boxes, send it to the right editor, put the perfect cover and perfect blurb on it. The booksellers can rave about it and put it at the front of their stores and reviewers can love it, but it doesn’t sell a copy. Why? Somewhere along the line we made a lot of tiny errors. Perhaps the title was wrong, maybe the blurb was misleading… who knows? But it’s because of all these tiny reasons that a perfect good book doesn’t make the bestsellers charts."
Geller also said that reading is a “fundamentally social act” because readers like to tell people about the books they’ve read and to recommend books to people. He also highlighted the positive effects of reading on mental health and empathy, saying: "reading makes us better, but also reading makes us better people".