All those great unpublished books?

Having sold The Worsley Press to business consultant and fellow author Geoffrey Heard a few months ago, I've been slowly clearing out a lot of old paperwork.

Today I decided to rid myself of a stack of old manuscripts which I'd rejected, and not returned because they didn't come with a prepaid envelope or because return was not requested.

I decided to check a random sample from 2000 and earlier by searching on Google for the authors' names.

Of about a dozen which produced some reference, only one was published (and by the larger publisher I suggested the author contact!) though it does not seem to have warranted a second edition.

Another came up with an author's site which featured her several successful novels but no mention of the book she submitted to me on how to run a low-cost wedding. Her novels have been published on three continents in several languages. I think they could be categorized as "chic-lit" and somewhat anti-men so I'd guess her days as a writer for US bride magazines, which she was pushing strongly in her covering letter to me, no longer rate highly... no mention at all in her online biography.

I was a just a little concerned that I might have rejected that major title which someone else picked up (after all I did listen to Brian Epstein extolling his new band which was to play at the Cavern club that night in Liverpool in the 1960s and did not take up the offer of a free ticket).

Fortunately, or unfortunately, according to your point of view, it seems that did not happen with these manuscripts.