Man Booker changes - the consequences

       As I discussed yesterday and previously, the Man Booker Prize has changed its eligibility and submission requirements; not surprisingly these have led to much commentary -- see now also, for example, The Booker prize's US amendment was a long time coming by Robert McCrum in The Guardian.
       National eligibility is one issue -- and you know where I stand: if writers from Mozambique are eligible (as they have been since 1995, when it joined the Commonwealth) then it's ridiculous not to include Americans ... -- but it's the submission-requirements (or rather: allowances) that I have the real problem with. As noted yesterday, these have been changed somewhat: submissions are still only permitted by publishers, and they are now limited to one entry apiece -- unless they have had titles longlisted in the five preceding years, in which case they get bonus-submission-slots.
       No one seems to have done the math yet, so I do (see below); the first articles that I've seen addressing the issue are either oblivious or flat-out wrong about how this plays out:

        - in The Telegraph 'Head of Books' Gaby Wood writes Man Booker: Don't panic about the new rules -- and suggests:

The new rules allow publishers who've never had a book longlisted to submit just one novel per year. And the Americans aren't necessarily evenly distributed across publishers. For instance, Jonathan Cape publishes fewer of the big American novelists than Fourth Estate, but Cape, given its history, will be allowed several entries.

       Yes, okay ... in fact Cape, with (by my count) five longlisted titles 2009 through 2013, will get the full complement of four submissions next year. Thing is: so should Fourth Estate (also five longlisted titles over the relevant period, by my count)

        - in Publishers Weekly Nicholas Clee reports that Man Booker Change Welcomed, Skeptically -- and claims that:

Under these criteria, Bloomsbury and Faber, for examples, would be able to make three submissions; and Cape and Picador would be able to make four.

       By my count (see below), this is wrong: Bloomsbury and Faber both had five longlisted titles 2009-2013 and so should get four submission-slots; Picador, meanwhile, only had four longlisted titles, and so should get only three slots. (I'm too lazy to list them all, but here are Faber's five longlisted titles: Narcopolis and Skios (2012), On Canaan's Side (2011), Parrot and Olivier in America (2010), and How to paint a dead man (2009); I know it's a bit much to ask from 'literary' journalists but this story just involves basic counting and shouldn't be so hard ...).

       So who are the winners among the publishers ?
       Recall that the new rules allow:

• 1 submission - publishers with no listing [on longlists of previous five years]
• 2 submissions - publishers with 1 or 2 longlisting(s)
• 3 submissions - publishers with 3 or 4 longlistings
• 4 submissions - publishers with 5 or more longlistings

       Here -- by my very unscientific count (helped by the fact that the Man Booker site is one hell of a user-unfriendly crap site), considering the longlists 2009 through 2013 (i.e. the ones that are applicable for the 2014 prize) -- are the publishers/imprints that get to automatically submit more than one title in 2014 (leaving aside the automatically qualified books-by-previously shortlisted authors ...). (Note that because of the vagaries of the definition of 'imprint' this list should not be considered definitive, and I hope the Man Booker folk publish an official list (preferably: soon).)
       The figures in parentheses are the number of longlisted titles per imprint over the past five years.

• 2 submissions - publishers with 1 or 2 longlisting(s)
  • And Other Stories (1)
  • Atlantic Books (Grove Atlantic; 2)
  • Canongate (2)
  • Doubleday (Random House; 1)
  • Doubleday Ireland (Random House; 1)
  • Fig Tree (Penguin; 1)
  • Granta (2)
  • Hamish Hamilton (Penguin; 2)
  • Headline Review (Headline Publishing Group; 2)
  • Little, Brown (1)
  • Mantle (Pan MacMillan; 1)
  • Myrmidon Books (1)
  • Oneworld (1)
  • Penguin Ireland (Penguin; 1)
  • Salt (1)
  • Sandstone Press (2)
  • Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton; 2)
  • Serpent's Tail (Profile; 1)
  • Tuskar Rock (Grove Atlantic; 1)
  • Virago (Little, Brown; 1)
  
  
• 3 submissions - publishers with 3 or 4 longlistings
  • Harvill Secker (Random House; 3)
  • Picador (Pan MacMillan; 4)
  • Viking (Penguin; 3)
  
  
• 4 submissions - publishers with 5 or more longlistings
  • Bloomsbury (5)
  • Chatto & Windus (Random House; 5)
  • Jonathan Cape (Random House; 5)
  • Faber and Faber (5)
  • Fourth Estate (HarperCollins; 5)

       At least one of these imprints -- Tuskar Rock -- appears not to exist any longer (does its extra selection devolve to Atlantic Books ?).
       Note that in addition to the publisher-submitted titles judges must call in: "no fewer than eight and no more than twelve" titles (from lists of recommendations submitted by ... you guessed it: publishers).
       Unfortunately, the Man Booker folk don't appear to reveal how many publishers submitted titles last (or any, as far as I can tell ...) year; given that only eight publishers will (by my count) be able to submit more than the previous limit of two titles (for a total of an additional thirteen titles) that should more than be off-set by the many publishers now only able to submit a single title: their promise that judges won't have to read more titles than in previous years seems entirely plausible.