Man Booker Prize rules modifications

       No press release at the official site yet, but in The Bookseller Joshua Farrington reports that Man Booker Prize modifies longlist availability rules.
       Among the interesting/odd ones:

The prize has also adjusted the time limits on publication dates for books originally published outside the UK. Under the new rules, books must have been originally published outside the UK no more than two years before the UK publication date in order to be eligible.

       Presumably the reasoning behind this is that they want 'current' books, not re-discoveries that happened never to have been published in the UK -- a small number of titles every year (but presumably pretty decent ones).
       And they now define "publisher" more closely (as only "publishers" can submit books), including that a "publisher" is now also:

defined as producing at least two literary fiction novels by different writers in the year

       Regrettably, there still appears to be no interest whatsoever in lifting the outrageous veil of secrecy around what books are actually submitted and considered for the prize.