[John Jarrold]

Exactly. You're talking about books published years ago - the market changes. As a new writer you need to be aware of what sells in 2007 - new writers are compared by publishers with authors who have come to the fore in the last five years or so, not long-term novelists - in the UK.

My favourite SF novel is THE STARS MY DESTINATION by Alfred Bester, first published in the 1950s. It's about 60,000 words long. If it was presented to publishers today, the first thing the author would be told is that it had to be twice as long...that's the market in 2007.