Sir: As in recent years I have advised different Btitish
publishers on the desira- bility of books offered to them about Aids, I know better than most that the picture offered by Michael Fumento of the 'black- listing' of his Myth of Heterosexual Aids is unreal. He is not the only American author to feel aggrieved at having a book on Aids rejected by British publishers because they judged it was too exclusively addressed to American concerns to succeed here. So far as I know these decisions have been taken on the basis of an honest commercial assessment that such books don't travel the Atlantic very well. This opinion works both ways: my own book written in re- sponse to Aids, entitled Sex, Death and Punishment, has sold well here, but was rejected by various American publishers, as 'too British'. I am as convinced that my book is relevant to the USA as Mr Fumen- to feels his de-mythologising is important for the British, but neither of us is entitled to accuse publishers of pusillanimous sub- mission to threats or conspiracies.
It is painful for an author to accept that his book is not worth publishing, but the fact is that American books like Mr Fumento's sell badly here. Publishers are in business to make money and are not obliged to publish whatever authors sub- mit. They will publish controversial books if they think they will sell, and I know of at least one Fumento-like book on Aids handled by an editor who disagreed with much of it but who took an optimistic view of its sales (it sold dreadfully).
On one point I gladly agree with Mr Fumento: he was deplorably served in the review of his book by Duncan Campbell.
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