Let me tell you a story first. Last year I was looking for the first First Novel Long Barn Books would publish and somewhat in despair. Submissions were pouring in and I had found nothing remotely publishable. Then came a letter and a short typescript. We ask for the first 4 chapter by e-mail only to begin with but the nice letter explained that the author did not do anything electronic and that he, a friend who was acting as the author`s agent, sort of, did not have an electronic copy either. I sighed slightly but by the end of the first paragraph, I had forgiven all. By the end of the short book, I knew a. that I had found the novel and that nothing else would come close and b. that this was a book of genius - quirky, strange, like nothing else I had ever read, but the  sort that makes you shiver. I knew in that moment that the author would one day win the Booker prize and everything else going. I rang the friend-acting-as-agent and said I wanted to publish the book. He was in France on holiday and we had several excited conversations. I offered, of course, exactly the same terms as everyone gets from Long Barn and he said they sounded fine. When he was back, though, he wanted to bring the author to meet me - it was imperative that we got on. So he did. I met a withdrawn, unbelievably shy, awkward young man who I took to straight away - and his unbelievably confident, un-shy, smooth and self-possessed friend-turned-agent. (There is a very very odd bit of coincidence attached to the  latter about whom I turned out to know something which happened to him in his teenage years and which few people could possibly know. I`ll the story sometime but suffice it to say this only made me more sure that  the book was meant to come to me.)

I made my offer. At which point there was great excitement but a hardly-uttered thrown-off remark that it was actually with another, mainstream publisher - who was sure not to want it. The friend-turned-agent would tell them that I did.

I immediately smelled a rat. Multiple submission is common agent-practice and it may work when they want to get big publishers to move or to fight with one another so that the advance-price goes up., But it is not a practice I care for and it is one I absolutely will not and cannot get involved with. My contract is universal and non-negotiable. I can`t get into bidding wars. I try to read and respond on manuscripts very quickly so that no one has to wait months and months.

I said I would publish the small book but that there was no chance at all of my joining in a competition for it. I got  some holding-e-mails from the friend-agent. Then a letter saying that  Fourth Estate had offered 20,000 for the book so...

I was absolutely bloody furious. What had happened, of course, was that my enthusiasm had been used as a lever to get the mainstream publisher to offer, and to offer far more than I could or would. I felt used and cheated and it took me a long time to forget about it. I also felt, trying to be objective, that the author would have done better with me because in a large firm he might slip between the cracks. He would have had my whole attention and publicity and marketing push. Still, to be honest if I had been him, advised by my friend-agent, I would have gone with the big publisher with my first book.

BUT. A year has gone by. I don`t bear grudges for more than half an hour unless the harm has been done to one of my family, not to me. And it had not.

The little book has just come out from 4th Estate. And I am telling you - not suggesting, TELLING, that it is a small work of genius and that you must go out and buy it now. If you are a bookseller you must stock it. I have bought 10 copies myself and I am happy to give one to anyone who asks. I am as confident about it as that. When those 10 have gone I`ll buy some more. Just ask, Your only obligation is to spread the word if you like it. I know that the author has another story like it in the pipeline and after that more and more. I also know that he took 2 years out to go to art college and learn litho-printing because he wanted to illustrate the book himself.

I am telling you now that you will not read a small work of genius like this not only this year but for a long time to come - probably until his next one comes out.

Oh, sorry. You want to know what it is ? I am not telling you anything about it. You need to read it.

MR THUNDERMUG. by Cornelius Medvei. Fourth Estate £10.

I`m sticking my reputation on this one. I`m only sorry I am not also its publisher.