In the final chapter, it ends in shreds: Edward Marriott learns that even novels which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize can meet an ignominious fate if they don't sell enough copies

THE critics loved it. 'Remarkable', 'magical', they cooed. The reality for Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, a widely praised first novel on last year's Booker Prize shortlist, was a little more prosaic. Expecting great things, Faber and Faber printed 6,000 copies in hardback. The novel, however, sold only 4,600. Even the Booker shortlist is no guarantee of sales: although the paperback run is still selling, 1,000 hardback copies ended up in the shredder.

The shredder is the stuff of publishers' nightmares. It is the ultimate mark of failure; the ugly side of an otherwise unusually gentlemanly profession. Hardly surprising, then, that it is a subject from which most publishers and authors shy away. An exception to this rule is the fantasy writer Terry Pratchett. Last month Mr Pratchett, during a tour around W H Smith's Swindon headquarters, came face to face with his first shredder.

The machine, which covers two floors of the warehouse, shreds more than 18,000 books a day. W H Smith turned down the Independent's request to photograph it, anxious that the company should be seen to be 'celebrating success rather than failure'. Martin Lee, product group manager for adult books, says that 'shredding is part of the business, but it is not the part we would like people to see'.

Mr Pratchett, who did see it, came away chastened yet peculiarly excited. 'They couldn't get me away from it - I stood in front of it rapt. I asked them to get me a photo of it so I could put it on top of my desk, like a memento mori.

'I was fascinated by it, but it was a similar fascination to looking at a bad accident - horror mixed with interest. It was extraordinary: at the top you see perfectly good books going in and at the bottom comes out something which looks like a prolapsed Jiffy bag.'

Despite his schoolboy glee, Mr Pratchett, who claims not to know if any of his books have been shredded, feels that 'it is a strange world where all these books get shredded rather than being sold for, say, 10p each. Who knows, millions of people might buy the books if they were sold off that cheaply'. This is a common reaction among members of the public according to Mr Lee, who says that if the shredder were photographed the company 'would be inundated with people saying, 'Why don't you send the books to Russia?' '.

Books are, in fact, occasionally sent to Russia - witness Book Aid. But aside from charity initiatives, publishers are unwilling to offload books abroad. Jonathan Lloyd, managing director of HarperCollins adult division, says: 'I am very careful not to remainder abroad. The books can turn up in small but important markets and undermine sales in those countries. And in this country, if you're seen remaindering large quantities of a book it reduces the value and purity of the original product.'

Helen Fraser, publisher of Mandarin, the mass-market paperback imprint for Heinemann, Secker & Warburg and Methuen, opposes remaindering for a different reason. 'If a book doesn't sell you can't leave it in the warehouse for 50 years - that would be too expensive.'

Diplomacy also plays its part. 'I think authors get more upset when they see their books remaindered for 50p than when hearing that they've been pulped. Sometimes they ask what happens to unsold copies, and of course we tell them. But usually we could eat the books as far as they are concerned.'

According to the Publishers Association, 397 million books were printed last year. Bookwatch, a market research company dealing with the book trade, estimates that about 20 per cent are returned. Put another way, as many as 79 million books were shredded last year.

Blame for this waste cannot be laid solely at the publishers' doors. Most bookshops order books on a sale or return basis. With this luxury, over-

ordering, and therefore shredding, is common. Robert Topping, manager of Waterstone's biggest branch, in the Deansgate shopping centre, Manchester, lists some recent failures.

'Prince Charles's book of watercolours failed quite dramatically. Jackie and Sunnie Mann's Yours Till The End has been a complete disaster - we only took 20 and will probably be returning 20. Worse still was Jean Auel's Plains of Passage, the long-awaited sequel to Clan of the Cave Bear and The Mammoth Hunters. We had to return hundreds.'

The staple diet of the shredder, however, is mass-market paperback fiction. Hardbacks are, for the most part, remaindered - with a smaller print run there will be fewer returns, most of which can usually be cleared at discounted prices. Shredders are fed by the likes of Jeffrey Archer, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Terry Pratchett and Dick Francis. With print runs often stretching into six figures, returns of thousands are not uncommon, all of which will be shredded.

To cope with the flow, some bigger publishers have invested in their own shredders. HarperCollins has a shredder near Glasgow which, it estimates, shreds four to five million books a year. Calder Books, which distributes to all the 'non-traditional outlets', such as motorway service stations and supermarkets, installed a shredder 18 months ago for pounds 200,000. It shreds one book every three seconds, running continuously from Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Like W H Smith's machine, a computer reads the bar codes before deciding which books are to be stored and which shredded.

The industry is doing what it can to minimise the carnage. Martin Lee believes that the tide is beginning to turn: 'Publishers are printing more accurately. We like to show them our shredder - it shows what happens when they get it wrong.' Since May this year, Waterstone's has been 'buying firm' from six major publishers, an agreement which means that what they do not sell they cannot return. This will be a relief for publishers. The traditional sale or return arrangement puts little pressure on booksellers to order the amount they think they can sell.

Ian McEwan, whose Black Dogs is his second novel to make the Booker shortlist, is one who would welcome such a move. He never throws books away. 'Sometimes I take unwanted copies of books to the Oxfam shop, but I am superstitious of throwing them in the dustbin. Something in my heart rebels against the idea of 2,000 copies just being mashed. Couldn't they be given to public libraries? I'm sure the British Council would snap them up and use them to spread culture abroad. I am in favour of anything that finds a condemned book a reader.'

Most writers, he says, do not consider what happens to unsold copies. 'If you hear that your book sold only 7,500 you don't automatically subtract that from the print run. I suppose it's a natural question to ask, but writers are unnatural creatures.'

And none more so than Fay Weldon, who claims that she 'could handle' seeing her own books pulped, but watching other people's books shredded 'would be too brutal, like seeing the thoughts in their heads being shredded. It's the publishers' fault, though, isn't it? If they printed the right amount, none would be shredded. But given a choice, I'd prefer seeing television sets chopped up. I'd like that.'

(Photograph omitted)