For every editor, publisher or media producer who dreams of striking gold with a book or artist destined to bring home the money, there will always be the one who fails to spot and invest in the potential winner or who backs the ill-fated loser and throws wads of money at it.
Decca Records infamously declined the chance to sign The Beatles to its label in 1962, reckoning they had no great future in the music industry as “guitar groups were on the way out”, as misguided a decision as ever was taken in the recording world. The 1980 movie , its title neatly summarising its implausible plot, was ‘launched’ (as it were) with a blockbuster budget novel before one took the plunge and led it towards the phenomenal success in print and on film that the series has become. These three cases alone leave a trail of poor judges who must have spent considerable time damning and blasting their decision-making and ruminating on how their own and their companies’ fortunes might have changed had they opted for a different course.
