Petits glands..

Every so often you come across a publishing statistic that makes you smile, as an author (J K Rowling was turned down by eight publishers before Bloomsbury saw something in Harry Potter, and so on). Well, I read today that Peter Mayle's A Year In Provence, which spawned a genre - and indeed a lifestyle - and went on to sell over six million copies, had a modest enough start when it was published in 1989: Hamish Hamilton decided on an initial print run of 3,000 copies.