ITV’s author competition Bestseller may come to the US, is produced by Simon Cowell’s brother

Aspiring writers and authors will soon get their own reality show, one that sounds far too much like On the Lot. The UK series, called Bestseller, was announced in May and was scheduled to air on ITV this summer, but it will now air later this year, according to The Novel Gobbler. The site also says the show’s producer, who happens to be Simon Cowell’s brother, planned to “pitch the idea to U.S. networks in June.”

On the show, contestants and “authors will be invited to pitch their ideas for a blockbuster novel to a panel of judges headed by Tony Cowell, big brother of The X Factor’s Simon Cowell,” Daily Mail reported, via my friend Mary at BookBlog.

Cowell, a former agent and author himself, said, “The only conditions are that they must have a completed manuscript and never have been published before. Some will have had hundreds of rejections. But we want to give them another chance.” He added, “There are far fewer platforms now for first-time writers, and publishers don’t take unsolicited manuscripts any more. Finding an agent is extremely difficult. It’s harder to get your synopsis or first chapter read than it is to send your CD to my brother.”