Diane Reverend was a mere editor at Random House in New York when she first saw a manuscript by an unknown pop psychologist Dr John Gray. I took one look at the title and knew it would be a number one bestseller,' she says, chuckling, and she was right. The desperately understanding Dr Gray is now a multimillionaire and Diane Reverend has her own company. Dr Gray's slim volume on how to bridge communication gaps between the sexes is the unofficial mascot of a huge and expanding self-help industry that may, as its insiders claim, answer some Americans' myriad yearnings for betterment. It also feeds off those yearnings, creates hundreds more and - not incidentally - props up the entire world of New York publishing, As Britain is learning, the genre can fill entire walls with tomes as quickest and histrionic as their covers - but there are worse, For every self-help title published, thousands are rejected as too derivative or specialized. This is no small mercy. As a new breed of heavyweight editor-cum-agent cues looking for the next lightweight blockbuster, prose style is the last thing on anybody's mind Marketability is everything. How promotable is the author? What's the "hook"? Is it universal enough? Ms. Reverend rattles off the key questions, then admits: someone comes to me with a really catchy title that's two thirds of the battle won. You know you can reach people.'