“This is what it’s like selling books,” she says. She hands me the ball. “Throw this through there.”
I glare at her then casually toss the paper at the hole five metres away. It falls through it without touching the sides and then I look at her to see what her point is.
“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t expect that.”
She gets onto her hands and knees and crawls under the table to retrieve the paper. She gets up, red in the face, and hands it back to me.
“Forget that happened. Try again.”
I toss it even more casually and again it falls through the hole.
“Okay, that’s ridiculous,” Mavis says immediately. “Pretend it didn’t go through.”
“Okay.”
“That’s how difficult this business is. We only sign books and authors that we think are of a high quality. Either that or the kind of shit that will sell anyway because it’s written by a celebrity. We wish that all our new authors could sell millions but of course, most will not sell well.”
“What’s that got to do with you sending a woman to pretend she wants to sleep with me at a sci-fi convention?”
“The point is we need all the tricks we can imagine. I wanted you to create a stir. And it worked!”
“You could have ruined my marriage.”
“I didn’t know you’d tell your wife for God’s sake. Is it that bad?”
“Oh, she’s still going on about it. That’s the only reason I agreed to come in today. I just wanted to get out of the house. Apparently she’s upset because she had to read about it in my blog rather than hear it from me directly. I mean, nothing happened. Not even a kiss. She’s very temperamental.”
“I’m sorry. But this job is getting even harder. There are thousands of books coming out every week. We need to get noticed.”
“The cables are getting smaller.”
“Sorry?”
“Technology means that computer cables are smaller, so the holes in the tables are shrinking. I’m just trying to maintain the metaphor. Analogy. Whatever.”
“Okay. Yes, the hole is shrinking. With more leisure options at their disposal, and as they just become more and more stupid, people are choosing to read novels less. Most young men can barely manage to make it through Nuts magazine once a week, let alone ninety thousand words of science fiction.”
“Fine. We’ll do what the new rock bands are doing. We’ll throw off the shackles of the controlling corporations and go our own way.”
“Well, a band can give their music away for free and still make their money playing tours. Unfortunately for authors, the product is all you have. Sure, you can publish for free to the three people who might flick through it on their Kindle, but where do you go from there?”
“Good point.”
“Anyway, according to my mole you caused quite the scene.”
“To be honest, I don’t remember much about it.”
Mavis pulls out a sheaf of torn-out notepad pages. “She sent me her notes.”
“I don’t really want to know, Mavis.”
She ignores me and begins to read. “’Christopher tripped up the steps to the platform, grabbed the mic, and then called everyone in the room a…’ I don’t like to use this word, but ‘a cunt.’”
“That’s just my thing,” I protest, rubbing my eyes. “I come out and I affectionately address the crowd with ‘Hello cunts.’”
“Actually,” Mavis says, squinting at the notes. “Apparently you went round everyone in the room individually, pointing them out as you said it.”
“Oh. I was very drunk. But you know that.”
“’He then launched into an unprovoked and utterly inaccurate diatribe against the previous speaker, repeatedly calling her Graham and accusing her of plagiarising Bram Stoker’s Dracula, despite her novel clearly being set in another dimension of the fictional planet Erreptiguskularindusspal featuring nothing remotely approaching vampires.’”
“Yeah, yeah, but how was the reading?”
“You never got around to it. ‘Christopher dropped his notes and then used the microphone stand to stamp on them as though they were on fire until being led away by security. He consumed almost half of his whisky bottle during these ten minutes.’ I think she meant the contents of the bottle. I hope.”
“So I assume I behaved exactly the way you intended?”
“Absolutely. You’re playing to your strengths.”
“Yes, but here’s the problem, Mavis. There were about twenty-seven people in the audience.”
“Word spreads.”
“Nuneaton is hardly the epicentre of literary culture. No offence to anyone who lives there, but everyone who lives there is thick. Can’t you get me one in London?”
“Word doesn’t spread in London anymore. Everyone speaks a different language.”
“Then I’m fucked.”
“Hey, Clear History has a great cover. That really helps.”
“And are people going to see the cover in the shops? Or is it just going to be two copies hidden spine-out in the nether regions of a cavernous Waterstone’s?”
Mavis thinks about this. “We’ll have some posters done up. Shops might like them.”
“I’d like one.”
“Then it will all be worth it.”
She stands up so I do too. “I take it this meeting is over?”
“If you don’t mind. I have James Hardy coming in and I have to prepare.” She smiles like a giddy schoolgirl.
I frown. “How small is the hole for him?”
“It’s like throwing a ping pong ball into a swimming pool,” she says with obvious relish.
“In high wind?”
“The conditions are perfectly calm.”
“Lucky bastard,” I say, and I leave the Hammersmith building for home, stopping at a florist for a dozen roses in an attempt to keep Cheryl quiet for a few hours.
Free Counter
No comments:
Post a Comment