This morning, on the way to work the phone rang... It was someone who used to commission me and who kept me off the breadline at various points in my life but it has been a while since he has returned any of my calls. Today however, he was on the line.
Chatting.
About his cold.
He didn't mention the book proof which I know my publishing company sent him, and about which I had thought, in my giddy, excited naivety, he would be pleased - in the way a friend would. I waited for him to say something - anything - until it's the elephant in the room, but apparently only I can see it. Oh dear Lord, how awful it is when you send someone your book and the response is deafening silence. I feel it at work when we parcel up our own proof copies and dispatch them to people we hope will say something nice to put on the cover, and it's like they've fallen off the end of the world without even a splash. However, it's worse when it's your own. I mean, even 'thanks' would be nice. I'm not expecting a three ring circus or a plot analysis.
Instead he spoke for a good five minutes about his self-confessed 'man-flu', and about being laid low, and how he was 'zapping' it with Echinacea and Beechams Cold and Flu relief. Ah yes, the art of sparkling conversation is not yet dead. This is one of the advantages of not living with a man - that you don't have to sympathise while hearing lurid descriptions of their snot.
Eventually after he'd talked about his steam treatment, I crumbled and asked him if the book arrived. He muttered an off hand yes. The way I do when a sales representative asks me if I'm the person who deals with our environmental waste management.
'You won't read it will you?' I said in wearily defeatist mode.
'No...' he agreed, before insisting that it was lying around somewhere.
(Sound of indeterminate scrabbling)
I sigh. I got six copies and have only two left and he has one 'lying around somewhere...'
'Well will you pass it on to someone else for me?'
He mumbled something discouraging about the book pages of his paper, intimating that it wouldn't really be quite their thing being all paperbacky but offered to give it to his 'kid' who is 33 because 'she likes girlie books'.
'It's not that girlie,' I protested, 'it's quite dark.'
I couldn't help myself from exaggerating hugely about how pleased the Waddling Duck Overseas sales' departments were (believe me, to hear me tell it - they know my name in India where, as you can imagine, the Delhi housewife is going to be enthralled by the domestic life of a West London psychopathic housekeeper), but he remained unimpressed by my blatant lying.
I could practically hear him yawning.
'And our author Aravind's White Tiger won The Man Booker,' I added, bringing out the big guns for good measure, refraining to mention it was the only ruddy thing that anyone wanted to talk about at last night's Meet The Press night at Waddling Duck at which I was supposed to be plugging myself.
'Yeah, is it any good?' he drawled.
'Of course it's good. It's fantastic. It won.'
But his only response was to reprise his minute by minute pharmaceutical treatment of his bad cold (aka man-flu).
Bless him.
Getting your book published is only the first hurdle in a long, long battle. Next you have to get bookshops to sell it and then you have to pray someone will read it. What hope is there when you can't even persuade some of your friends and acquaintances to flick through further than the acknowledgments? The woman (very, very nice woman) from Radio Four said that she gave each book 50 pages.
Maybe I should have slipped in fivers?
You may remember the self-published book I was sent recently on the slush pile with a quote that the author had added on the back from 'my friend Dave'. I'm now worried that I may not even be able to muster up that:
'I read a good book today. Yours.' My eldest daughter (who lives with me, food, rent-free and with all utilities paid).
'I read a bit and then I put it down.' My youngest daughter (as above).
'It really stayed with me.' Fran in Pedantic Press Publicity Department (sits behind me, within easy reach of hot liquids and scissors, recently moved to New York Office).
'It's good. Everything you do is good.' Husband. Before leaving.
'I might not like it.' My best friend Nel.
'Can you change the ending?' American publisher.
Feel free to jump in anytime.
Anyone?
Okay then, tenners?
A bottle of champagne for the best one?
First born son? (Actually he's unemployed, lives at home etc, but has great hair and is very cute...)
