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'PICTURE! PICTURE!'
I have not posted for months, even though I have had so many SC/bad author tales in that time. To be honest, it's been grinding me down. However, this one just amuses me.
We have a book on the go, that the author is paying £2000 towards cost. This is because it wasn't good enough for us to take on with our own money, but he's desperate to see his name in print. Fair enough, give us the cash, we'll print your badly written, unnecessary book. And is very badly written. My my. We've done our best to improve it (after all, it will have the publisher's name on it) but since he's given us money, he has a little more power to veto our cuts etc.
Anyway, this book is about several members of his family during the Second World War, Royal Marine, nurse, prisoner of the Japanese, sailor etc etc. Not a bad premise, pity the book is so terrible. This morning he comes in with a few extra pictures he wants scanned to go in the book, including a huge oil painting of a man in a suit. I sit there and number the pictures, ask him the required captions, where in the book they would go best etc etc. Then we get to the painting.
BB: So, which of your uncles is this?
A: It's me.
BB: What? You?
A: Yes. I want it to go at the front of the book, perhaps a full page.
BB: You want an oil painting of yourself in the book? We sometimes put an author's picture on the inside flap of a cover...
A: No, it should be inside the book, page 2, opposite the title.
BB: Um, that might send a rather confusing message.
A: Why?
BB: Because the book isn't about you, it's about your parents and your uncles and aunts during the war.
A: But I wrote the book.
BB: We could put it on the inside flap of the cover...
A: Why can't it be on page 2?
BB: Well if the book was a biography then it might make sense, but I really don't think...
A: But I wrote the book!
Round and round for about ten minutes. What I couldn't say was 'we can't put a full page picture of you at the front of the book that's because a) the book isn't about you b) it's the most ridiculous thing I've heard for a while c) your face scares children d) any critic who hasn't already vomited into his coffee upon reading your prose, will certainly do so when he sees what a self-aggrandising idiot you are.
Good grief.
We have a book on the go, that the author is paying £2000 towards cost. This is because it wasn't good enough for us to take on with our own money, but he's desperate to see his name in print. Fair enough, give us the cash, we'll print your badly written, unnecessary book. And is very badly written. My my. We've done our best to improve it (after all, it will have the publisher's name on it) but since he's given us money, he has a little more power to veto our cuts etc.
Anyway, this book is about several members of his family during the Second World War, Royal Marine, nurse, prisoner of the Japanese, sailor etc etc. Not a bad premise, pity the book is so terrible. This morning he comes in with a few extra pictures he wants scanned to go in the book, including a huge oil painting of a man in a suit. I sit there and number the pictures, ask him the required captions, where in the book they would go best etc etc. Then we get to the painting.
BB: So, which of your uncles is this?
A: It's me.
BB: What? You?
A: Yes. I want it to go at the front of the book, perhaps a full page.
BB: You want an oil painting of yourself in the book? We sometimes put an author's picture on the inside flap of a cover...
A: No, it should be inside the book, page 2, opposite the title.
BB: Um, that might send a rather confusing message.
A: Why?
BB: Because the book isn't about you, it's about your parents and your uncles and aunts during the war.
A: But I wrote the book.
BB: We could put it on the inside flap of the cover...
A: Why can't it be on page 2?
BB: Well if the book was a biography then it might make sense, but I really don't think...
A: But I wrote the book!
Round and round for about ten minutes. What I couldn't say was 'we can't put a full page picture of you at the front of the book that's because a) the book isn't about you b) it's the most ridiculous thing I've heard for a while c) your face scares children d) any critic who hasn't already vomited into his coffee upon reading your prose, will certainly do so when he sees what a self-aggrandising idiot you are.
Good grief.
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