Snippets

'You Can Make Somebody Buy Your Book!'

  ‘My word Ralph, that’s a triumph.’ Phyllis spontaneously jumped to her feet. Her chair overbalanced and fell on the floor. She stood awestruck looking for signs of tease in her husband, but saw none and re-entered the conversation more sedately.  ‘Vern Hopkins. He’s huge, His last book outsold “Fifty Shades of Grey”.  They talk about him all the time in the group.  There’s no author either side of the Atlantic bigger than Vern Hopkins right now, I am so glad for Ron.’

  Ralph tried to look unimpressed. ‘I heard he’d sold a few books’. Phyllis railed on her husband’s apparent indifference.

  ‘Vern Hopkins, he’s red hot. They’re all fans of him at the writer’s group. Never a meeting passes without somebody sidetracking into Vern Hopkins.  Some are placing advance orders for this book.  Oh I am so glad for Ron.’

  Phyllis clasped her hands and held them triumphantly over her head while she pirouetted with joy for her brother in law.  Ralph waited for her to stop dancing and to pick up her chair before adding.

  ‘That’s the good news.’

  Phyllis stopped to look questioningly at her husband. His face was grim. ‘You mean there’s bad news as well? Have they cancelled the order, or what?’

  Ralph exhaled noisily and shook his head.

  ‘It’s a hard back novel, due for release on the 24th April. The first batch of books, half a gross, he said. I think that’s five, dozen, dozen or something- anyway it’s about 700 books. They were printed and went to the binding shop last week. They’re meant to be advance copies, promotional books the publishers want to send out for review and all that.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but what happened” Phyllis sat facing her husband at the table straining to hear his every word.

  ‘Well, when they came back, they noticed that a section had been omitted. It seems the people who assemble the printed pages into book form had missed out the Prologue.’ Phyllis looked confused and interjected.

  ‘But books these days don’t have Prologues. Publishers don’t like them.’

  Ralph waved her down and continued. ‘That’s what the manager said, but it seems success has gone to Vern Hopkins’s head.  He wants to fly in the face of convention and put in a Prologue.  He wanted to get his back-story put down there and lead on directly into the main account or something.  That’s what Ron said.  Anyway, he’s so important to the publisher, they’ve let him have his way.’

  ‘Good Lord. What happened when they found out about the mistake?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened yet.  Ankerman Press are running scared of losing the publisher. They daren’t tell them and think themselves lucky they found the error before dispatching them. They’ve put a rush job on to print and bind another batch and will suffer the loss themselves.  It’s money they can’t afford to lose in their present financial circumstances.’

  ‘What about the ruined books, can’t they sell them as seconds?’

  ‘I asked Ron about that and he said it’s all hush hush, top secret stuff, nothing to come out before the book launch on the 24th.  The books have to be destroyed. Ankerman have booked a place in a secure incinerator, where they burn old banknotes and bonds.  Ron’s got the job of taking them there next Tuesday, under a police escort no less.  It’s costing Ankerman a fortune. What do you think about that?’

  Phyllis thought nothing about it. Her mind was suddenly racing on an idea forming in her brain to thwart Angela.  She sat back in her chair, all thought of lunch now gone out of her head. In a pensive frame of mind she asked.