Charlie, the New Author

Charlie had an unusual idea of what was fun. As a child he invented tricks which embarrassed the old relatives or teachers who upset him without them suspecting Charlie as the source of their discomfiture. For instance, his uncle Gordon was hauled by the police and kept in jail overnight because they had received an anonymous phone tip that someone was dealing drugs from his home. An old and much respected teacher was reprimanded because the Principal received a compromising note in a student scribble. So it came as no surprise to me that he would pull off another such trick in his old age. Unfortunately, it backfired.

Charlie had a comfortable life although he only held a junior position in the civil service. His wife was a successful criminal defence lawyer. They lived in a prosperous part of town and he drove a recent model Volvo. After retiring as soon as he could, Charlie became a prolific writer of stories and essays which he sent by email to all his friends. Though most of them hardly ever opened any of the files, they replied praising his work as great and deserving to be published in leading literary magazines. Thus encouraged, he sent them to every magazine in North America whether he had ever seen it or not. The negative response from them did not discourage him at all. He collected the stories in a book and submitted this to publishers whose publications he had come across. Next, he sent it to the publishers who accepted submissions from unknown authors. But, unlike his friends these publishers were blind to the charm and humour in his writing. After keeping the manuscript in the ‘Priority Z’ stack for a year they sent a curt note wishing him success with some other ‘house’. His friends suggested self-publishing but he resented the idea of paying several thousand dollars of his wife’s money to a ‘vanity’ publisher. At last a solution to his problem emerged when he was surfing the net, as he did most of the day when he was not writing or reading. He saw an ad which claimed that New World Publishers did not charge for publishing and even paid the writer for giving them the privilege of putting their great work in front of the public. What is more, they did not want double-spaced printed sheets in strange format with self-addressed stamped envelops which cost a bundle to mail. They insisted on email delivery. Here was his chance to get the book published with all the expense borne by a stranger in a foreign country. “The book will sell millions and I will get my revenge on all those who rejected my works in the past. They will be sorry to have missed the obvious best-seller,” he thought rubbing his hands in glee. Before many people could have batted an eyelid the manuscript was on its way to Susannahtown with inflated claims of his contacts in the local media and the number of friends who would buy the book. The acceptance was duly received in two days and after he had reviewed the basic conditions in the acceptance message and agreed to them within specified 24 minutes, a contract was in his mail box the next day. He had a day and a half to review 50 pages of bold print in font 14 and another 50 pages in font 6. He missed his meals and slept only an hour to make sure there was nothing unexpected in the contract which would come to haunt him later. It was what he had expected more or less. He was responsible for the validity of the statements and legally responsible for any claims made against the publisher resulting from the book. He would be paid a royalty advance of one cent and 2% of the publisher’s income from the book for first 10,000 sales, 4% for next 100,000 and 5% thereafter but only if the royalties were one thousand dollars or more in any calendar quarter which of course they would be, Charlie thought. To top it all, he retained the copyrights and all proceeds of the sales of film rights – very likely in his opinion – would accrue to him.

He signed the contract and emailed it. Next day he was advised to send the final copy of the manuscript. No changes were allowed once it was set in a book form. He sent the file he had sent previously without even opening it, leave alone checking for typos or other errors. A week later he was told that in view of the backlog it would take a year or more for his book to be published. But he could go to the top of the waiting pile if he agreed to pay $249. Charlie is not known for his patience and the amount was charged to his credit card before he had discussed the issue with his financier – wife Monica.

Two days later he received the design of the book, with the cover showing an older man in a red jacket and rather scantily dressed young well endowed woman in a tight embrace, very appropriate for the spring autumn love theme of most stories in the collection. On top was his name in big letters, title ‘Stories of Love’ emblazoned across the picture and the logo of the New World Publishers on the bottom right corner. Charlie was impressed to say the least. He printed it and showed it to Monica and all his friends who he hoped would buy the book. Along with the cover was the text. He was to check it for any errors by the book designer. His own errors would be corrected for a modest fee of $10 for each letter to be altered. “Of course there are no errors in my manuscript. But who knows what formatting errors may have crept in?” thought Charlie as he opened the file. The first page was an absolute delight to Charlie; it said in bold writing “The publisher has not edited the manuscript due to her regard for the author.” However this did not last. To his utter dismay, he found one hundred and seventy three typos and only five possible formatting problems. “I can not let a book with errors go into the world. These must be corrected,” said soon to be famous author to himself and sent the list of corrections. Promptly came back the request for his credit card details. The charges from the no-cost publisher were now in the two thousand dollars range.

Three days later the request to send email addresses of likely fans and the local media outlets arrived. He collected the addresses of his friends, the libraries, television stations and radio programs. Later in the day a list of several hundred addresses was in the inbox of the publicity department. Next came the invitation to order advance copies at reduced price. Charlie had to take advantage of this offer and asked for one hundred copies even though the shipping cost was almost as much as the cost of the book and was charged per copy irrespective of the number of copies ordered. His total expenses, he considered it an investment, on the venture had now reached five thousand dollars.

But this was not all. Within next seven days he received invitations to have the book mentioned on SBC TV stations, put on the shelves of 400 Best Sell Book Store chain, be represented by the most successful literary agent in Dollywood, each for a modest fee of $499, tax included. Having come this far, Charlie was not the one to fold his hand. $1,497 was added to his debt to the credit card company without a second’s thought. “If you want to sell a million copies and have a film made from your story you need publicity and a good agent” he told Monica.
“Why should you be paying for the publicity, they get almost all the money from the sales, not to mention profit on exorbitant shipping fees?” Monica asked.
“They are a business and publishers are having a hard time these days. They have to find ways to break even and sharing with the authors is one way to reduce their costs”, Charlie pleaded for the publisher.
“They should pay a more reasonable rate of royalty then. How much have you spent already anyway?” Monica wanted to know.
“Not all that much. It will be nothing compared to what is coming,” Charlie was non-committal.
“Do answer my question. I want to know how much of a hole we are in”, Monica was adamant.
“Hum, let me see, something in the range of six thousand,” Charlie was still not specific.
“That is the royalty on twelve thousand books. Most books of stories by unknown authors sell a few hundreds. What makes you think you will sell tens of thousands?” Monica’s anger was now on the surface.
“I have been dreaming of the sale in millions. I suppose we will have to wait and see,” Charlie was shamefaced.
“You also dream of winning the jackpot every month. That is a few dollars and relatively harmless. Where did you get all this money from any way?” Monica wasn’t letting go.
“It is charged to my card. I was hoping you would advance me the money against the royalty check when the payment becomes due” Charlie said with humble tone he adopted when asking Monica for money.
“I shared dreams with you for first two years of our life together but not since then. You dream in bright colours. Not me. My dreams are in black and white, no in shades of grey. Dream as colourfully as you like and as often as you wish. But you are not allowed to spend a penny more on the book till the royalty check arrives,” Monica put her foot down with a click of high heel.

Regular messages continued to arrive from the New World suggesting ways of dramatically increasing the sales of the book for a ‘modest’ fee. But Charlie’s hands were now tied. He read them with a pang before pressing the delete button with a shaky finger. As for the royalty check it never arrived. Presumably sales did not reach the level needed to earn a thousand dollars in royalties. Monica must have really loved Charlie. She never mentioned the money she advanced against the royalty check.