Friday, April 20, 2007

Is there reeeeally a good book inside everyone?

I just ask because I think the "author" I interviewed today would probably only have a book inside him if he ate it.
For a start, he's published the thing on CD.
"It's cheaper than printing it on paper and it saves trees," he informed me.
"Riiiiiiight," I replied. (Read: I've just driven half an hour into the wilderness for a story about a book that is not only not even being published by reputable company... it's not actually being published at all).
It's a fantasy book "in the lines of Buffy but set in England and with an original take on vampires".
They're human. That's the take.
He's also pillaged every bit of legend, folklore and ancient mythology he can find and put his "original take" on the time honoured stories. Changing the name, location and colour of a ghost, dude, doesn't make it your story.
I got quite worried when he said: "I couldn't get in touch with the author or the publisher of the book I based this on, so I had to change the names of the characters and settings and re-write the plot entirely... which was a lot of work, I can tell you".
Queue my internal dialogue: "So let me get this straight. You decided to write a book that was already written but had to re-write it because you couldn't contact the author or the publisher who wrote and published in the first place, so now you're not publishing it yourself but selling it on CD by postal order for $12 including postage and handling."
"You wouldn't believe how expensive proof-readers are! I've re-read this myself so many times."
I had asked him to bring a copy of the book for the photo shoot. So he brought three CDs and a computer print-out of the story. At the end he asked me I wanted to take it and read it. I declined. He asked if I knew anyone who was likely to want to read it as I could take it for them. I declined.
He was clearly disappointed.
"Oh, well I printed it out especially... I've already got too much scrap paper at home."
Obviously he has as much faith in his product as I do.

2 comments:

shiny said...

This author is delusional.

Where's your special lending library dinkis? Way to get our hopes up.

shiny said...

ok, just scrolled down to bottom. will shut up and do work now.