PC, printer and scanner. Most significantly, I arranged lunch with my friend Harriet, who was a failed writer who refused to stop writing. It was usually Harriet who contacted me about our occasional dates, but now I needed her. She was not so much my ally against Mister Brandel, she was more of a weapon.
Harriet had a private income, so she was able to indulge her passion for writing detective fiction. Her style would have been acceptible in the 1930s, so had she been writing eighty years earlier she might have made a name for herself. This was 2010, however, so she was let down by her overblown prose, simple plots, minimal grasp of police procedures, and characters with about as much depth as a car park puddle. Nevertheless she had nine books in print, which had sold three or four hundred copies each. Out of loyalty I had bought copies of all nine, then bought another set which I had donated to my library.
“Look, it's the same old story,” said Harriet when I enquired about how her sales were coming along. “Getting in print, easy peasey, you can go from formatted file to book-in-hand in a working week if you know who and how. Promotion? Hey, I do all the FM local shows and writers centres, so people know. After that you have three problems. People know about the book, they want to buy the book, but now its distribution, distribution, distribution.”
“So, the distributors still won't distribute?” I asked.
“Not even if I pay, and I've offered to do that.”
“I bet that doesn't stop you.”
“Stop me? Hah! Since I've been selling directly from my web site, sales have gone up fifteen percent. That's still only sixty two books more, but I've used another trick to get sales over five hundred—sort of.”
“Really?”
“It's a bit of a fiddle, but it works. I do a scooter tour of all the big bookshops with remainder tables, taking a couple of copies of my latest into each place. I pretend to look through what's on offer, leave my books on the table, and when I go nobody notices that I've got two less books than I came in with.”
“You smuggle your own books into bookshops?”
“Hey, why not? When the system screws you then it's time to screw the system.”
Harriet was as predictable as the sunrise, at least to someone from forensics. The word 'screw' had been spoken. That was highly significant, and meant she was in the mood.
“So, how is the next book going?” I asked. “Do you think number ten will score a thousand copies sold?”
“Oh man, as if. How I would love to say 'sales in four figures'. Er, speaking of the next book, would you like to be in a little research project?”
“I'll do what I can, the library's resources are at your disposal.”
“Er, well, it's actually a bit more hands on than that.”
That night after work I knocked at Harriet's door at 11pm, and was greeted by a woman in a dark blue skirt suit with padded shoulders, wearing a beret, and with the most luridly crimson lipstick that I have ever set eyes upon.
“Harriet?”
“Hey, come in, come in, it's 1945 and I'm a spy, wouldn't you know it?”
Harriet was researching a seduction scene in which she was a spy and I was a British scientist with secrets that she wanted. Neither of us smoked, so naturally when we lit up the first cigarettes to enter her unit in decades, her smoke detector went off and we both had coughing fits. To give her credit, she had researched the dinner, drinks and clothing of 1945 very thoroughly. I went sent into her bathroom to change into underwear that even my grandfather would have thought a bit dated, and over all this went a genuine 1945 shirt, tie and suit. I emerged feeling very self-conscious.
I am not entirely sure what Harriet got out of the encounter. Once drinks, dinner and banter were over, we both had quite a lot of trouble coping with a seduction that involved suspenders, braces, a fly with buttons, and all the other intricacies of archaic underwear. I tried to
Harriet had a private income, so she was able to indulge her passion for writing detective fiction. Her style would have been acceptible in the 1930s, so had she been writing eighty years earlier she might have made a name for herself. This was 2010, however, so she was let down by her overblown prose, simple plots, minimal grasp of police procedures, and characters with about as much depth as a car park puddle. Nevertheless she had nine books in print, which had sold three or four hundred copies each. Out of loyalty I had bought copies of all nine, then bought another set which I had donated to my library.
“Look, it's the same old story,” said Harriet when I enquired about how her sales were coming along. “Getting in print, easy peasey, you can go from formatted file to book-in-hand in a working week if you know who and how. Promotion? Hey, I do all the FM local shows and writers centres, so people know. After that you have three problems. People know about the book, they want to buy the book, but now its distribution, distribution, distribution.”
“So, the distributors still won't distribute?” I asked.
“Not even if I pay, and I've offered to do that.”
“I bet that doesn't stop you.”
“Stop me? Hah! Since I've been selling directly from my web site, sales have gone up fifteen percent. That's still only sixty two books more, but I've used another trick to get sales over five hundred—sort of.”
“Really?”
“It's a bit of a fiddle, but it works. I do a scooter tour of all the big bookshops with remainder tables, taking a couple of copies of my latest into each place. I pretend to look through what's on offer, leave my books on the table, and when I go nobody notices that I've got two less books than I came in with.”
“You smuggle your own books into bookshops?”
“Hey, why not? When the system screws you then it's time to screw the system.”
Harriet was as predictable as the sunrise, at least to someone from forensics. The word 'screw' had been spoken. That was highly significant, and meant she was in the mood.
“So, how is the next book going?” I asked. “Do you think number ten will score a thousand copies sold?”
“Oh man, as if. How I would love to say 'sales in four figures'. Er, speaking of the next book, would you like to be in a little research project?”
“I'll do what I can, the library's resources are at your disposal.”
“Er, well, it's actually a bit more hands on than that.”
That night after work I knocked at Harriet's door at 11pm, and was greeted by a woman in a dark blue skirt suit with padded shoulders, wearing a beret, and with the most luridly crimson lipstick that I have ever set eyes upon.
“Harriet?”
“Hey, come in, come in, it's 1945 and I'm a spy, wouldn't you know it?”
Harriet was researching a seduction scene in which she was a spy and I was a British scientist with secrets that she wanted. Neither of us smoked, so naturally when we lit up the first cigarettes to enter her unit in decades, her smoke detector went off and we both had coughing fits. To give her credit, she had researched the dinner, drinks and clothing of 1945 very thoroughly. I went sent into her bathroom to change into underwear that even my grandfather would have thought a bit dated, and over all this went a genuine 1945 shirt, tie and suit. I emerged feeling very self-conscious.
I am not entirely sure what Harriet got out of the encounter. Once drinks, dinner and banter were over, we both had quite a lot of trouble coping with a seduction that involved suspenders, braces, a fly with buttons, and all the other intricacies of archaic underwear. I tried to
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