My name is Joseph D’Lacey.
I am pale, unfit, anxious and
have personal hygiene issues. The arse-covering bit of my jeans wears out with
unsettling regularity. I can’t remember the last time someone nice came to
visit me but my mum (and my gerbil*, Roy Batty) consider me a deity.
I should explain:
I’m a professional author, which
means I make enough money from writing to starve to death several times a year.
On the plus side, no one ever tells me what to do (except editors, but they
don’t count as people) and I get to spend several hours a day staring out of
the window. Also, when I go to parties, which I never do, I get to impress
people by casually dropping the fact that I’m ‘published, you know’.
Why am I telling you this?
I’m telling you because, despite
the inevitable cynicism that arises when writing long-term, I love my job.
Recently, I’ve loved it even more
because things are changing. After years of submitting work, chasing agents and
editors, and tripping over myself to be noticed, publishers have started to
approach me.
I know. Miracle, right?
One of those publishers is Simon
Key of Timeline books, co-owner of The Big Green Bookshop and all-around good
bloke. By now, you’ll know the circumstances under which we first met, so when
Simon emailed to say he wished to publish my work, I was chuffed to bits - he
wanted to bring out a collection of my short fiction! When Simon mentioned this, the bits of my chuff flew even
farther apart.
Some time later, I sent the
following text to Simon:
‘Splinters’.
To which there came no reply. A
few days afterward, Simon admitted he had no idea what the text related to.
“It’s a title,” I said. “For the
book.”
There was an appreciative
silence.
“Oh.”
We decided to talk about other
things for a while before circling back to titles.
“So what do you think of
Splinters?” I asked.
“What? Oh. It’s fine. I mean,
it’s really, really an okay title. You know, for a book. About wood.”
Is it a coincidence that Timeline
Books’ HQ is in Wood Green? I think
not. Was it mere happenstance that that very morning, I’d got a tiny sliver of
bamboo stuck under my fingernail? I’ll leave it with you. Either way, we came
up with about ten more titles and whittled it (see what I did there?) down to
four. At which point the genius that is Simon Key said:
“We should let the public
decide.”
And then it was my turn to say:
“Oh.”
Well, I thought Oh. What I actually said was:
“That’s a brilliant idea, Simon.
Have I mentioned before that you’re a genius?”
And the rest, as they so often
say these days, is interactive publishing history.
Next time:
If a book’s cover is two slices
of organic wholemeal tin-loaf, what should the filling be?
* I don’t own a Gerbil. I made that bit up. The rest of this
article is entirely factual.
