34) Five,four,three,two,one -
Houston, we have lift-off. Yes, my debut novel ,‘A Polaroid of Peggy’, has been officially launched. But will it take a giant step for mankind like Apollo 11 or, will it succumb to ‘pogo oscillations’? (Which, according to Wikipedia, is what caused Apollo 6’s mission to end in ignominious failure.)
Given the gazillions of books that are published, and the tiny number that ever get noticed, you wouldn’t bet against a bad case of pogo oscillations.
See what I’m doing? Getting my retaliation in first. If ‘A Polaroid of Peggy’ does end up plunging back to earth in flames the fault will not be mine but the publishers and the writers of all that other worthless shit with which my book – clearly a work of unalloyed genius - is forced to compete for attention.
So the launch could very well be the highpoint. In which case, whatever else happens – or more probably doesn’t - Peggy and I will always have Queens Park.
Last Thursday, June 11th, on one of the rare warm evenings in this weirdly up and down summer, enough people turned up to fill Queens Park Books to just this side of bursting, and it all went more or less swimmingly. The non-drivers and the less than tea-totallers each downed a flute or three of a perfectly gluggable prosecco, the abstemious suffered orange juice, and all happily munched on a nice variety of cheesy comestibles.
They paid polite attention when Leroy de Suede, Chairman and CEO of my publishers, Small & Greene, making a very rare public appearance, introduced my esteemed celebrity guest, Maureen Lipman and me to the audience.
They listened respectfully while Maureen and I read a few short passages and they even made a reasonably good fist of seeming to like what they heard. They indulged me while I showed three little commercials I’ve made courtesy of the incredibly resourceful Hackney brothers – budget £32.49p - see above – and graciously indulged me by asking me to sign copies of my book. Best of all, they actually bought the books they asked me to sign.
In case you’re wondering what the point of these commercials is – not really three separate films but one visual with three different sound tracks – it is to try and whet the appetite of media people.
Books don’t usually come with commercials so I’m hoping that the fact that mine does might provoke a little curiosity and get it off the slush pile and into the press or onto the radio. Wildly optimistic? Probably, but I am quite certain that if you want your books to do more than gather dust, publicity is almost everything. There might be the odd work of such supreme quality that it ignites interest without author or publisher doing anything to promote it, but it would be a very rare bird indeed. Without some kind of media visibility, the average book – and the better than average book too – has the life expectancy of a dodo with a deathwish.
I must say that I derived the most enormous pleasure from making these little films. Once, in the dim and distant past, I used to do this kind of thing for a living and I’d almost forgotten how satisfying it is. It’s hard to explain to people who’ve never ‘done’ advertising what joy there can be in making a commercial. It’s like painting a miniature – not that I’ve ever painted a miniature so I’ve no real idea if that’s true, but what I mean is that a commercial is a very small, superficially simple thing but, because of that, it is one in which every minute detail counts; a tiny thing which you refine and polish endlessly, not least because you often have a disproportionately large amount of money – your client’s money! – to spend on it.
In this case the client was, of course, the publisher, but Leroy de Suede flatly refused to foot the bill, so the only money involved was the £32.49 I referred to earlier, which I spent myself on buying the rights to use the music. Fortunately we did have the goodwill and self sacrifice and technical prowess of the aforementioned Hackney Bros. I am ashamed to say that de Suede took advantage of them shamelessly but they were not alone. He exploited me just as ruthlessly, insisting that I both read the voice-over and hold the camera for the opening shot, normally a job for a specialist hands artist.
You may wonder if it is wise for a first time writer to make such unflattering comments about his publisher. But, whatever else he is, Mr. de Suede is not a petty man and he would never object to anything I wrote or said, not least because we are quite remarkably like minded. Besides, as someone may or may not have once said, a writer must always speak the truth, even when writing fiction.
