Acceptance
by
Jeff Stimpson
"This isn't a dream. This is really happening!" -
Mia Farrow, Rosemary's Baby.
Here is the day I've dreamed of since junior high
English class, since the moment I first typed "This is the story of
Alexander Lee Stimpson" while trying to keep my hope up in June of
1998.
"Thanks for sending the rest of the ms, which
we've managed to read and show in part to one or two people on our
staff." This sentence opens a UPS-delivered letter from a publishing
house that requested the full-manuscript of Alex a couple of
weeks ago. Long and the short: there's a hole in their schedule, and
they can publish it this fall.
Hole in the schedule? "Managed to read?!"
Among the first tasks: tinkering with and signing
the contract; digging up some photos and writing a few promo
paragraphs for their catalog; and one other thing:
"Before you send your disk," the publisher writes,
"please eliminate duplications, repetitions. Take a good look at the
organization and get the ms the way you like it best."
I get a contract, what Rick (not his real name),
an old publishing friend of Jill's, assures me is probably a
"minefield" representative of a long line of documents honed by
generations of publishers to fuck authors. Rick's a nice guy. He was
in this business for years, and has retired. He has a summer home.
He doesn't have to talk to me. But he does, for 45 minutes, right up
until he has to get dressed to go out to dinner. I also search the
Web for stuff on standard book contracts. "Never sign a
boilerplate contract," warns one primer. Never give them this, never
give them that. Do the math on the royalties: You're probably
getting gypped.
"The point of the whole thing is," says Rick,
"you're not in a very strong bargaining position. You want the book
published. And this is stuff you won't have to go through for your
next 32 books."
No, I'm not. Yes, I do. "I'm thinking about just
saying no, and putting it all in an e-book," I say to Jill. she
nods.
"Oh, I think I should sign the thing and roll the
dice and publish the book," I say to Jill a few minutes later. She
nods. She looks at the publisher's Web site and sees that they've
brought back a lot of titles Jill loved when she was younger.
"They sound kind," she says. Jill isn't wrong
about this sort of thing too often.
I don't think fucking authors is what these people
are about, especially after I call them. The guy sounds honest. He
uses a lot of phrases Rick used. "This is a bad business," the
publisher says. "All I can say is that if we make money, you make
money." I bring up a small royalty (as Rick said, "I always think
it's better if a little money changes hands").
Replies the publisher: "It's not our policy, but
we're not adverse to it, if you'd feel better that way."
Jill takes the wheel for the first edit. "You're
going to have to do more writing and re-writing," she announces on
my phone, after reading the first few chapters. She's about to board
the subway to go dishes shopping, but passersby who don't know that
just hear a somebody who must be a Somebody barking editorial
commands into a cell phone. "It reads too much like essays just
strung together," Jill Somebody tells me.
I was thinking that too when I was, well,
stringing them together.
Jill also starts contributing graphics ideas. She
comes up with the idea of putting Alex's first footprints - each one
an inch and a half long - on the first page of the book; on the last
page will be his latest footprints, from an art project done last
week. The publisher's art person loves the idea. The art person also
mentions that we'll have to do photos in 8- or 16-page spreads, so
we'll need some 30 pictures to sort through. plus a good photo for
the cover as soon as possible.
"I never thought our family snapshots would be
looked at by strangers one day as they thumbed through a book," Jill
says. Funny: I always did.
I sign the contract, stipulating that I'll contact
all web sites to remove my essays, and that the publisher must pay
me $300 in advance of royalties. I still assume they won't pay. I
still assume they'll just let the book drop.
A few days later, my copy of the contract arrives,
along with an author questionnaire for marketing purposes, and a
check for $300. I deposit it, assuming it will bounce.
Copyright 2003 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
