From: Ian Sales Date sent: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 "A Writer's Tale" Copyright 1997 by Ian Sales Despite the tiredness that seemed to bond him to his mattress, Ivor Penn couldn't sleep. He was too excited. On the other side of his bedroom, sitting beside his PC, was a stack of paper. Ivor's novel. He had finished it. At last. 250,000 words. He grinned in the darkness. For the last nine months, Ivor's novel had filled his every waking moment. He had plotted and planned. He had been struck by inspiration. And words had gushed forth. A quarter-of-a-million words of grand space opera. He could no longer remember what the initial spark had been, but he could rest happy now that nearly a year of blazing fire was nothing but smouldering embers, smouldering embers that left a warm glow inside him. Writing the book had not been without sacrifices. Ivor's girlfriend had dropped him. His boss had threatened him with the sack if he didn't buck up. He had ridden over all that life had thrown at him, secure in the knowledge that the novel would make him his fortune. Of course it would. It was brilliant! He could see the reviews now--"breathtaking... stupendous... a new star burns brightly in sf's firmament". The plaudits. The adulation. Guest of Honour at the Worldcon. Interviews in magazines. Maybe even on television. This was IT. He rolled over onto his other side, smiling as a scene--one he was particularly proud of--crept into his mind's eye. Why, he could even see the glow of his hero's spaceship as it blasted off into the void... Glow? Ivor sat upright. There was a definite "glow" filling his room. A soft blue light was leaking from around the edges of the walk-in wardrobe's door. What on earth was going on? The wardrobe banged open. A corpulent figure stumbled into the room, hiccupped, and peered blearily at Ivor. He was wearing a tweed suit with leather elbow-patches, had a pipe clenched between his teeth and a neat brigadier's moustache. "I say," the figure demanded around his pipe. "You Ivor Penn?" "Yes," squeaked Ivor. "Capital, capital. Got the right place, after all." He hiccupped again. "Well, cheer up, old boy," the man continued. "Don't look so damned worried." He puffed out his chest, removed the pipe from his mouth, and intoned sonerously, "I am the Ghost of Publishing Past." "The what?" "Publishing Past, old boy. Simple enough. Handshake and your book's good as published. My word on it. Mind, can't pay you more'n a pittance. Not a lot of money in books, you know. And we never did get that royalty malarkey all straight." Ivor hitched himself further upright. "You want to publish my book?" "Said that, didn't I? Thought it was perfectly clear." "How much?" "How much what, old boy?" "How much advance? You know, for signing the contract." "Contract?" exploded the Ghost of Publishing Past. "Don't be impertinent. I'm a gentleman--m'word worth more than a peice of paper." He paused and gazed at Ivor. "And what's an 'advance'?" Ivor gestured vaguely. "You know: you give me money in advance of the royalties my book will earn." "Lend you money? My dear boy, it's simply not done. Lend you money? Ha! I don't have two farthings to rub together m'self." "Well, how much are you going to spend to market the book?" "Market the book? What in heaven's name are you on about? I'm a *publisher*, old boy. I *publish* books. I don't make people buy them. What on earth gave you such a peculiar notion?" Ivor slumped. "I'm not interested." "Pardon?" "I'm not interested. You won't give me an advance and you won't market my book. How am I supposed to make my fortune that way?" "Humf! Well, if that's the way you feel..." The Ghost of Publishing Past turned ponderously around and stomped back into the wardrobe, slamming the door behind him. Ivor tried to go to sleep. But the glow still filled his room. "I thought you'd gone," he yelled at the closed wardrobe door. "Who's gone?" Someone had opened the wardrobe door. "Hi." It was a woman, smartly dressed in a red designer-label executive suit, large round-framed spectacles, and with a clipboard tucked under one arm. "Hi," said Ivor, unsurprisingly somewhat happier to see this intruder. "Who are you?" "I'm the Ghost of Publishing Present, and I'd like to make you an offer on your book. I have the contract right here." She pulled a sheet of paper from her clipboard--it seemed to metamorphose into a thick wad of several hundred pages as she brandished it. "We can't offer you much of an advance, I'm afraid," she continued. "Quite frankly, space opera's not such a good sales prospect these days. We've spoken to the retailers and I'm afraid they don't think they'll be able to move all that many units." "But you'll market the book, won't you?" asked Ivor. "Market it? Well, that's something we'll have to consider. We don't have a very large marketing budget, and what we do have tends to go on the household names. You're hardly one of them--I mean, a first time author doesn't have that much of a market recognition factor. We have to take all this into account, you understand. And the market segment for space opera is very small. And stagnant. We'll probably manage to shift about 10,000 units in mass market paperback." She smiled winningly. "We see authors like you as an investment: get you on the books, manage your career, and in due course you'll have built up a fan-base and we'll see some return." She frowned and shook her head sadly. "That's if another wave of cutbacks don't hit us first." Ivor sighed. "How much is the advance?" The Ghost of Publishing Present brightened. "A thousand Pounds. You can buy a new computer for that." "A *grand*?" shrieked Ivor. "I've sweated blood and tears for a year to write my novel and you want to give me a paltry thousand quid for it? No, thank you very much." And the woman was gone. God, what next, thought Ivor, sliding down beneath the sheets. He could see the manuscript sitting on his desk, taunting him. You're worth more, he told himself. A *lot* more. The computer switched on. One minute the screen was dark; the next, it had come to life. A face peered into the room from the monitor--early twenties, buzz-cut, spectacles, wearing a white collared shirt and a striped tie. "Hey, dude," said the face. "What now?" asked Ivor wearily. The face giggled. "I am the Ghost of Publishing Future. Heavy or what, dude?" Ivor sighed. "What's Publishing Future?" "The Web, dweebster. Give me your novel, I'll reformat it in HTML and publish it on my website. *Millions* will read it, man, It's like total fame." "How much?" asked Ivor wearily. "Dude, you don't expect me to pay for it. This is free subscription, man. You can't put a price on information! Total freedom from the profit motive. It's the way of the future." "So what's the point? How can I get rich if you publish it for nothing?" "Material possessions are bad karma, dude. Money is the root of all evil." The Ghost of Publishing Future grinned. "Hey, it's not all bad: you get the *fame*." "But no money." The Ghost shrugged. "Hey, them's the breaks. No one wants to pay on the Web." Ivor yawned. "Go away. I wrote my novel so I could leave my dead-end job, so I could afford to live a life of luxury." "Your loss, dude. You can't ignore the future. It's coming right at ya." And the monitor blinked off. Ivor stared at the phosphorescent glow left on the monitor screen, watched it slowly fade to black. His gaze drifted across to the pile of paper beside the PC. It was *definitely* taunting him now. All that time and effort... and for what? He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Writing 250,000 words, it seemed, had been the easy part. He still had a lot of work to do if he wanted to make it as a rich and famous writer. He sighed heavily. Perhaps it was time to leave the universe of his space opera and rejoin the real world.