8. How Not to Care
by Steve Rosse
Thomas Keneally, the Australian writer, says this: “In the solitariness of writing the relationship between the author and the publishers can be one of the chief excitements of the publishing process. These people love books as much as the writer does…”
Every artist, his head in the clouds and his heart on his sleeve, needs a paladin to battle the goblins of the marketplace for him. But picking a champion isn’t easy. Just as many people masquerade as publishers as pretend to be writers. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. It’s painful enough when the reading public doesn’t understand the value of your writing, but imagine how it feels when your own publisher doesn’t appreciate what you do.
In the 1970’s John Cadet wrote two fantastic books of short stories about Thailand, called “Occidental Adam, Oriental Eve” and “Venusberg Revisited”. I first read them in the 1980’s and I’ve read them several times since.
The last time I read Mr. Cadet’s books I had to order them through the interlibrary loan system. They were not available for sale anywhere on the internet. So imagine my joy when, about a year ago, I found that “OA,OE” was being sold on line as an e-book.
Sold on a pretty ugly Web site, granted. One with awful illustrations, inefficient layout, clumsy text, and a tiny catalogue of books all far below the standard of “OA,OE.” But at least Mr. Cadet’s writing was being made available in a new format to a new audience and I was pleased. Unfortunately, among the blurbs promoting the book was this one:
“One of the best authors working in English in this country …” – Steve Rosse in the Phuket Review
Now, I was flattered that Mr. Cadet thought my words might be useful in promoting his book. But I published those words in the Phuket Gazette, for whom I wrote a book review column every week for several years. There never has been any publication called the “Phuket Review.” Obviously, a quote from a newspaper that doesn’t exist is not going to sell any of Mr. Cadet’s books, so I thought to myself, “Let’s get this fixed right away.”
I clicked the “Contact Us” button and sent an e-mail to the “publisher” pointing out the error. My message bounced back, “Domain Not Recognized.” That was odd, since this was the contact button authors were supposed to use if they wanted to sell their books on this site.
I tried off-and-on for a year to contact the owner of this site through his “Contact Us” button, and never could. And in all that time the site was never updated. No new comments, no new books in the catalogue. So I assumed, as anybody would, that the company was out of business and I wrote an e-mail to the service provider telling him he had a dead site on his server and he should take it down.
Well.
Next day I began to receive manic e-mails from a very angry man who told me about his golf swing and his wife and how much money he has and that he doesn’t like the color of my hair and oh, by the way:
“…I am not spending any more time on the eBook site. I don’t believe that John gives a rat’s patootie about it either. So you might as well just get over it.”
Remember, I was asking him to change just a single word.
So the man who sells the only one of Mr. Cadet’s fantastic books available as an e-book anywhere, does not care about how that book is presented on his Web site, or even if he sells any books. And he believes that John Cadet also doesn’t care how or even if his book is sold.
I would bet everything I have in my pockets that John Cadet cares how his book is presented on the Web. But even if he doesn’t, I do. And I think it’s heartbreaking that the only person in the world who has the opportunity to champion that book in the marketplace doesn’t give a rat’s patootie.
Eastlit Note on How Not to Care:
How Not to Care is the eighth article in the series. Previous articles in the series are:
Steve Rosse is a former columnist for The Nation newspaper in Bangkok. His books are available on Amazon.com
