April Cruel

I don't play April Fool's jokes, but I do want to tell you about the cruelest thing I ever did in my literary career. It did take place in April, but not on April Fool's Day. Do I regret it?

I was one of five authors signing at a booth at the LA Times Book festival several years ago. A man was making the rounds, going from booth to booth, lugging around a thousand page handwritten manuscript. He bore a stunning resemblance to Jack Torrance, the author portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the Shining.

Jack started with the author on the left of the booth. He told the author he had a manuscript and wanted the author to publish it. The poor author was taken aback. She was an elderly woman who wrote "cozy" mysteries with recipes in them. She politely explained that she was a self-published author not a publisher. I wanted to have sympathy with Jack, but he was so brusque with the woman, that he demanded that she publish the book for him. I've heard of aggressive panhandling, but this was aggressive publishing. She literally ran away, and Jack went to the next author, who was an elderly man who wrote mysteries which he pitched as Scoobie Doo for the over seventy set. Jack was equally rude to the man, when the man explained he couldn't help him. Jack looked at him as if he was willing to break down his door and shout "Here's Johnny!"

After the other authors hid at the back of the booth, Jack came to me and plopped the thousand pages in front of me. I took out my check book. "I heard your pitch," I said. "Would a hundred thousand dollars be enough of an advance?"

"Seriously?" Jack asked.I looked at the thousand pages that were typed on an ancient typewriter, and then embellished with red scribbling. "We can feed it into our machine and it will automatically edit it for you. Today's Saturday. Is it all right if it comes out on Monday?"

"Seriously?" Jack asked again.

"Are you free on Tuesday?" I asked. "I can get you a TV interview on the Today show."

Jack was literally panting with excitement. I pretended to write a check. "Who should I make the check out to?" I looked at the other people in the booth who were huddling near the back. They were genuinely afraid of the man. Without another word, I took the check book and put it back  in my pocket. "I'm just yanking your chain," I said. "You were rude to these other authors. Get out of here before someone calls security."

He left and didn't bother anyone else.  I do feel bad about it. Who knows? Perhaps he did sell the book and might someday be rude to me in ten years when I make the rounds.