“We don’t have time to argue syntax!” Lori almost shouted. “You’ve got to get the biggest number of authors you can contact to come into court on our side. Today! This afternoon!”
Raymond sadly shook his bald, bearded head. “What makes you think they’ll come out to support Bunker Books? After all, authors and publishers aren’t usually the best of friends.”
“It’s in your own best interest!” Lori insisted. “Cyberbooks will bring down the costs of publishing to the point where thousands of writers who can’t get their works published now will have a viable marketplace for their books.”
“I know. I understand. And I applaud what you’re trying to do. But..” His voice trailed off.
“But what?” Lori asked.
Feeling weak and helpless, Raymond explained, “Well, you know this bunch. They’re writers, Lori. They can’t agree on what to have for lunch, for Pete’s sake. Half of them think Cyberbooks is the greatest idea since Gutenberg, the other half think it’s an invention of Satan.”
“Oh, god.”
“And they don’t like to go into courtrooms. Can’t say I blame them. The idea gives me the chills.”
“But if the ALA won’t support this innovation in publishing, you’re dooming all the writers.
Raymond raised a pudgy finger. “I understand and I agree with you, Lori. I’ll do what I can. I’ll start calling people right now. But don’t expect too much.”
“Maybe Sheldon Stoker!” Lori suggested.
“He’s in Indonesia, directing the movie they’re making from The Balinese Devil.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Raymond, knowing it sounded feeble.
“Please,” Lori begged. “And quickly!”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Lori nodded and broke the connection. Raymond Mafiana sighed a great, heaving sigh and, like a general issuing orders for a hopeless charge against overwhelming odds, he began tapping out phone numbers on his keypad.
“She doesn’t understand,” he muttered to himself. “Editors just don’t understand writers. We’re not really organized. It’s tough to get us to do anything except argue among ourselves. Christ, if we had any real organization, would the tax laws read they way they do?”
THE BOOK SIGNING
CONRAD Velour sat in the middle of the bookstore, ballpoint pen poised, surrounded by stacks and stacks of his latest steamy novel, Inside Milwaukee. (After seventy-some “Inside” novels, he was running out of interesting cities.)
Not only was the table at which he sat heaped with copies of Inside Milwaukee. All the bookshelves in the front of the store were packed with the novel. Even more were stacked by the cash register, where a discreetly small sign suggested, HAVE YOUR COPY OF INSIDE MILWAUKEE SIGNED BY ThE AUThOR.
But the bookstore was strangely, maddeningly, eerily quiet. No customers had come to the table where MR. CONRAD VELOUR, AUTHOR!!! sat under the garish sign proclaiming his presence. Not a single book had been purchased. The ballpoint pen held in his white-knuckled fist had not scrawled out one autograph.
An icy anger was inching along Conrad Velour’s blue veins. The store manager was definitely avoiding him. The clerks were tiptoeing across the store’s plush carpeting and whispering behind his back.
Someone in the promotion department of S&M books was going to hang by the thumbs for this foul-up, Velour told himself. Someone was going to pay for this humiliation. More than an hour sitting on this hard bridge chair at this table heaped high with the best novel anyone’s seen in years, and no customers. Not one.
They got the address wrong in the advertisements. Instead of 333 Fourth Avenue, the ads had all read 444 Third Avenue. Velour had discovered the mistake too late to do anything about it. He himself had gone to the address the S&M publicist had given him, only to find that it was not a bookstore at all. It was Ching’s Pizza and Chinese Take-Out. He had found the bookstore after some frantic screaming into a street corner telephone’s voiceactivated computer directory.
Now he sat alone, flanked by piles of unbought books, while the store personnel avoided his furious stare. He had asked the youngsters behind the counter at Ching’s to send the thousands of readers who would undoubtedly show up there to the proper address. But they barely understood English and-most crushing of all-not a one of them recognized him or his name.