RETURN OF THE MAC

Brill night out in Leeds last night with Stuart Maconie. He was back at Waterstone’s for a talk on High Teas and did a Q&A sesh after, before a bunch of us went out for a sesh. I didn’t get to ask my stock question of ‘Do you like cats?’ as it would have been a bit silly. Stuart’s talks are always a right old laugh and last night he was on top form. For a few light ales, we crammed into the oldest bar in Leeds (can’t remember its name) and talked about breakfast pies, agonised over the third flavour of original Monster Munch and discussed comedy versions of 24 where nothing happens at CTU. After that, it was off to Fab Cafe for beer and retro sweets. Stuart is up in Newcastle tonight as part of his promo tour – hope some of my mates turn up and take him on a night out! Robert ‘Revie’s England’ Endeacott was out in Leeds after The Stranglers gig and I must apologies for not seeing his text message until I found my phone covered in bits of kebab and sick this morning. It was a good night though. Hopefully Mr Maconie will write a testimonial for one of Tonto’s books soon. I resisted the urge to drunkenly try to poach him away from Ebury. I think.

Mad phone calls this week:

One voicemail saying ‘You have my number now. Call me.’ – Errrr … no.

One from a writer – ‘As you are not publishing the manuscript I sent you, I want it back. You are legally required to send it to me.’ – Errrr … neurgh.

That writer called me when he’d sent it, asking if I’d return if I didn’t publish. I said if he sent the correct postage, I’d gladly send it back. The truth is that it’s not really cost-effective to return stuff unless you enclose a SAE. Average £3 to send a manuscript, average 600 submissions a year (?) = I dunno. A lot of wasted money. Please, if you send me owt in the post and you want it back – send a SAE with it. I’ve got a few in the manuscript pile and will be sending back in due course. Honest, like. I don’t just nick the stamps.

I’m dead chuffed with the new signings for this year. Duncan’s and Martin’s revised manuscripts are in, Sheila’s new novel is in and her TRTH paperback is ready to go to print (with a brill Matt Hilton testimonial!), the other authors are busy writing in the Tonto Writing Dungeon and we’re poised to sign up two more books from Andrew Crofts who I’ve been dying to work with for yonks. Annoyingly, we had to drop three titles due to some rather obscure creative difficulties: One author didn’t want to be edited, even though his manuscript clearly needed it. ‘All I want from you is to tidy the spelling up and make sure it gets stocked,’ said he (it was a science book where not much of it made sense to anyone other than himself). Another one didn’t like being edited, but most of the book wasn’t his own words anyway and then an agent started demanding impossible errrr … demands.

And this all came as I started writing a new book: ‘Adventures In Publishing’ is the working title. It’s an expose of how to make it (or not) in publishing, tips on how to set up, practical advice and ‘expert’ guidance, case studies of what worked and what didn’t work, etc, etc. From being called ‘a smug Geordie tw*t’ by one author to being labelled ‘the saviour of independent publishing’ by errr … someone, and stalking John Blake, being propositioned by a porn star, being cajoled into streaking at a Newcastle v Liverpool match and doing cage fighting with a UFC veteran – all in the name of entertainment. Dunno when it’s going to be out yet – hopefully Tonto will publish it. Hope they send the manuscript back if they reject me.