Hmm. So the clock is ticking and suddenly the rush to get the manuscript off into the whirlwind of bookmaking is getting in the way of making it something that people might want to buy. The title is not what we agreed and there's no time to change it. The endorsements I've lined up from influential chefs are now an irritating obstacle on the home run to the printer and I'm in danger of becoming one of those people who publishers hate; the writer who cares.
An art director once told me that authors are barely mentioned in publishing meetings, and if they are, they are referred to as such rather than given a name - unless they are one of the hallowed few.
So what can I do? The sales team think they know best and perhaps they do. But if writing is about gut instinct, as it mostly is, do I hand over the feeling in my gut to someone else's stats and groupthink? I know that a book about Jamie O which looks anything like a biography will have the food magazines shunning it because they don't want to upset their hero and cover star, while an observation about his effect on British food culture would be timely as his new series comes out, and an interesting angle on the local, seasonal, sustainable food agenda.
But maybe I'm being too harsh. It's Monday morning and the world hasn't yet begun at Publshing Central. Maybe my "firm" email of Friday afternoon will fall on open minds on this gorgeous May day.
I shall open mine too and start the first page of my next book, believing that publishers want to sell books too, that the machinery can't operate without clever sales people.
