Maybe I ll put off writing that acceptance speech. Then there are those people who believe I should pen their life stories. I asked absent mindedly, forgetting she was a down at heel maid at my friend s house. Perhaps one of the greatest disadvantages of this profession is that you have to deal with publishers. Writers and publishers get along as well as snakes and mongooses do.
Publishers think writers are egoistic dingbats who know nothing about the real world.
Writers think publishers are merciless bloodsuckers out to cheat them of their royalties. I can also say from personal experience that when they want you to write textbooks, publishers hotfoot to your house waving their fat cheque books. But when you approach them with your original work, they take the first available flight to Timbuctoo. It s a miracle my books have got published at all. There is also the question of experience.