Fiction Flirting … has lift off. Of sorts.
Soft - the phone rings. Tis Idle Tom the Publisher.
Though for some reason, not quite his usual perky self.
"What’s cooking Tommy?" I said. "What you got for me today?"
"Well …" He sounded a bit mournful. Almost teary, as if he were about to start piping his eye any minute. "We finally got that Fiction Flirting thing going. Half a page in the London Paper."
"Well that’s not too damn bad!" I said. "That’s not bad at all!" [Just to explain for new readers. Fiction flirting, or "Book Lovers" as it’s also known, is a form of book-crossing that was dreamt up by Tom and me. Though instead of just dropping the book off in a cafe, you actually hand it over to somebody you fancy. Thus it is an ingenious dating tool - a most excellent method of chatting up complete strangers.]
"It’s good in so far as it’s our first mention of Fiction Flirting in the papers. But most of it’s about Gorgeous Networks." [That’s a dating agency which is our partner on this one]."
"So do they mention the book at all?"
"Sort of. Though I’d rather they hadn’t. And Legend Press doesn’t get a mention."
"Sounds like we’ve been stiffed good and proper on this one. Don’t tell me - I’ll bet they even plug Gorgeous Networks’ website at the end -"
"Funnily enough … they do." Suddenly he came over all plaintive. "I think we’re going to have to re-think our strategy on this one."
"Ping over the story then and let me have a look."
And so he did. The headline, "Fiction Flirting - Try a literary love-in". It was even worse than I’d feared.
The story, by Kat Brown, started well enough:
"Given the fundamental success of book crossing, where readers leave each other books to find in cafes and other places, it’s not surprising that a dating version has cropped up."
Not too bad, eh?
But sadly, there is but the one mention of The Well-Tempered Clavier - and not entirely complimentary …
"I am not sure how well the suggested book, a rom-com about a repressed Old Etonian - The Well-Tempered Clavier - will go down with the sort of men I fancy, so I head into a second-hand book shop and pick up two more men-friendly favourites …"
A rom-com??? Gaaaaah!