It’s a sell-out!
The story so far: Author Bill has a book out, The Well-Tempered Clavier - and is keen to know how it’s selling. Or if it’s selling at all …
Another day, another street hoarding goes up - this one courtesy of Jamie at Terinea. (Top-notch teccies, by the way. They made this site.)
But it did give me pause for thought. Just how well, precisely, is the Clavier doing?
The first print-run was 5,000. Have we sold over a thousand yet? Are we close to a second edition? Is Idle Tom the publisher even considering a second edition?
It was time to call up the Idler himself.
“Tommy,” I said. “What are the sales figures for the Clavier?”
“Pretty buoyant,” he replied.
“What does ‘pretty buoyant’ mean?”
“Not bad at all.”
“Well that’s just dandy, Tommy. Does that mean that we’re going to have a second print run any time soon.”
“Well -”
“Because if we are, let me tell you one thing Idle Tom and that is there are quite a number of bits that I want to re-write in the book - not least deleting every single use of your favourite word “bitter-sweet” -”
“You still haven’t come round to that one yet?”
“No I have not. In fact the more I think about “bittersweet”, the more it irks me. It’s the sort of word that only a callow teenager like you could love -”
“Come now, Bill. It’s not that bad.”
“No Tommy, it IS that bad.”