Tom’s excellent news …
Idle Tom the Publisher calls with good news. Great news! Quite superlative news!!
Somehow, some way, he’s managed to carve out a deal with an American publisher, Soho Press; even got a very modest advance for it too.
However …
"It’s weird," said Tom. "They’re changing the title -"
"Really?" I said. "What’re they going to call it?"
"Not a bad name actually. They’re calling it "Prelude"."
"Prelude. Hmm." I mulched it for a moment. Prelude. Works on a number of levels. Lot of different nuances. "Good title."
"It’s not bad."
"The problem with calling it The Well-Tempered Clavier was that no-one had ever heard of it."
"Yeah - and you know what? We could bring out the book again over here, call it Prelude, and all your old readers will think it’s a new book. It’ll be double bubble!"
Double bubble indeed. "But you know what’s even better than that, Tommy?"
"What?"
"They’ll be doing a new front cover!"