Oh, the weirdness of the Internet.
I just got off the phone with a guy from India. (I know from the country code of his call, not just his accent.) He tells me he got my number off of Facebook. The reason my number is out there on my web page and elsewhere is so if editors should ever need to call me to offer work, they have NO EXCUSE for not contacting me. I’m very easily Google-able.
So. This guy says he is a publisher. He says it something like this. “I am a publisher. Do you write books?”
Er, yeah?
“On what subjects?” Well, I tell him I write on a lot of subjects. Erotica, science fiction, baseball history, fantasy, and so on. He asks if I’ve ever written a textbook. I say no, not specifically, but I have written nonfiction books for general audience. We go back and forth on the definition of a textbook in which it becomes clear to me he doesn’t seem to grasp what a textbook is. “You mean textbooks like for school?” Yes, I mean books used in schools. No I haven’t written books specifically for use in schools… isn’t that what you’re asking ME? (I later wonder if it is a language problem, and if all books, which are written in text, are “textbooks” for him.)
He then asks me how much I would charge for him to “put your name as editor on a book.” I pressed him about WTF does he mean by that? He says, you know, just to use my name on a book. I say no, I don’t know what he’s talking about, and that’s now how it usually works, that usually writers have to actually WRITE something to get their name on a book and get paid for it.
He then goes on to ask me a million questions about how writers get paid, like do they get royalties or what. By now I’m quite sure I should hang up, but I gamely explain that a writer usually does get royalties, and he wants to know at what rates and how they are calculated… I explain it’s sometimes on the cover price, sometimes on the net, etc…
Then he wants to know how much I would charge to write a 250 page book for him. I said it would depend on the subject , but that I would expect a $25,000 advance against royalties before I’d start writing. He asks me what I am working on right now. I explain that the books I am working on now are already under contract to other publishers.
He then asks me if I have any “scripts” lying around not yet published. “Manuscripts?” I ask. He doesn’t seem to realize that a script and a manuscript are two different things.
I tell him I don’t have any manuscripts lying around, but that if he has a business proposal for me, he should email me or send me a Facebook message.
He then says, “You are very beautiful.”
At which point I shouted GOODBYE into the phone and hung up. My conclusion: horny wankers will do anything possible to get/keep a pretty girl on the phone.
21st Century Wannaf**ks?
