Anyone Got A Kalashnikov?

On the eighth of May I sent the second draft of my manuscript to my publisher. Today, Friday 20th November, my wife’s birthday and two days before I am due to go away for a week, at five to four in the afternoon I get an email from the Desk Editor telling me how much he loves the book. Oh, and by the way he’s got a list of queries. It would be great if I could get back to him by the 25th.

So let’s see. That gives them six months and 3 weeks to come up with a list of queries and me 4 days and a couple of hours to answer them. Does that sound fair to you?

What happens if I can’t make the dealine? Well the schedule might slip and it might end up not being printed on time. And if it isn’t printed on time it will be six months late because they only issue books in Spring and in Autumn.

The last book but three that I wrote, it took them longer to come up with the copy for the jacket than it did for me to write the book. That’s true, I swear it.

And they wonder why authors are 'difficult'.

There are times when I feel like going down to the office with a machine gun and taking them all out.