Читать книгу Death By Email - Carol Hadley - Страница 7

After what seemed an eternity, GQ and I received copies of our contract for review. The publisher loved the fact that we’d never met and intended to use it in the promotion of our book. At first, they’d talked about using our email names as co-authors, but finally decided to combine them artfully into the book cover instead — my idea.

Our publisher, House Afire, was a new company, looking for first-time writers and unique formats with which to launch their business. The timing couldn’t have been better.

There was talk of recording our very first meeting in front of the media as a publicity gimmick. Since GQ and I had agreed that we both should have the same agent, negotiations progressed swiftly.

Yup, that’s what they said. Swiftly isn’t how I would have described it, but then I’d never had a book published before. House Afire wanted to get our stories on the shelves by the end of the year, an unheard of occurrence. GQ, who had more time and experience with this kind of thing than I did, made most of the decisions.

I’m not interested in business, anyway. I just want to write and get paid for it.

When the time came to sign the contract our agent, Tomas Alvarez, called to say that GQ was scheduled to sign on Monday and he’d see me on Wednesday that same week. He needed to allow time for travel between our respective locations.

Sticking to the publisher’s plan, he respected our strange pact, refusing to tell either of us anything about the other. From his travel time and other clues garnered over nearly two years, I deduced that GQ lived in the Deep South. Well, that might not mean much because I sort of let slip some hints that I lived in Australia.

Yeah, right. By way of Seattle!

Tomas described how we’d meet at a place known only to him. He was so good at keeping secrets. GQ and I happily complained to each other every time Tomas refused to tell us anything more until the big day.