Saturday, July 2, 2016

My artistic integrity









Dear Publisher:



I am hoping you will be interested in publishing a book of my essays. I have long wanted to be a wealthy, famous author, and it is my guess that you aren't averse to earning a million or two dollars yourself, so what say we make this happen?

What are these essays about? There is the beauty of the thing. There are over 1,300 of these widely ranging essays, so they can be about almost anything you want. If you see a gap in the market we can just choose the essays that fit that subject, and we're on our way! It can be a book about cats, or the Internet, or Libraries, Lionel Messi, satire, ethics, food, work, God, nature, urban planning, jokes, or the fine arts. These essays are at your disposal.

Yes, you heard me right. You have carte blanche to make whatever book you think will sell best.

And it's not like these essays are long. On the contrary they are built to work in a modular fashion, like Legos. They are generally just a few paragraphs long. At times they are little more than pithy lists. We can fit them together however we want to fashion a book perfectly suited to the marketplace.

I'm not going to stand in the way of your expertise. I understand that a book is a product above all, and when it comes to products you are the professional. I am merely the industrial producer. Edit as you like. Flip meanings. Cut offensive passages. Adjust and twist to cravenly appeal to whatever audience you mark as most likely to buy. I have no pretensions. I have no illusions about the sanctity of authorship.

Would you like to experiment with product placement? Go ahead. You can insert utterly shameless plugs for the most repulsive fast food products or the most manipulative pharmaceuticals and I won't bat an eye. If I want to feel guilty about stuff like that I can tithe from my profits, because we both know, along with everyone from Carnegie to Bill Gates, that ethics belong over on the far side of wealth. I am a pragmatist above all. Like you I understand this has to be a business first. And second? Once we have the first, we can buy second. Isn't this why we live in America?

So I hope we can work together. With your skill and experience and my verbiage and malleability I believe we can go very far indeed. I suspect you feel the same way.


With all cordiality and enthusiasm,




F. Calypso










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