by Tyree, Omar
“Well . . . how’s your day today?” he asked her
Susan perked up. “Actually, I was just reading through Darlene’s manuscript and it reads really well.”
“Are you guys really thinking about signing her?”
“Ahh, yeah, from what I know, but . . . we’ll see. Nothing’s definite until it’s done.”
“Okay, well . . . let me let you go then.”
“Bye,” Susan told him assertively. When she hung up, she felt proud of herself. “It had to be done,” she mumbled.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. “Williams and Klein publishing,” she answered it.
“Oh, my bad. I called you again instead of Vincent,” DeWayne McDonald commented on the line.
“Oh, that’s okay. I can connect him for you. Did you get the tour schedule I sent you this morning?”
“Yeah, I got it. And how’s your day going?” he asked her before she could click him over.
“Pretty good. And yours.”
“I’m only try’na complain a little,” he told her.
“Uh oh, I hope it’s nothing that we can’t handle.”
“We’ll see after I talk to Vincent about it. How’s everything else in your life going?”
Susan paused at the gigantic scope of the question. She could go all over the world with it, or nowhere at all. She chose to keep it simple.
“Well, I’m like you, I can only complain a little.”
“Oh yeah, what’s the little complaint that you have? And I doubt that you’re like me.”
Susan sighed. She didn’t want to get into any deep conversations with the writer; she just wanted to connect him to Vincent and go on back to reading Darlene’s manuscript, but all day phones calls was the nature of the business until she could move her way up and into a full editing position and have her own assistant.
“Well, I’ve actually been trying to read through this manuscript today, but since it’s our second day back in the office after the BEA, the phones have been crazy these past two days.”
DeWayne heard that and said, “Oh, my bad, let me get out of your long hair then.”
Susan chuckled and said, “All right, let me connect you to Vincent.”
She clicked over to the intercom speaker phone to see if Vincent was available to speak.
“Who is it?” he questioned.
“Double D McDonald,” she told him.
Vincent hesitated. “Ahh . . . yeah, put him on.”
“Okay.”
Inside Vincent Biddle’s crowded corner office of fresh manuscripts and newly published books, he contemplated how frank he would be with his author about his writing career and future. DeWayne McDonald was essentially in the same boat at Natalie Cumberland and a lot of other authors. His books were no longer selling like they used to. But his ability to hustle, market and sell books on his own made his situation a lot more optimistic than hers.
Vincent took a deep breath and clicked on the line. “Hey D, I’m assuming you took a good look at the new tour schedule?” Susan had just forwarded over his travel and publicity plans for a June/July tour that morning.
D answered, “Yeah, I got it. And I noticed I’m back down to seven cities this year from the usual twelve. Are y’all trying to tell me something?”
Vincent had his tie undone and his jacket on the back of his chair as he leaned back in it to maintain his poise. It had been a long day of planning and explaining things already, and he didn’t see it getting any shorter.
He said simply, “We wanted to stick to your core cities. The other cities weren’t really paying dividends.” It didn’t get any simpler than that. D’s seven core cities were New York, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit. But he was now accustomed to the extra hustle in Miami, New Orleans, St. Louis, Greensboro, Dallas, Houston, Columbus, Birmingham, Memphis, Columbia, LA, Oakland and San Francisco. In his years of experience with the company, they had alternated his tours to include five of the second and third market cities each year. However, the days of extra resources to do so were over.
D asked, “So, we’re just giving up in all the other cities?”
“Well, you can still go there if you want, or you try to get a can get an event sponsor to bring you in for something. We’re just not doing it anymore.”
“For none of my upcoming books either?”
“Well, this is the last book that we have you under contract for.”
“I’m talking about on the next contract.”
Vincent told him point blank, “We probably won’t pick up another contract.”
D said, “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ve already done about all that we can do in the urban market. The returns are getting lower and lower. It’s no longer benefitting us.”
Vincent actually told him that.
“Well, what about if we just did soft backs?” D suggested. Soft backs here nearly half the price of a hardback book, and therefore easier to sell, and DeWayne was willing to compromise to stay active.
Vincent told him, “To be honest with you, you can do soft backs on your own again and make the lion’s share of the money like tons of other writers are doing in the urban market. You have the name already. But there’s just too much content out there now for us to make much of a profit on it. That’s why I moved you up to hardback to begin with, to separate you.”
Vincent was being brutally honest with him, but he knew that D was astute enough to understand the raw business of it. He had started off selling his own books.
“So, no matter what I write next, you already made up your mind that you don’t want the shit?”
“D, I’m just giving you the facts. It’s all about the numbers game right now. We took you all the way up, but now you’re falling back down fast; too fast. But you’re still popular enough as an author to continue making money on your own. So, I would take that route,” Vincent advised him. He said, “You have to think again about your own business now.”
DeWayne asked him, “Does my lawyer know about this?”
“He will know shortly. But I’m telling you first.”
DeWayne thought for a minute in silence. Then he asked, “So, I’m free to shop for another deal somewhere else then?” Williams & Klein were not the only mainstream publisher putting out urban street fiction.
Vincent said, “Of course you can. But I’m gonna tell you, I was one of the more aggressive editors in looking at what you had to say and getting you an advance that was meaningful. These other editors are not gonna be able to do the same. And by the time you go through their low-ball process, you would have been better off doing it on your own. So, again, you can shop around if you want, but if I were you, I’d solidify my own relationships in the core cities that I already have and do my own thing next year like nothing has changed. And I’d be as smart with my money right now as the publishers are all going to be with theirs.”
He said, “We all can’t afford to lose anymore. And nor can you.”
What more could an author say after a candid conversation like that one. “All right. Let me call up my lawyer and see what he says?”
Vincent said, “Okay. But you’ll always have my ear, DeWayne. So you can call me up and ask me about anything, and I’ll tell you.”
When DeWayne hung up the phone at his place in Brooklyn, still dressed in his drawers and a t-shirt from writing something new that morning, he immediately stood from his desk chair and cursed his editor.
“That motherfucker! Do you believe this shit? That faggot just dropped me.”
He paced his small office area where he worked from a large-screen computer with a printer and a fax machine attached. It was a comfortable little set up to focus and get things done. But D surely couldn’t focus now.
“Let me call my fuckin’ lawyer,” he huffed. He jumped right back on the phone, got his lawyer on the line, and explained everything.
And when he had finished with his ranting and raving,
his lawyer told him calmly, “DeWayne, over the past few years, the publishing industry has really been shaken up. In fact, you’ve been one of the few authors who could get anything done. You’ve been very fortunate.”
He said, “But Vincent is right. The advances he got for you were five times higher than what authors are being offered now. So, of course, as your lawyer, I’m gonna do what you want me to do, but since you were already self-published and selling your books pretty good when I first met you, Vincent’s actually giving you advice on a better option. You may be better off negotiating your own small distribution deal.”
DeWayne heard that and froze on the phone. He expected to hear something different from his lawyer. A wiser-than-his-years black man in his mid thirties, his lawyer, who mostly worked with musicians, had always been the calm and thoughtful type. He told it like it was. So it was a lot for D to swallow in one hour.
“What do you think about that idea?” his lawyer asked him on cue. “There have been several authors in your position who have started their own imprints.”
D still needed to think about it. He said, “Give me a few hours, man. I still gotta run all this shit through my mind. This shit just caught me off guard this morning.”
“All right, well, you call me when you’re ready.”
D hung up the phone a second time and paced the room again. But his office area wasn’t big enough. It was the smallest room in his condo, where he kept all of his books and magazines on multiple book cases. So he walked out into his living-room, dining-room and kitchen area to think out loud.
“Ain’t this a bitch!” he told himself as he paced through every room. “So, I get good and comfortable, going on tours and all this other shit, and now I gotta start all back over again.
“Motherfucker!” he cursed at the walls. He had African-American artwork that he had picked up over the years, mostly from foreign vendors in Brooklyn. Brooklyn had every type of black man imaginable, from Africans, Jamaicans, to Afro-Canadians and black men from London. So he didn’t have to go anywhere else for his art. But for his money . . . that was a different story.
“I bet that white boy don’t have to start the fuck over,” D imagined. “Fucking butt buddies. But the black man . . . I get pulled off the field for the house, only to be sent back out to the fucking field again. I’on even know if I know how to hustle anymore.”
Then he looked over at the advance copies of his new book that he still had on the kitchen table. “I guess a nigga gotta do what he gotta do. I ain’t no white man with white support, so it’s back to the drawing board. I got books to sell.”
It was back to the drawing board for Chelsea Christmas at her Miami condo that morning as well. With a place on the eleventh floor of a skyrise, with a window view that faced the Atlantic Ocean instead of another building, Chelsea liked to work on her books while sitting butt naked at her computer station. So she showered up, dried off, and went right to work on her new ideas, while butt naked, like she liked it. Naked writing allowed her to maintain the special kinkiness that her readers loved so much in her books.
Chelsea broke out laughing at herself, while pulling together another hot and raunchy sex scene. “I just love what I do!” she expressed in the room. There was nothing like making a good living off of her own delicious sex fantasies, escapades and stories told from her groups of friends and associates. Chelsea felt really blessed. And the city of Miami was a haven for heat!
She recognized the cell phone number that buzzed on her phone beside her keyboard for the third time before she finally decided to grab it.
“Girl, this better be good,” she answered it. “You’re busting up my groove. What’s going on?”
Her friend paused over the line. “Are you naked again?”
Chelsea snapped, “Girl, don’t ask me no stupid questions. If I’m home writing then what do you think?”
“You so nasty.”
“Anyway . . . It pays the fucking bills. Now what do you want? I was gonna call you back after I stop around four.”
“How long you been writing today?”
“Since around eight, nine.”
“Damn, how do you do that?”
“How do you do your damn job?” Chelsea fussed at her. “But shit, girl, what do you want? You’re disturbing me. I thought it was something important the way you’re blowing up my damn phone.”
“Nah, I just haven’t seen you since you’ve been back from New York.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy. I had a lot of new shit on my mind to write about.”
“Oh yeah, like what? What happened up in New York? I’m bored. Entertain me.”
“Bitch, buy one of my books then and entertain yourself. I’m working right now.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Chelsea, I gave you some stories to write about too. I should be getting some of your umm . . . umm . . . what do you call it again?”
“Royalties, bitch. Learn the business. It’s called residual income. But I only get it twice a year.”
“Twice a year? That’s all?” her friend questioned.
Chelsea said, “I know, right. I told my agent we should at least be paid royalties quarterly, like a regular business counts their money. But it takes a while to add everything up, subtract advances, withhold book returns, and all of that.”
“Um, yeah, like I know what the hell you’re talking about,” her friend joked. “Anyway . . . what time can I come over, when you have some damn clothes on?”
“Like I told you, after four o’clock. And what’s wrong, you don’t like my body? I don’t have enough curves for you?”
“Girl stop. We’re not damn cheerleaders in the locker room no more. Keep your fucking clothes on when I come over. I keep thinking you try’na say something.”
“Oh, I am. You know I always liked you like that, Boo,” Chelsea quipped. “Don’t deny it. You like me too. That’s why you keep popping up at my house when I’m working. Even now you call me when I’m naked.”
“Because I’m your fucking friend, and not your girlfriend. Anyway, I’ll call you later then.”
“You don’t work today?”
“Unt unh, I’m off today, thank God. That job been driving me crazy. And it don’t pay worth of shit either. That’s why I can’t afford to travel like you do,” her friend complained. “I gotta find a horny nigga to take me, just so I can get there and tell him, ‘My period just came on. Sor-reee’.”
Chelsea broke out laughing. She said, “See, now that’s just wrong. That’s why guys be try’na strangle a bitch out here. But oh, I got plenty of New York stories for your ass, girl. Let me tell.”
“Please do.”
“After four o’clock bitch, like I said.”
Her girlfriend sucked her teeth and signed. “Aw’ight, fuck you too then.”
Chelsea told her, “After four o’clock, you can get what you want. And make sure you bring that chocolate dildo, for after you lick me.”
“Yeah, I hate you, bitch!” her girlfriend blasted her.
“You hate to love me. Now get in line and wait your turn.”
Chelsea hung up and laughed without another word. “Bitch try’na fuck up my hustle. I don’t want no asshole job like she got. Now where was I . . . oh yeah,” she reflected. “My Dominican mommy was just about rob her John at the resort, after his dumbass trusted her enough to take a shower, while she was still in the room.