Bookbuyer's
Bookend
The Society of Authors' black list of publishers who are slow in paying their authors is threa:p tened quite soon. So far three 'white lists 5 have appeared, and Bookbuyer had his bit to., say about that some weeks ago. One author( who will not be wholly surprised by the continued absence of several Granada imprints", from the lists is Martin Page. whose collection of World War Two songs, Kiss Me Goodnight., Sergeant Major, was published by Granada's Hart-Davis MacGibbon on October 22.
As is fairly common practice, Granada contracted with Page to pay him an advance in three instalments — one on signature, one on delivery of manuscript, and one on publication: Although he received the first payments, albeit after some delay, he began to wonder as the days and then weeks went by why neither he nor his agent had received the third. When he finally mentioned the matter to Granada they assured him that payment would be made forthwith, but in subsequent informal enquiries around the St. Albans office he was told — and like Bookbuyer, did not believe — that it was present policy not to pay authors until they complained, since the company's hardcover. division was in the throes of a cash-flow problem. Page, pointing out that authors sometimes had cash-flow problems too, did complain. He was still waiting for his cheque last Thursday, nearly one month after publication.
Without for a moment suggesting that this Granada policy, or that Page's experience is a typical one, Bookbuyer would be interested to know whether there are any other authors who, like Mr Micawber, are waiting for a little something to turn up.
It was clever of Kevin Crossley-Holland to go to New York last month. While the rest of the book trade's masochists were spending fortunes at the Frankfurt Book Fair — often without buying a book — Gollancz's young editorial director was footing it around American publishing offices like a Sunday walker in the City. Gollancz have never been among Frankfurt's greatest fans, indeed they have hardly been to Frankfurt since the thing started twenty-five years ago, and CrossleyHolland's New York visit will have done nothing to make them change their attitude, for he returned with two highly topical books which the likes of Andre Deutsch and Sir George Weidenfeld must have been sorry to miss.
The first. New Portugese Letters, is already being talked about as the women's lib book of the decade, which, if it means nothing else, means money. Written by three well-known Portugese authors, it is a collection of outspoken poems, essays and manifestos on the role of women in Portugal. For their feminist utterances, the three Marias (as they have come to be known) are now standing trial under a new Portugese law which makes writers criminally responsible for their work if the censors, who render judgements only after publication, voice objections. More of that little matter another week.
Gollancz's other new plum is Plain Speaking, a peppery series of unbroaWast interviews with Harry Truman, recorded in the early 'sixties by the columnist Merle Miller. Like Cecil King's Diaries and Leo Abse'S Private Member, it certainly does not err on the side of flattery. Dwight Eisenhower is cheerfully described as a '' son of a bitch," Chiang Kai-Shek as "corrupt as they come" and General MacArthur as sometimes being "out of his mind." As for the current president. he will find little to cheer him in these troubled times. "Nixon," said Truman twelve years ago. "is a shifty goddam liar, and people know It .
Gollancz's acquisition of Plain Speaking and New Porhigese Letters 'both of which will appear in England next year may be &signal for change. Those publishers already heartily sick of the Frankfurt ferment may seemn Crossley-Holland's double cop a splendid pc,cuse for skipping the Fair next year.
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