A few months before we leave Manchester I see an article in The Guardian about a new "co-operative" publishing house and ring them up to ask if they need any bright young cover artists and am politely told to fuck off. However Chancery sees the clipping and contacts them regarding an epic novel on child sex abuse that she is having difficulty placing with conventional high street publishing houses. A couple of weeks later we receive a letter from an editor there called Mark who says he "definitely" wants to publish the book. There's only one problem, though, because Citron's books are digitally laser printed they have a fixed spine width and the novel would need to be a "quarter of its size". Chancery rings ups and asks just how they propose to cut the novel to a quarter of its size and Mark reveals his master-plan.
They will simply run the first quarter of the novel as a complete book.
Chancery's first impulse is to say thanks but no thanks, but we discuss it between ourselves that evening and resolve that it would be a bit like getting a large sampler put into book shops at someone else's expense, so we decide to accept the deal and have a website set up to accompany the book.
Mark is more than happy, he says, to include our internet address at the end of the book and our hope is that they will either publish the book in four parts if it does well, or, alternatively, we can set up some kind of publishing venture to sell the remaining text once we have a customer base. Chancery submits a truncated manuscript and signs the contract.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, on a blistering August night just a couple of weeks before we move to Morecambe, we take the train down to London for the firm's official launch night at the Design Centre in Islington. The publishers have brought out twelve books as their debut list and about two thirds of the authors and their spouses have shown up for the party, which is just as well, as it makes the numbers up.
We arrive in evening dress expecting a lavish bash, but other than a couple of lacklustre reporters hogging the free bar, the event is not the media circus that we were expecting.
The firm is run by a strange lady called Nicky, an orange sunbed-tanned creature with weird facial surgery and a natty line in foundation garments. She walks beneficent amongst her authors, soaking up their gratitude for bringing their words to the reading public like a transvestite queen at a destitute royal garden party. Mark takes us over to meet her and she extends a gracious hand to be kissed. It's like having an audience with the Pope, and, as conversation ensues, it soon becomes apparent that Nicky has never read a word of Chancery's book and has no idea what she has just published.
As the tête-à-tête progresses Nicky's face gets blanker and blanker and Mark starts shifting his weight from foot to foot. However, nothing damning is said and we receive an email from him the following day saying that Chancery's novel has received the most orders from the launch list and is currently the firm's best-seller. Three weeks later, when we are bailing water out of our submerged cellar in Morecambe, a carton of books arrives and we eagerly tear the wrapping off to see the finished product.
In its trendy green and white liveried cover the book looks smart and modern, although Chancery still can't get her head around the fact that they have published a novel where the story just stops dead mid-plot. But, hey, we're getting it into the shops, stop complaining. We flick happily through the pages and then Chancery's face clouds.
We had not been sent galley proofs and the submitted manuscript had concluded with the line "The story continues..." and the website address, but in the printed version both of these have been excised. We ring Mark, only to be told cryptically that he is "unavailable", and emails to him come back as undeliverable.
Chancery tries writing to him without success over the next few months, and, finally, becomes a "difficult author" and sends a stroppy letter to the firm demanding to know what is going on and this time we elicit a reply from on high.
Using language not dissimilar to the Queen's Christmas Message circa 1933, a 'hurt but not angry' Nicky lectures Chancery at length on her "ingratitude" and concludes by saying that she is terminating her contract and withdrawing the book.
