Report Number 10    JANUARY 2004

I suppose New Year should be a time of maximum optimism and on the whole I’m feeling remarkably bullish. Last year was decidedly mixed but a recent flurry of activity nearly all promises well for 2004 in the Heald camp. 

I’ve just corrected proofs of “Death and the Visiting Fellow” and sent them back to the publishers with remarkably few corrections. We’ve chosen one of Paul Cox’s two suggestions for the jacket which I’m sure will look great and generally speaking all looks set for a painless publication at the end of April. I also talked to Paul about the drawings which he has been commissioned to do for “Village Cricket”. I’m not entirely happy about this because when I originally discussed the book, ages ago, I suggested Paul but he was ruled out on grounds, mainly, I seem to recall, that he’d be too expensive. Now, because of a belated change of mind, he has just a month to complete what he could have had literally years to do. Still he’ll do them beautifully and it’s always a pleasure to have a book illustrated by him.

Publication is scheduled for the beginning of April, followed on the 17th by the beginning of the Carlton TV series. I’ve seen a short clip and have sent a copy to Little, Brown so that they can show it to the reps and so on. Fowey looks lovely and there are various sessions with the author banging on, usually in front of beautiful and agreeably distracting backdrops. Producer/director seems pleased and he and his wife say that my batting in “Major Rodney’s Match” comes across as “heroic”. As I amassed all of half a dozen runs this only goes to show how the camera can lie.

Talking of illustrations, which I was a line or so ago, I’ve seen the Folio Society catalogue and some of the illustrations for “The Old Wives’ Tale” done by Glyn Boyd Harte, who died tragically a few weeks ago. They were some of his last works and they look very fine. I’m really pleased that my introduction is at the front, partly because of these illustrations and partly because it’s a favourite book, which I had to study for a prize exam in my early teens. On the Folio front I’m also pleased that their Editorial Director, Sue Bradbury, has put together a book of Christmas Crime Stories for later in the year. I was able to help with suggestions based on my own anthology (“A Classic Christmas Crime”) and Sue says she wants to include my story “Crime in Store” which is in this January’s issue of Ellery Queen’s Crime Magazine. ["Crime in Store" is reproduced in full here - see link at the foot of this page.]

All this is thoroughly encouraging especially as there are several irons in the fire and the new agent is beavering away on my behalf in a way which I can only describe as “old-fashioned” (It includes a lot of lunch with publishers!). The crime short story will be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Conan Doyle and Christie while Sara Paretsky, one of the genuine modern greats, has volunteered to write an encomium for the novel – she says, disarmingly, that she is a fan of the Simon Bognor novels (six of which are now available from Back-in-Print books).

But, and it’s a big but, the novel was turned down by several publishers and took three years or more to sell while the short story was rejected by a number of national publications – well I assume it was rejected because several simply didn’t reply. This morning’s paper carries a story lifted from the Bookseller about publishers slashing their lists by twenty per cent or more and concentrating on what sound like bland best-sellers at the expense of off-beat, unusual or simply ‘minority interest’ books.

This is a problem for many writers. Sales and marketing seem to rule everywhere and the ‘dumbing down’ which the chattering classes go on about so much really does seem to be an inescapable fact of life. Of course, of course there are noble exceptions to this but it is a worry, even at a moment of optimism. Getting published seems to be more of a struggle than ever even, perhaps especially, when editors like what they’re being offered. Sometimes I think I’d prefer to be told that an editor hated something rather than the dispiriting “I personally love it but I’m afraid that in today’s market…”

On a non-professional note I’d like to mention the seasonal visits of three of my four children with their spouses or partners plus three highly entertaining Mexican friends who more than “fulfilled their duties as guests” and, most important of all, my first grandson – nine-month old Leonel the Fifth. For reasons which already escape me, he has become known, to myself and his mother as “The Financial Adviser” and he captivated everybody, proving the most potent of all my reasons for optimism

So a good time has been had by all in this small part of Cornwall over the last few weeks and I hope those of you who read these notes have been enjoying yourselves too. I often wonder who wanders into this website, though I know some of you, and appreciate your friendly comments. I think John Bennett who designed the site and maintains it has done a brilliant job though as yet I can not say that it has produced anything as specific or lucrative as work! 

I hope this will change in 2004 and that all of us will enjoy a very happy and prosperous New Year. 

Tim Heald

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