Selling Your Book In A Post-Factual, Post-Brexit World

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Dear Mister Publisher,

I have written the best book. My book will be bigger than the bible. It will make cynics laugh, optimists cry, and toast. Before he died, David Bowie said he wished he had written it.

It is impossible to say what my book is about without revealing a shocking twist which has never ever been done before, so people will have to buy it to find out. Anyone who doesn’t understand my legitimate reasons for secrecy is a potential terrorist.

Book jacket quotes will come from Ellen DeGeneres and the Dalai Lama.  Bono, James Joyce and Donald Trump will offer quotes, but be politely refused. The New York Times  will ask to syndicate it.

Genre doesn’t matter because absolutely everyone will want to read my book. People who haven’t read it will pretend they’ve read it, but get eviscerated at brunch parties for not understanding it properly. They will then pay someone else to go and buy it for them because they don’t want anyone thinking they might be buying it because they haven’t read it yet.

My book will sell 70 million copies in the first six months after publication. By Year 2, it will have sold more copies than Stephen King’s entire back catalogue, and Xerox. Charity shops will cry out for second-hand copies, but nobody will want to part with theirs, so the charity shops will be forced to buy new editions for reselling.

Some people will criticise my book, because they will be jealous of my success. They will make snide remarks about my book not winning any prizes. They will learn that readers are sick of prizes. Readers don’t want to hear from elitist, self-interested judges, picking books that nobody ever wants to read, full of thoughts, and big words, like marmalade. My book is popular fiction, for real people. Proper people, with eyebrows and families, who eat food, and use electricity. Those sorts of people.

When the international translation rights are sold into every country in the world, all disease-bearing insects in Africa and South America will suddenly migrate into outer space, and the lunar calendar will switch to a cycle of just 10 days. Scientists will study these phenomena before finally admitting that they never knew anything about science. They will stop sciencing to go and read my book.

Once people have read my book, they will be happy forever. Nobody will ever get angry, unless it’s with someone who says they didn’t read my book.

Other authors will try to imitate me, but never succeed. Readers will be so disappointed in their inferior efforts that they will have to buy another copy of my book to cheer themselves up. New industries will spring up to satisfy the demand for merchandise related to my book. The manufacture of my book-branded mugs and nasal clips alone will bring eleven economically injured European countries into a stratospheric boom.

Everybody will get rich from my book, except for people who don’t believe in it. They won’t get anything. They will regret this.

There will be statues erected to me in New York, Paris, and Turkmenistan, at a cost of just one billion dollars. One of these statues will win the Turner Prize for its abstract depiction of world domination. Festivals will be held in honour of my book, every year on my birthday. During one of them, a small boy will claim to have seen me levitating. My people will confirm this, and give him a certificate.

I look forward to signing my lucrative contract with you. If you don’t publish my book, your business will fail, your taxes will rise, and your children will be arrested for paranoia. Thank you for your time, and the 97% royalties embedded in the forthcoming contract from you to me, for my book.

Yours post-factually,

Tara Sparling

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