Page 13 of The Honeymoon Affair

‘A soda water for me, as I’m driving the soon-to-be bestselling author today. But Francesca will have a glass of champagne. To celebrate.’

There’s nothing to celebrate yet, but I order the water and the champagne anyway. I’m really keen to sign Francesca, who has a lot of raw talent and who’s written a very readable historical police procedural set in Ireland during the Second World War (a time known somewhat prosaically in Ireland as the Emergency, the title Francesca has chosen for her novel). It has all the classic tropes – a hunky police officer whose wife has left him, a superior officer more interested in the politics of his position than catching culprits, a feisty secretary who’s secretly in love with the handsome hero, and a clever plot with a couple of unexpected twists.

I know I can sell this book. And I’m confident that it could be successful.

‘So.’ Raymond Clooney takes an old-fashioned Filofax and a heavy ballpoint pen from the briefcase he’s set down beside him. ‘Let’s get down to business. How much will my little girl make from this venture?’

‘Before we talk about money, we need to talk about what I’ll do to make sure your book has the best publisher possible.’ I speak directly to Francesca.

‘Any publisher would be lucky to get her,’ Raymond Clooney says before she has a chance to open her mouth. ‘It’s a brilliant read.’

‘Absolutely.’ I nod in agreement and then tell him that it’s never a smooth road to publication and that even the most amazing authors have been rejected more than once. ‘Stephen King got thirty rejections for Carrie,’ I add for emphasis. ‘But he’s a legend now.’

Raymond is having none of it. He insists that Francesca is a literary genius and it will be entirely my fault if she’s not recognised as such from the get-go.

‘I will do my absolute utmost to ensure that she gets the right publisher for her lovely book,’ I assure him.

‘That’s not good enough,’ he tells me. ‘We want guarantees. Guarantees of a bestselling book and guarantees of the amount she’ll make.’

If only there were guarantees in publishing. But there aren’t. I try to explain this, but it’s like talking to a brick wall.

‘I looked you up.’ Raymond Clooney smooths down the page in his Filofax while Francesca shoots me an embarrassed look. ‘You’re rather succeeding downwards, aren’t you?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, you’ve got that Charles Miller bloke. I never rated him. Saw him on the Late Late blabbering on about his novel years ago. Tried reading it. Absolute tripe.’

‘Charles Miller won the Booker prize,’ I remind him. ‘And—’

‘And I heard he was suffering from writer’s block and hasn’t written a book in more than five years.’ Raymond goes on to tell me the many ways in which my best client has failed and how I’m responsible.

‘What do you do yourself?’ I ask, instead of trying to argue with him.

‘Sales and marketing,’ he replies. ‘So I’ll be a great asset to Frannie. I’ll be able to run a campaign for her.’

Oh God. He truly does think he’s an expert.

I turn to Francesca. ‘And what do you want from an agent?’ I ask.

‘Whatever’s best for my book.’

She’s lovely. She really is. I’d like her as a client if it didn’t seem to be a package deal with her dad.

‘Do you trust me to deliver that for you?’

‘I . . .’ She looks hesitantly at Raymond.

‘Come to us with a list,’ he says. ‘Tell us who’s interested. We’ll choose and you get eight per cent.’

I take my standard agency contract out of my bag and put it on the table.

‘Any agreement is between me and the author,’ I say. ‘And as you can see here, the author is Francesca. And my fee is fifteen per cent.’

‘Eight and a half.’

‘I’m sorry, but—’

‘It’s clear you know nothing about business and nothing about negotiating and you won’t get the best deal for Frannie.’