How to Publish a Book - Synopsis

 (Excerpt from How to Publish a Book by Timothy L. Marx, 1928)

This book wheeze has proved to be more of a groan when looked at with perspective. And perspective is something I certainly had plenty of as I teetered on the fifth floor window ledge of a hotel far too reputable for me to name in this sorry report of recent events. You see, I had been to visit my uncle. After looking at me like an anthropologist presented with a particularly baffling skeleton, he guffawed and explained that he works in accounting at Penguin and therefore does not have the authority to publish Cuthers' novel. I thought this was pretty rich given how he was always high-horsing around me, but the situation left me with a stark dilemma. Either I lose face with Cuthers and the rest of the chaps, of I just jolly well pull my socks up and find a way to get the book published myself.

I realise this doesn't explain my precarious position on a window ledge overlooking some spiked railings. That was actually part of a brilliant plan to get the book printed by blackmailing a publisher. I had heard through the usual whispers that someone quite high up at Macmillan was having an affair, and by a further stroke of luck my old chum Dickie Ffield knew in which hotel they regularly held their liaisons. All I had to do was book the room next door, go onto the balcony and then hop over a small wall onto their balcony. There I could snap a photograph and be away before they realise what's happened.

I did not arrive at this plan lightly. Prior to its formulation I had sought advice as to how to get a novel published. I discovered that I would need to submit a short synopsis of the novel's plot to a literary agent. This was extremely disheartening as it meant I would have to read Cuthers' book. However I could see the point these agents were making vis-a-vis timewasting. I considered asking Cuthers whether he could find an agent for himself, but that would give the game away. Then I actually read the book and considered that perhaps he wasn't up to the task. The book was terrible. What had I taken on? I considered the form a synopsis might take. "Terribly written cove falls in love with what I can only assume is the author's unrequited love, who tragically falls beneath the wheels of a tram on Fleet Street." That was about the long and short of it. To add any more detail would only expose its fundamental shoddiness.

I was in deep. I considered rewriting it and telling Cuthers it had been edited, but frankly it was beyond the pale. Ghastlier than my Great Aunt Cordelia and she can stop a horse from a full furlong. There was no doubt that getting this absurd literary effort into print would require duplicity. Such a method has a further advantage in that I wouldn't have to deal with literary agents and what I had recently learned were their wildly varying demands. A synopsis detailing all aspects of the plot should be supplied. It should be no longer than three paragraphs. It should be two pages. It should be one page. It should be written in iambic pentameter. In cuniform. Clay tablets will not be returned.

None of this was of any solace as I pressed my back against the window and tried not to look down at my certain death below. I pontificated on recent events to determine where my plan had gone wrong. Could it have been the numerous liquid biscuits I'd imbibed to provide some Dutch courage? I couldn't rule them out. They certainly could have contributed to me mixing up the Grosvenor Hotel on Devonshire Street with the Devonshire Hotel in Grosvenor Square. I first suspected the blunder when I was astonished to learn how narrow the balcony was. It was so narrow that I was nearly over its edge before I knew what was happening, and grabbed onto the nearest available object to arrest my doom. This was the top section of the sash window, which had the unfortunate effect of jarring loose the hoisted bottom section, which swiftly fell closed with a loud bang. Well, I thought to myself, this is a pickle and a half.