Dear Aunty Jean,
I write to you in a very dispirited mood. I have written a romantic novel and expected it to become an instant bestseller. However, every publisher I have sent it to has turned it down.
These people don’t know good literature when they see it!
A brief synopsis:
The heroine is a poverty-stricken, lowly milk maid called ‘Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda Flapwell’. Our hero, Lord Grit Stallion, rescues her from a vicious attack by an annoyed cow. He instantly falls in love with Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda and proposes marriage, before ravishing her and her heaving bosom, on the milking shed floor. However, his mother is against their marriage as she wants him to marry the evil Lady Maud Picklesworth who has a flat chest and bad teeth.
Lady Stallion, Grit’s mother, arranges for Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda to be kidnapped by a desperate, failed, corset maker called Mr Rancido.
After locating his love and violently thrashing Mr Rancido with one of his own sub-standard corsets, Grit rescues Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda and they run off to Gretna Green to get married.
The evil Lady Maud is disinherited by her father after he finds out she has been having affairs with some of the staff at the family seat, Picklesworth Towers. She has been ‘indiscreet’ with the butler and 6 footmen. Lady Maud ends up as a music hall act called ‘Merry Maud’ and makes her living by singing debauched songs for the audience of common folk and petty criminals.
Lady Stallion, Grit’s mother, dies from shock when she realises that a poor person has married into the family.
Some excerpts from my book:
‘Grit Stallion looked into Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda’s eyes and murmered ‘I know we met for the first time as I was getting that cow off you, but I fell in love with you immediately! Darling, marry me!’
Tania-Wilemina-Annabella-Tina-Tabatha-Yolanda screamed ‘No, Mr Rancido, please don’t kidnap me! I’m on the early shift at work and my pay will be docked if I’m not in the cow shed for 5.00am!’
‘Grit, you have such manly thighs!’
As you can see it really is an exceptional piece of work. I am wondering if you perhaps know of any publishers that you might be able to exert some influence with, so that I can get my novel published? My book is what the world has been waiting for, even if I do say so myself!
Thank you for your time.
Yours, with a ripped bodice, Minnie, Tiverton
Aunty Jean says:
Dear Minnie Riperton,
On a personal note I am still coming to terms with the dreadful news that Raine Vincent was so quickly re-instated by OFAG’s Penelope Smithers. Is it just me, or did Penelope seem a bit ‘off’ in her published report to Hot Chat Magazine? I don’t know, I might be imagining it! Anyway, I must put that behind me and do my duty to my readers!
Well, I can see a problem right away with your book! Your heroine’s name is just too long. I suggest an acronym. Just call her ‘Twatty’ for short and it will instantly improve things!
‘Darling Twatty, come to my arms and gaze at my virile chest!’
See? It sounds instantly better!
I wish that I could help re the publisher, but I am afraid I’m in the same boat with my own book ‘British people should just want to be British and do British things with other British people in Britain’
It’s a work that celebrates us patriotic types and I just know will be a hit! But some of the rejections I’ve had have been nothing short of ridiculous!
What’s wrong with wanting to ban foreign languages and eventually make the whole world speak English? These people should be glad that we’re prepared to share our mother tongue!
One publisher left the snide comment: Not everyone wants to be British you know!
Idiot!
So I suppose we must just keep plugging away until a publisher with some genius comes upon our work and unleashes it on a grateful public!
Hope that helps! Aunty Jean
Remember! Once German is banned the world will be a better place!
So You think you've got problems? 