Sunday 8 December 2013

THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREWORDS

Second-class but sexy writer, Mrs B. White, got some copies of her last book. She immediately wrote an email to her publisher to let him know she had received the copies at home. The publisher asked her if she had liked the book. The writer said she hadn't, because the foreword supposedly written by a big shot was missing, so the book was worthless. Then they both talked on the phone.

"Where's my foreword? Nobody will appreciate my book without that foreword!", she claimed.

"But what really matters to you? The foreword or your own text?", argued the publisher, who had understood Mrs White was scarcely self-confident, actually her judgements about her own books depended on what prologues said about her, as if  what she wrote lacked interest in itself. 

After the conversation the publisher checked the book and realized he had made the greatest mistake of his whole career: though the covers of the book were right, the text inside wasn't Mr White's, but someone else's, so the prologue was obviously missing. 

But as expected, Mrs White never noticed that.

Frantz Ferentz, 2013