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Twenty seven quid eh? Tchah.
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"Twenty seven quid"
And the cheque bounced, apparently! If only he'd gone for the royalties...
tinyurl.com/o5cmw3o
We have a local cartoonist who sold a substantial part of his work to a postcard publisher for a modest amount some 30 years ago, only for it to become a mainstay of the publisher's output ever since.
The same thing happened to Mervyn Peake, the author, who designed the logo for Pan books* in the 40's. The publishers offered him either a flat fee of £10 or a royalty of one farthing per book. On the advice of Graham Greene, who told him that paperback books were a passing fad that wouldn't last, he opted for the £10!
*Who later published Neville Shute, Leslie Charteris and Ian Fleming.
Last edited by: J Bonington Jagworth on Wed 22 Oct 14 at 12:35
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And indeed the Tolkien estate, who sold the rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in 1968 for about ten bob, and have been kvetching on and off ever since.
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>>We have a local cartoonist who sold a substantial part of his work to a postcard publisher for a modest amount some 30 years ago, only for it to become a mainstay of the publisher's output ever since.
Besley? His Missus was my maths teacher....
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Interviewed on The One Show in 2010:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwO0Mgzlg3I
Doesn't look like he's only got 4 years left :(
Last edited by: Focusless on Tue 21 Oct 14 at 17:31
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Perhaps Bob Holness was getting the royalties.
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Ingrained habits of idleness and diffidence mean that in my near-dotage* I earn a sort of living by translating sometimes difficult French texts into English. I can do that quite well sometimes, but it's poorly paid work for a person with descendants and extravagant habits. Imagine my pleasure when I was informed once that one of these texts had been sold on to Penguin or someone for $10,000... I thought I'd be in for a useful little supplemental windfall.
Er... not. The original publisher took most of it and I got about 70 quid. It's a hard life for a neurotic goldfish in a shark pool.
*The lead story in today's comic tells me that GPs are being bribed £55 to diagnose mature patients with dementia. I'm going to offer my quack £55 not to. No skin of his or her nose... Another story said that one's gait can indicate incipient Alzheimer's: poor balance, smaller, more hesitant strides, staggering about, falling on one's back in flower beds, that sort of thing. I pointed it out to herself and said: 'Oo-er!' She replied firmly that that's all tosh and she doesn't believe it. Nice of her I thought.
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Raphael Ravenscroft died - Crankcase
