I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [89]
‘Biographies: 10; Health & Wellbeing: 10; Mind, Body & Spirit: 10; New Releases: 6; Bestsellers: 6.’ (I knew this was cheeky, as the books hadn’t even gone on sale yet, so I drew a smiley face after it to quell the shopkeeper’s anger.) I also penned in 5 to go by the cash tills because I’d read something about Cadbury’s Chomps doing the same to cash in on impulse purchases.
Next, I headed home and began sending copies to friends, family and a raft of BBC executives, past and present. This wasn’t an attempt to show them that I’d bounced back from their rejection fitter and stronger than ever. No, it was simply because they all went to Oxbridge so I know they liked reading and didn’t really watch any TV. Out of respect for the dead, I also sent copies to the widows of Tony Hayers and Chris Feather. It was a classy touch.
In the end there weren’t that many left for friends and family, but I figured Denise and Fernando wouldn’t mind sharing one, on the basis that they were siblings. And on the basis that we were now divorced, I decided my wife Carol could buy her own. Or, worst-case scenario, rent it from the library. (As I wouldn’t be receiving a new royalty every time a copy was taken out, I suggested to Norwich City Council that I get a cut of any late fees instead. They didn’t go for it.)
One thing that did thrill me, though, and I knew it would thrill the reviewers, was that I had managed to stretch it to over 300 pages. It had a real meatiness to it. I banged it down on the kitchen table so I could enjoy its undeniable thud factor. ‘Thud,’ it went. ‘Thud,’ I repeated, like a parrot trained to accurately mimic the noise of books.207
Yet my happiness was to be short-lived. Sales were disappointing. My refusal to dumb down (if anything, I had dumbed up) had cost me dearly. I received word via fax that a lot of stores were going to take it down from the shelves. I was absolutely thunderstruck (thanks, Roget’s).
I marched into the offices of my publishing company and read them the riot act. ‘There’s only one course of action I will settle for,’ I roared. ‘A raft of nationwide TV adverts to give the book the push it deserves.’ The subsequent silence that fell over the open-plan office told me that my message had got through loud and clear. You could have heard a pin.
As ever, though, there were logistical headaches to be addressed, so in the end we hammered out a compromise. Instead of running a series of nationwide TV adverts, they were not going to run a series of nationwide TV adverts.
By this point I was left with no choice. I had to take matters into my own hands. Sales needed to be boosted, and fast. I quickly formulated a plan of action. Every day for the next fortnight I would go down to Norwich train station, set up a stall and see if I could shift a few units myself. It would be stripped-down concourse retailing in its purest form. I launched myself into it like a small circus man being shot from a cannon. What a buzz! I’d literally flog to anyone. It didn’t matter if they were travelling inter-Norfolk, trans-county or intra-Anglian, they were all fair game as far as I was concerned. I felt like I could sell coal to the Eskimos.
I was rigged-up with one of those cordless mics that you fix to your head. I loved it, with its sponge-covered microphone dangling in front of my mouth like a big black grape. When a sale had gone well I almost wanted to reach out and lick it! (Couldn’t though – tongue too short. Oh to be a lizard!)
Better still, it gave me total mobility (within a radius of 20 metres). If I headed out to its distant eastern rim, the radius took me within spitting distance of WH Smith. (Literally, in the case of one chap who flicked me the Vs. I’ll be honest, I lost it.) And this meant I had a captive audience. After all, what do we all do if we have time to kill before catching our train? We head to Smith’s to browse the latest issue of What Car magazine,