The Bookseller - Comment - Swapping sides

The problem with working in publishing is that everyone knows when the book you've written goes on submission. You think people are talking about you because people are talking about you. I thought I'd prepared myself (colleagues knew I was writing, and I wasn't shy when it came to discussing the process), but the reality was bizarre.

An editorial director mentioned they brought up my book at lunch and again at drinks. "Who are they?" Scouts, apparently. A colleague in another division told me there were whispers among editorial of "a girl in sales with a book on submission". That's me, I thought. I'm the girl in sales with a book on submission. A third person said that her scout friend loves it. Scouts again. Who are these scouts? Are the scouts in the room with us now? "It's a good thing! Scouts talking means people are excited about your book." I didn't even know what a scout did, but I came to understand it as some sort of literary insider trading. I smiled and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling office windows and pressed my forehead against the glass, looking down at the ant-like crowd swarming the city. Sonofabitch is down there somewhere, I thought, like that boy from that film.