Attendees feel scammed over absence of promised star writer (and last-minute substitution of imposter)
There are around 200 participants in attendance at the Kyiv Writers’ Conference who thought it worth paying $1000 to hear Kyiv-based foreign writers in English talk about the difficulties and rewards of getting published internationally while living and working in Kyiv. The participants felt they might gain some valuable insights, as promised in the promotional materials for this event published in the Kyiv Poster, which would help them in their own efforts to become published writers.
The conference is the baby of Boss Lard, who has engineered it as a joint project of the Kyiv Poster English-language newspaper, where Lard is CEO, and the Boss Lard Group, a small and self-promoting PR agency floundering in Kyiv, which Lard chairs.
In his opening remarks, Lard tells the attendees:
We feel that gathering all of this talent for you in one place will be an experience well worth the time and money you’ve paid for the privilege of being here, as you will undoubtedly learn a great deal about the extremely difficult and highly competitive world of publishing by foreigners in a foreign country, and how crucial their efforts are to world scholarship and culture. But the difficulties are not insurmountable, and, if I may briefly throw modesty aside, I am living proof of this myself, having published so many books by now, I can’t even count them.
Who are some of your publishers, a conference attendee unexpectedly asks Lard, sidelining the conference format by asking questions too early.
Boss Lard is momentarily stunned and at a loss for words. Whaz that, he asks, leaning his aging head forward over the conference table to either hear the repeated question better or to play for time as he concocts an answer.
Oh, um, I only asked who some of your publishers have been.
Well, ah, you see, we’ll get to that later, but essentially, there’s a formidable market developing for self-published books. A great deal is being done these days with electronic formats selling through Amazon and Kindle, and if one opts for a hard copy of one’s book, the costs of getting it published here are minimal, and if you market your product right, you make back several times over, both in exposure and sales, what you spent, I mean, with the publishing industry being so selective and ruthless, while at the same time demonstrating an insatiable appetite for materials, this is part of the experience we here are ready to share with ya’ll to –
So, ah, what you’re saying is that you’re self-published, and not published by a real publisher.
Well, hold on there now, son – what difference does it make if you’re published, or self-published? The end and net result is, you’re published, you’re out there, your work is available to the public and it’s being read, you’re –
Hell, even I’m self-published, says another conference participant. I’ve got a blog!
Yeah, says another, me too.
This provokes general indignant agreement among all the conference attendees, most of whom are already self-published Internet bloggers but would never dare call themselves real writers.
I’ll tell you what the difference is, says the first participant, adding, I can’t believe we paid $1000 for this! Jumping out of his seat, he screams: You’re not real writers; that’s the difference!!! You are not part of the world of truly published authors!!! As such, as such, as such… no real writers will ever want to know you!!!
Yeah, shouts another participant, who here out of your entire panel of so-called writers is a real writer – I mean truly published, by a real publisher? Or, for that matter, what have any of you ever even written that’s legitimate? Lard, Losser – yeah, right!!! – Jim Kickshitz – that obese breakdown of human will hasn’t written anything! – at all!!! – Josh Davies – give me a break, Josh Davies, I’m shocked that old man had the strength to make it up here – did you help him into his seat!!! – hahahahahaaaaa!!! – Sweaty Tank Top – come on!!! – Alex Fishburger… And what’s Brent Boner doing here? He can barely spell his name on the Kyiv Poster masthead. Hey, Boner!!! Duuuuuhhh!!!
Hey, another participant exclaims, where’s Andrew Plumb?!
Silence fills the conference hall. Indeed, where is the one writer they have all come most to see? Why did they pay so much money and why wasn’t he there?
Lard to Welsh Losser: What the hell happened here, boy? Where’s Plumb? Why is that seat empty? He was supposed to be the star attraction and he ain’t nowhere around…
Losser: Nyu-a-a-a… G-g-g-hooooo…
Lard: Boy, you don’t mean to tell me you got so scared of Plumb that you didn’t invite him to this conference? What’s wrong with you, boy? He wouldn’t done nothin’ to ya! He’d be sittin’ way the hell over there! Down the other end of the table! You ruined it, boy, my idea; you destroyed it just because you too much a shiverin’ coward before Andrew Plumb! Whew! Dang, boy, what’s that smell? You shat your pants again, Losser?
Losser: Ngooo-uuuff-krrr – You know, I get this gout, Boss Lard. It’s not all lost. Nyug. Andrew Plumb is here. In fact, he’s getting into his seat behind the table right now – nyayaya affaxa and grumpton.
Hey, look, says a participant, it’s Andrew Plumb. Hey, Andrew! What’re you working on now?!
Heh-heh, ah, it’s not a question of what I’m working on now or not, but I’ve got more books in the works and they’re being written, off-again, on-again, but mostly in a seesaw back-and-forth fashion, heh, heh, heh…
Um, okay, but can you tell us what your latest book is about? You know, I mean, don’t tell us, but give us a hint – you know…
Yeah, heh-heh, I mean no, I can’t really tell you, it’s sort of a secret, but mostly it’s about these troubled teenagers going to an elite boarding school in Upstate New York on the Hudson and they go into town and mix with the locals, who are a bunch of, ah, ah, counterintuitive rubes, heh, heh, and then they take some drugs and draw this circle in the ground and fight in it, and that all, ah, ah, morphs into, ah, ah, other stuff – heh, heh, heh-heh-heh…
Yeah, but wasn’t that the story in your last book? I mean, there’s something confusing about this. I thought you wrote that already. This is supposed to be about what you’re writing now.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Heh, heh, I don’t know what you mean. Maybe it’s not supposed to be about anything. Heh-heh-heh. I told you the truth. What else do you want from me? I’m a writer. I don’t have to tell you everything. It’s my secret. I write what I want to write. Or maybe I don’t write at all. You don’t know anything about it because you’re not in the business, but I am – heh-heh-heh-heh-heh…
There’s something wrong with this…
Yeah, the time is out of joint and not adding up…
Hey, that’s not Andrew Plumb! It’s…
Filed by Jack Step, April 25, 2013