Sunday, August 3, 2008

Just finished reading John Grisham’s first book. A Time To Kill and was fascinated to see in his introductory note that it was rejected by sixteen agents and twelve publishers and it wasn’t until later success that it was taken up. How on earth could it have had so many rejections when it is obviously a page turner? Well it’s certainly been a page turner for me. I suppose you could put it in the same category as the Hollywood magnate (who was it, Sam Goldwyn?) who, when offered Gone With The Wind said, “Who’s interested in the civil war?” Does any book get a go-ahead first time round? Considering 120000 books are published in English every year I wonder just how many hundreds of thousands are submitted.

CD of The Double Deckers songs as reissued by Cherry Records landed on the doorstep last week. Now on this recording four songs have lyrics by Glyn Jones with music by Ivor Slaney but is my work earning me any royalties? Is it hell! As far as I can gather the only money being made is being made by Cherry Records. It was purely by chance I learnt of this and the big question I have to ask is where is the protection supposedly supplied by the laws of copyright because without a word from me they have gone ahead and published my copyright work and I will get nothing for it and needless to say I resent it. Whatever deal Cherry Records made with whoever, it obviously completely excludes everyone who supplied the original material. This is simply not on but as the Greeks say, ti na kanoume, what can we do? Well, we will have to see what can be done, if anything.

On a different tack I really should have taken early advice and changed my name. I was young, egotistical, I felt my name was me and I saw no reason to change it. I never realised at the time Glyn Joneses would come crawling out of the woodwork at the rate of knots, quote a few of them I get muddled up with, my work credited to someone else, someone else’s work credited to me. I see a Glyn Jones has written blogs about creationism and fundamentalism. I plead not guilty to that one. Twas not me, your lordship, though I guess my thoughts on the subject may be similar. Guess the mix-ups will all come out right in the end – allegedly And, if there are so many and the name is so common, how come mine is misspelt so often? On the original Double Deckers album I’m listed on the credits as Glyn Johns! At least Cherry Records has got my name right if nothing else.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Boet,

Tuesday 5th - No blog for me to read yesterday?? Hope all is well. love Sis