Pirating Other Pirates

I've been sitting here so far today, working on sample chapters for my cookbook proposal. It turned out to be a pretty small job. I'm surprised how well the writing holds up. I thought I was going to have to gut the book and rebuild, but the stuff I looked at today couldn't be changed much without hurting it. I fixed the introduction and three chapters, and I'm done.

Readers keep telling me about Talk Like a Pirate Day, because I'm working on the pirate book my publisher asked for. Like I've said in the past, I know absolutely nothing about it. It sounds unbelievably nerdy to me. But today a loyal reader pointed out that the Talk Like a Pirate people have their own pirate wannabee handbook, which sounds an awful lot (I would use the term "exactly") like what my publisher asked me to write.

Here's what publishers do, to keep from stepping on each other's toes too badly. They cooperate by posting announcements of their upcoming projects. For example, I was worried that someone else might have a Nigerian book out, and I asked about it, and they told me they had kept an eye on the announcements, and that no big publisher had anything in the works.

So far, I have just assumed that they were watching the pirate genre, too. But to be safe, I sent my editor a note asking if he knew about the existing pirate book, which is in its sixth printing.

I truly hope they're not going to ask me to read the other book. I'm sure it's wonderful, but it really doesn't sound like the kind of thing I want to spend two days poring over.

I like to think the publisher knows what it's doing, but they did come up with that horrifying title for my Nigerian book.

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If it turns out my publisher was asleep at the wheel (or as we pirates like to call it, "helm"), I'll just put the stuff I've done so far up at Roller Coaster of Hate.