The Bookseller.com

14th October 2008

Daisy Frost is an agent at the Edward Cecil Literary Agency. She blogs at missdaisyfrost.com.

Tears on my stale croissant

16.04.08

Try this for terrifying. I was minding my own business in the International Rights Centre, dodging boring publishers by shouting things like "Tell Pynchon he can bloody well hold" and "Gail—go and sit on the naughty step" into a switched-off BlackBerry. Suddenly I was stopped by a sweaty individual carrying a grubby envelope. "Are you Daisy Frost?" he asked. "Yes", I mumbled, trying too late to sound non-committal and hide my badge. Then came the fateful words: "I am an author and I would love you to pitch . . ." Well, I can but guess how the sentence ended, because I was running away screaming. How many more times do I have to say this: having an author at a book fair is like inviting John Leslie to an orgy. It’s initially a good talking point, but soon turns into a total nightmare.

Between my "meetings" I have developed a worrying kleptomania. This morning I have managed to trouser the following: 14 promotional pens, some stickers saying "Barney The Dinosaur Loves Reading", two stress balls in the shape of Katie Price and some Mills & Boon sweets that have helped my cough enormously. I could get used to this alter-ego as a glamorous cat thief. I later helped myself to a bottle of Vodka and a copy of Vogue at an Earls Court news stand. Luckily Gordon Brown created a diversion by swanning past with six bodyguards and a fawning Sebastian Faulks as I was being arrested. It was only by promising to read the policeman’s novel that I got off scott free. Result.

Without wanting to damage the entente cordiale, Koukla’s party at the Institute Français on Monday night was a curious affair—it appeared to be taking place in a cinema foyer (but without the benefits of large George Clooney posters/boxes of Maltesers), and all the guests looked as if they were awkward exchange students—not even Kevin Conroy-Scott in crushed velvet could spread some mojo. I squeezed past a crowd of smoking-ban refugees outside, bundled my coat under a table and tried to rehydrate on several glasses of eye-watering white wine (the room was hotter than a certain agent’s underwear drawer). All it needed was the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack and someone being sick and it would have been sixth form revisited.

The Orange Prize shortlist must have been the worst-kept secret since Kylie’s botox, but I still thought I should make the effort and turn up for the breakfast announcement—even if my client Zenabia Majora’s groundbreaking digi-novel Amazonian.Com (Placenta Books) had failed to make it to the final six. I raced across town, laddered my tights in an altercation with Andrew Franklin and his bicycle, and arrived at the PEN café to discover it was all over, and that the "breakfast" now consisted of a few tear-strewn croissants and some lipstick-smeared glasses of orange. The future doesn’t feel very bright alas—let alone orange.

As the fair draws to an end I am beginning to feel a little sad. Farewell, stroppy guards who man the escalator to the IRC—particularly the one who looks a bit like Bad David (Godwin). Perhaps we should all sell our offices and collectively buy Earls Court, so we can expand the LBF from an annual treat to a year-round way of life. [Cue Daisy throwing cold water over herself and slapping her own face until she screams for mercy].

I have just been interrupted by an inappropriate text from Max Mosley. I had emailed him earlier to say that I had whipped a load of publishers into a frenzy about his book proposal. Now he’s asking me whether he can watch the next round of the auction . . . authors!

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