Page 47 - Que Nem Pelé EN ONLY MasterMarch4th23 (1)_Neat
P. 47
publishing houses many of whom did not speak
English and this was a further problem to me.
A meeting was arranged to speak to the Writers
Union President, again he spoke no English and so
the meeting we had was very stiff and at times
uncomfortable. You must realise at this stage that
the relationship between an author or the author’s
representative and the publishing house is not
always amicable. I at that time was a published
author myself and although it was in different
market (adult fiction) there was no love lost
between myself and my publisher because they
demanded so much and paid so little; this was the
principal area of conflict. The union president was
quite categorical at first that he would not help me
in any way; he considered that a publisher was not
to be helped in any way and they were low in the
ranking of society in general. Like an Estate Agent
perhaps and now a Banker. Once I learnt through
the translation his main grievance, I gave an
undertaking to change the system in Brazil by
offering to both the author and illustrator related
46