After a few minutes of reading, Ms. Lei finally looked up at Tayaw in a new light. Noticing that Tayaw must have been standing for a long time while she was reading, she embarrassingly said "Oh, for f*ck's sake, brat. You should have at least asked if you can sit somewhere. Whatever. Drag that monobloc chair over there here, and sit down."
After Tayaw finally sat in front of Ms. Lei's table, Ms. Lei continued to talk to him. "Alright, let me print out a list of the names of the available agents I know personally. You can also state my positive evaluation of your work to these agents. They should at least not ignore you once they hear of my name. I'm also doing you a favor of including the names of the agents I know that are competent and are veterans in the industry."
Ms. Lei said as she printed out a piece of paper and passed it to Tayaw. Tayaw accepted it with a smile. This was a huge favor to him by Ms. Lei. From the things he heard, it's really actually hard to make an agent notice a talent, and even harder to even make them interested in working for someone.
He heard it talked about many times during his time with the Percussive Corrections. Many of their colleagues and fellow musicians took months, even years looking for agents, only to no avail. Even if one found an agent, it was just a tiny step in starting their careers in the show business. So with Miss Lei giving Tayaw permission to use her name, it will immediately eliminate many difficulties in trying to find an agent.
"I noticed a copyright symbol on the page after your title page. Publishers usually do the copyrighting of the books on their authors' behalf. Did you not know this?" Ms. Lei started chatting with Tayaw. She found Tayaw interesting and wanted to find out more about the young man. Tayaw, meanwhile, was surprised that publishers actually do the copyrighting, but hearing Ms. Lei's positive review of his manuscript, he did not regret copyrighting the fairytales himself.
"I was actually told by a friend, who is also an avid reader, to copyright my work if I'm planning to self-publish. I just don't have the money to publish my book myself." Tayaw replied, making up an imaginary friend.
"Well, a copyright is indeed beneficial. He must have liked your book too, to suggest you to self-publish. I also liked your book, and with its quality and it's immediately digestible originality, there's no telling if someone gets greedy especially the smaller publishing houses." Ms. Lei nodded.
She at first scoffed at the copyright symbol in Tayaw's manuscript when she saw it, but when she immersed herself in the stories within, she found that the copyright symbol is indeed a good precaution against people who will have ideas on stealing Tayaw's work.
"Your title page says 'Vol. 1', are you planning to writing more? Or do you already have more stories in stock? " Ms. Lei switched the topic to Tayaw's book.
"I do have a few more ideas stuck in my head, I just haven't had the time to write and polish them down." Ms. Lei was surprised at Tayaw's response.
The manuscript has around 400 pages, each story having 3 to 5 pages; it means that Tayaw has written at least 30 stories.
"You're impressive, young man! You also wrote your book in English. That tells me you're ambitious enough to dream of selling your books internationally. If a publishing firm picks up your book, I suggest you also release a version in our Teungebian language." She was also impressed at Tayaw writing in English.
She herself, who loved books and hopped across many jobs in the industry, knew how hard it is translate books into English; much more write books in the language.
Tayaw, on the other hand, was feeling guiltier and guiltier by each compliment. Yes, he can write well in English, but he knew himself he was not creative enough to write these stories by himself. But what can he do? The only use he can see for the literary works given to him is to publish them and share them to his world. It's not like he's stealing someone's work, right?
Those works were given to him.
If it was before, he was afraid of the consequences and maybe even divine punishment of him publishing the works in his head. Now, however, he is confident that the roulette itself wanted him to publish the books it to him because right after Ms. Lei was done reading just a part of his manuscript, the "View Points" in his vision, which stayed at "0" since he it appeared, has changed into "Vision Points : 1".
This was no punishment, but a reward. He also want to see how the people, maybe even the whole world, will react at the works he will release in the future, and in the process earn himself a fortune.
"I will, ma'am. I hope to sell internationally as well." Tayaw replied. After a few more minutes of chatting, an employee entered the office.
"Well, look at the time, I should get going. I'm sorry for taking up your time. My work also starts in an hour at my job in Cioni." Tayaw, feeling like he already spent enough time at the office, looked for an excuse to leave.
"Indeed. I was too absorbed reading your manuscript; I took up your time." Ms. Lei said as she didn't know what else to talk about with the young man. Throughout their conversation, the young man never took the lead when she gave him permission to.
"It's actually a pleasure, Ms. Lei. I'm also thankful for sparing me the time. As a token, please keep my manuscript. I can make more copies of it. I hope to give you its book version soon." Tayaw said as he bid farewell to Ms. Lei.
Watching Tayaw leave the office, Ms. Lei had a smile on her face. "What an impressive young man." She said to herself as she opened the manuscript once again. She wants to look for a story she can tell her child later in the evening.
Leaving the building where the Writers' Guild was, he was already planning in his head how he would write the e-mails to the list of agents he received from Ms. Lei. While in the train, he checked his phone if he received any e-mails from agents who saw his postings on the job websites he made in the morning.
Seeing no e-mails, he took out the list of agents and copied their e-mail addresses to his phone.
Aside from their names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, there are no further information about them, so he really had no idea how to pitch himself to each agent.
He also cannot gather any more information after he looked them up in the internet with his phone. He can only work with what he has, so to pass the time in the train, he started writing and re-writing his pitch of himself to send to the agents.
"Dear ---,
Grimm's Fairy Tales of 95,000 words, is a compilation of 50 of my original fairy tales that defies the convention established by our predecessors when it comes to what fairy tales should be. With some of the tales' hidden social commentary for our world, it can also give our children a closer to life sense of reality and how the world works earlier and will prevent them from carrying idealistic principles and unrealistic dreams into adulthood.
Since time immemorial, we heard and saw stories that taught us lessons and gave color to our childhood, and helped reshaped us into the people we grew up to be. I myself can retell from memory some of the stories that my parents and teachers told me as a child.
However, as I grew into a young lad and revisited the stories I have been told, it came to me that the tales we grew up with are nothing short of being too fantastical and too simple to pass on to the next generation.
I am currently about to enter as a freshman to Ouigab City's Northwestern university, but I have been writing and polishing the tales I have in my work for five years now. I hope that my skepticism of our currently established fairy tales along with my enthusiasm to change them shows through my stories' settings for you to see.
The first three short stories included in my work are enclosed to this letter, while the completed manuscript is available upon request. Ms. Nelly C. Lei of the Ouigab City's Writers' Guild of Teungeb office also spoke greatly of your experience in the industry.
Thank you in advance for taking in consideration my work. I look forward to your response.
Kind Regards,
Tayaw L. Dagem'
A few days after he sent the e-mail to the agents, he gained 13 points to his View Points. Adding to Ms. Lei's 1 point, he now has 14.