Johnny America

 

Di­et­ing with Jesus

by

Dear Plaid Press,

I am in­quir­ing if you would be in­ter­est­ed in pub­lish­ing a book of mine en­ti­tled Di­et­ing with Je­sus. It de­scribes a method for los­ing weight based on New Tes­ta­ment Scrip­ture. This book is sure to quick­ly be­come a best­seller and a big mon­ey mak­er for Plaid Press.

Sin­cere­ly,

Rev­erend Cur­tis Fuller

Dear Rev­erend Fuller,

We are in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing more about your book, Di­et­ing with Je­sus. As you may know, books on Chris­t­ian top­ics are very pop­u­lar now, and di­et­ing books have been a sta­ple with the Amer­i­can read­ing pub­lic for many decades. It is, how­ev­er, cus­tom­ary in non-fic­tion book pro­pos­als for the au­thor to in­clude an out­line or per­haps a ta­ble of con­tents of his work. I am cu­ri­ous how you have wo­ven your sub­jects together.

Re­gards,

Howard Plum, Ac­qui­si­tions Editor

Plaid Press

PS: You may want to check your writ­ing for split infinitives.

Dear Mr. Plum,

Here is the ta­ble of con­tents for the book that I have been work­ing on. Thank you for the sug­ges­tion. This will cer­tain­ly make writ­ing the book much eas­i­er. The fol­low­ing list is by no means com­plete, just some­thing to be­gin with:

The Lamb of God: Hold the mint jelly!

Je­sus in the Dessert: Get thou be­hind me, Satan!

The Fish and the Loaves: Di­vide, not multiply!

Wine in­to Wa­ter: A calo­rie-sav­ing miracle!

The Last Sup­per: Brak­ing the bread!

Walk­ing on Wa­ter: 30 min­utes a day to a new you!

Sin­cere­ly,

Rev­erend Fuller

Dear Rev­erend Fuller,

Thank you for send­ing us your ta­ble of con­tents. How­ev­er, be­fore we make a de­ci­sion re­gard­ing any non-fic­tion book pro­pos­al, we like to know the cre­den­tials of the au­thor. Please tell us about your­self and your qual­i­fi­ca­tions to write this book.

Re­gards,

Howard Plum, Ac­qui­si­tions Editor

Plaid Press

PS: You may want to check your writ­ing for sen­tences end­ing in prepositions.

Dear Mr. Plum,

As a Bap­tist min­is­ter and the son of a Methodist min­is­ter, you couldn’t find any­one more qual­i­fied to write a book like this. How­ev­er, the di­vin­i­ty school I at­tend­ed, Charis­mat­ic Col­lege of Cal­i­for­nia, is no longer in ex­is­tence, hav­ing had it’s ac­cred­i­ta­tion revoked.

I have spent many years in church­es, sev­er­al of them be­hind the pul­pit. If you would like a per­son­al ref­er­ence, you may con­tact Mrs. Mil­dred Crick­et, the for­mer wife of the dea­con of the last church where I was pas­tor. She can be con­tact­ed at the same ad­dress you use to reach me.

I have an un­par­al­leled knowl­edge of Scrip­ture, es­pe­cial­ly Psalms 32:1, Proverbs 17:28, and Ro­mans 7:24.

Sin­cere­ly,

Rev­erend Fuller

Dear Rev­erend Fuller,

In these days of tight­en­ing bud­gets for pub­lish­ing hous­es, it has be­come in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant for au­thors to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own pub­lic­i­ty. If we were to pub­lish your book, it would be nec­es­sary for you to go on an ex­tend­ed author’s tour, lec­tur­ing and hold­ing book-sign­ing events. The tour might al­so in­clude tele­vi­sion appearances.

Would you be able to take time away from your cur­rent re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to go on such a trip?

Re­gards,

Howard Plum, Ac­qui­si­tions Editor

Plaid Press

PS: You may want to check your writ­ing for dan­gling mod­i­fiers and the cor­rect form of the pos­ses­sive for the word it.

Dear Mr. Plum,

Their is no one more will­ing to hit the road and lec­ture than me, as I am cur­rent­ly in be­tween church as­sign­ments. How­ev­er, I must con­fess that with all the idol time I have had (men­tal­ly, of course, work­ing very much dili­gent­ly on my book), I have let my­self go a bit. Right now I am two hun­dred ten, which is a bit over the de­sired wait for a man of my height (five two). I hope this won’t be a prob­lem, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing this is a di­et book.

Sin­cere­ly,

Rev­erend Fuller

Dear Rev­erend Fuller,

I am pleased to in­form you that Plaid Press has agreed to pub­lish Di­et­ing with Je­sus. We have a sub-ed­i­tor who will de­vel­op a book out­line and a very tal­ent­ed team of ghost­writ­ers to com­plete the man­u­script. In ad­di­tion, our in-house pub­li­cist will con­struct a list of im­pres­sive cre­den­tials for you and elic­it celebri­ty tes­ti­mo­ni­als. We even have con­tract­ed with an out­side tal­ent agency to hire a slim, at­trac­tive ac­tor to stand in for you on the book tour.

Please find at­tached our stan­dard au­thor con­tract. As an ad­vance on your roy­al­ties, I have en­closed a check for $50,000 and a copy of the Chica­go Man­u­al of Style.

Re­gards,

Howard Plum, Ac­qui­si­tions Editor

Plaid Press

Filed under Fiction on June 13th, 2006

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Reader Comments

laamie wrote:

This is a very fun­ny sto­ry! I would love to see more sto­ries by this au­thor! I just fin­ished read­ing Woody Al­len’s re­cent piece for the New York­er about Friedrich Ni­et­zche’s Di­et Book (Thus Ate Zarathus­tra); it must be in the air.. Di­et­ing with Je­sus is fun­ny, well craft­ed and sur­pris­ing. Even Woody Allen can’t keep up with Jonathan Scott!

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