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Meeting my publisher Penguin for the first time by Jasper Fforde

Fri, 07/27/2007

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I was invited to a business lunch at Penguin to pitch for The Eyre Affair in July of 1999, and that first meeting was mildly strange, to say the least. I'd heard the rumours, of course, but I just thought the stories were urban myths - wild fabrications invented by agents and authors who had had one too many pink gins before a meeting.

The first thing you notice upon entering the lobby at Penguin towers is a small man next to the elevators, who has a selection of outdoor clothes on a rack just beside him.

"Where are you heading?" he asks brightly, and when I reply 'Penguin' he gives a knowing nod and hands me a lined gore-tex jacket and woolly hat.

"You'll need this," he explains, helping me on with the bulky garment, "did you bring any treats?" I show him the dozen pilchards wrapped in an old newspaper and he nods approvingly. "Well, then," he adds as the elevator doors open, "you'll be fine. But if you want a word of advice, don't mention Killer Whales."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard the advice. My agent had briefed me not only on to avoid the unacceptable subject of orca-like carnivores cetaceans, but also that Leopard Seals could be a seriously poor topic of conversation.

The elevator doors opened and even though I was safely bundled up in the gore-tex coat, my breath still showed white in the cold air. I've heard it said that over 40% of Penguin's revenue is spent on aircon - keeping the offices down to a balmy zero degrees. I made my way to the reception area, noticing that the water cooler had frozen solid, and that a long icicle had formed on the tap. Motivational pictures depicting vast panoramas of empty Antarctic wastes were hung on the walls, the glass covered with a light frosting of ice crystals. As I stood at the receptionist's desk and stamped my feet to keep warm, a high-pitched nasal voice said:

"Can I help you?"

Startled, I peered over the desk. The snow had drifted into the corner next to the filing cabinet, and it was here that I met my first penguin employer.

The rumours were true Penguin was staffed entirely by penguins.

"My name's Jasper Fforde," I explained, casually flipping a raw pilchard at the receptionist, a gift that was rapidly despatched in a single gulp, "and I was invited to lunch." The small flightless bird - a King, if I recall correctly from my accelerated Penguin recognition class - told me to wait one moment, and chattered briefly into an intercom before smiling and leading me down the corridor in an odd shuffling gait that I had to try hard not to emulate.

"My uncle starred in Mary Poppins," said the receptionist by way of conversation, "The animated sequence, remember?"

"y-yes," I replied, my teeth beginning to chatter in the freezing temperature, "I'm a big fan of Dick Van Dyke."

The receptionist pushed open a door at the end of the corridor and stood aside to allow me to enter, It was a large boardroom on the seventh floor, and I could just vaguley discern the blue sky and hot city through the ice-covered windows. A wind machine was blowing from the corner, swirling the ice and snow about the room like a blizzard. Lined up around the table and staring at me with great interest were twenty-eight emperor penguins, sitting on high stools at a large table that seemed to have been carved from a solid block of ice.

"Come in, sit down, relax," said the Penguin at the head of the table, pointing a flipper at an empty chair, "Edgar, pass Mr Fforde the menu."

"Thank you," I managed to gasp as the cold air stung my windpipe, "I seem a bit overdressed - I didn't realise it was black tie."

It was a faux pas. My eyes, glazed over by the cold, had mistaken the black and white Antarctic seabird's usual plumage for a tuxedo, a mistake that I would not make again, as a series of clicking noises indicated their displeasure. I decided not to make it worse, and sat down at my chair to study the menu, wondering how I might regain lost ground, and wondering whether feeding the top editorial and marketing strategy executives at Penguin a raw fish each might be a way to do it. The problem was, I had only eleven pilchards left, and I had no way of knowing who best to feed them to - and the idea of a Pilchard riot in the boardroom of one of the most respected publishers in New York was not a happy prospect.

I looked at the menu, my eyesight blurred with my shivering, while all the time the penguins at Penguin stared at me with their small black eyes, blinking expectantly. It was some sort of test, that much was obvious, and I would need to use all my guile and intellect to see me through.

"Well?" said the CEO penguin impatiently, "what do you fancy on the menu?"

"I think," I answered slowly, my fingers growing stiff with the cold and every word an effort, "I think..." The twenty-eight penguins leaned forward expectantly, hanging on my every word. "I think," I repeated, "I'll ... go for the fish."

There was a wild stamping of feet and applause, and a contract was pushed in front of me. They've published every book of mine since, and we've had a great relationship. The downsides are few: I get paid in herring which isn't so bad since it became a convertible currency on the New York fish exchange, and contractually I can never write about Killer Whales or Leopard seals, but hey - it's a small price to pay.