Read Letter to Belinda for Free Online

a well known tabloid, ‘Whisperings’ Magazine, which they had published without questioning its validity. The result was, just as his book was due to be released by his publisher, there was already a flood of orders for his book from all over the country. The timing was perfect! ‘The Relic’, by Travis Lee, was destined to be an instant best-seller, propelling him to fame and fortune as an up-and-coming Southern fiction writer. And with six other novels already written and awaiting publication, the reading public was about to be saturated with a flood of literary output, not seen since the emergence of Stephen King!
    But there was a small problem.
    The rocket of literary fame was scrubbed on the launching pad.
    (Houston, we have a problem.)
    Maple Leaf Publications had gone belly-up. Their announcement that they had filed for bankruptcy, came just two days after his book’s release date, according to the Maple Leaf Publications web site. What this meant to the authors who had been published by Maple Leaf, was that they could no longer get copies of their books.
    For Travis, this was devastating. It couldn’t have come at a worst time. He had 17,000 orders for his book, and that was just the requests for autographed copies he received at home through the mail. He had no idea how many tens of thousands of orders for his book had been sent directly to Maple Leaf, up in Canada. His efforts to reach the founder of Maple Leaf were unsuccessful, so he bought a plane ticket, got a leave of absence from the mine, and went to Edmonton, to see what he could work out.
    What he learned when he got there was troubling. It seemed that Maple Leaf Publications was not much more than an elaborate scheme to defraud hundreds of aspiring writers like himself, into paying a big set-up fees, and getting little back in return. But Travis had not been asked to pay a set-up fee. So what was the deal with his book? The answer he dug up made him even more angry.
    It seemed that when Maple Leaf got a manuscript that had real merit, they had another use for it. Under an obscure clause in the contract, (which Travis had signed without fully understanding it, by the way), the founder of Maple Leaf could, if the company went bankrupt, sell off individual titles to other publishers. And neither Maple Leaf, nor the publisher they sold the titles to, was under any obligation to pass the resulting royalties on to the Author. In Travis’ case, ‘The Relic’ was sold to a British publisher, called Jester Books, who immediately began printing the book and selling it both in England, and even to book stores back in the United States. And because of the article in ‘Whisperings’ Magazine, which Travis was responsible for, ‘The Relic’ had been propelled onto the British Best-Seller’s List, at either third or fourth place all summer long. And now it was starting to climb up the Best-Seller’s List in the United States as well.
    Travis was no genius, but he didn’t have to be, to realize that if his book became a Best-Seller, even if he got no royalties from it, it would make his subsequent novels sell more easily because of the name recognition. That was the name of this game, name recognition. If Stephen King cranked out a book that was pure crap, it would still be a best-seller, just because of the name on the cover. So if he could get the name ‘Travis Lee’ out there, and synonymous with a best seller, it sure couldn’t hurt, especially if he followed it with another great work of fiction, put out by a reputable publisher.
    So it was a happy coincidence that they had already signed up for a trip to England late that summer, when Travis found out that his new publisher was located in London as well. He had contacted Jester Books, and they were delighted to learn that he was already coming to England, and they were only too glad to arrange for him to do a few book signings for them while he was there. It would help them, by selling more books,