So I just turned down a book deal

Last month, on being introduced to a small, very wealthy American poker publisher, I proposed expanding my Isildur1 blog into a novel. Then I suggested a journalistic account of the Isildur1 story. But it soon became clear they wanted what they called my "autobiography".

Over the next few weeks I drafted and redrafted a chapter plan. I figured out how to use my trip to Sweden in search of Viktor Blom as a way into my own story.

I'd dropped out of my PhD to become a compulsive gambler, working as a secretary in corporate law firms to earn money to lose. Eventually I came to see I ought to give up poker; but instead I gave up money. I became a cycle courier as a 29 year old overweight chain smoker. I hoped adrenaline could replace the stationary thrill of online poker.

Then I came to realize I gambled because I couldn't deal with being alone. So I joined a group of art-squatters living communally in a Mayfair mansion. At the time I thought our events were what mattered; but later I realized it was the group itself that was making me happy. In the few months we were there I found both a freedom and a sense of belonging I'd never felt before.



But then we moved to a residential squat in South London; and normal life took over. After another attempt squatting in Mayfair, and finding myself closer to vagrancy than ever before, without the comforts of group identity, I moved back to my parents where I became obsessed with a mysterious Swedish high stakes poker player known as Isildur1. I went to Sweden to find him.

When I went to the Cosmopol casino and Slottsskogen zoo in Gothenburg I felt transported back to an incident when I was Isildur1's age which I've written about in my post First Love Last Rites.

My trip to Sweden is finally revealed as a search for self-acceptance. The book itself would be an act of recovery. It would be in the writing of it it that I finally overcame the urge to play poker.

Though my inability to handle money was my own, I'd inherited class anxiety from my mother, who told me we were descended from grand Italian stock. My great uncle was a poet-general married to a jeweler, and my great-grandparents had been a countess and a judge. A distant relation had recently been made a saint. And my great-aunt lived alone in a seafront apartment in the centre of Trieste, slipping into dementia amongst her moth-eaten fur coats and memories of men not good enough to marry.

I wouldn't be the only character in my book. I'd met many people with stories more interesting than my own. The minimal techno DJ with whom I often stayed in Naples in my early 20s. The sincere, conflicted young anarchist; the corporate lawyer who wished he was still in the army; the Cambridge-educated squatter who by day worked as a barrister and by night explored a carelessly-left cathedral, power station, skyscrapers and train tunnels. And the laughing young professor who grew mould and stuffed a duck in the corner of the squat.

My framework was very English. I'd mention Alan Clark in my story, who I'd met campaigning on the Kings Road; and Ian Hamilton, the subject of my PhD, which I'd been inspired to start after chancing upon his essay The Trouble with Money in a public library.

I'd developed my ideas beyond what I felt would would appeal to an American poker audience. So I was surprised to find the publishers loved my proposal. I was told I mustn't write a dull paragraph; and I must let the reader savour each sentence like a cherry. But I had to write the book quickly. They wanted to market it at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas the next month.

Flattered by their interest, I told them I thought I could write two chapters a week, on top of working full time and spending three hours a day commuting. It did feel rather odd that, without my having seen or signed a contract, we had agreed a submission schedule, and they told me they were planning my website and wondered what photo I'd like for the book's cover.

I submitted the second chapter and didn't receive feedback for five days. In that time I met with a lady whose book was recently published by HarperCollins. She said it's absolutely standard for publishers to pay an advance for non-fiction books. It is the money the authors live on whilst writing. She told me I ought to speak to an agent.

The publisher finally sent me an email setting out terms. I'd receive 10-20% depending on sales and format, with bonuses if I sold above certain amounts. They'd sell it as an eBook but also print 10,000 copies. I'd be promoted through a website they'd set up for me, as well as a network of poker sites and Facebook.

I was told it was by far the most lucrative offer they had ever made an author, let alone a first-time one. They talked about promoting me as a public speaker; speaking to their Hollywood contact; foreign translation rights; 35% of money if they sold the book on to another publisher; and the possibility of further commissions. They said this deal represented a significant earning opportunity for me, but they weren't offering a cent upfront.

I politely but terminally declined their offer. My email was so final that, having gushed with excitement days earlier, they now didn't even respond. I'd appreciated the respect with which they'd treated me. Was I imagining myself to be be Isildur1 pulling out of the Big Game IV? No. I simply couldn't write the book to their schedule without quitting my job, which I wasn't prepared to do, at least not without a significant advance.

I didn't want my book to be rushed, and I wasn't convinced it was right for them anyway. They liked my title "The Search for Isildur1" with its echo of Hamilton's In Search of J.D. Salinger. But as my ideas evolved, I felt using Isildur1 in the title would please only the publisher. Poker fans would buy the book under false pretenses, whilst it would mean nothing to the mainstream audience I hoped to reach.

I also realized I wanted redemption more than money. It might take me the rest of the year to write the best book I'm capable of. Will I be able to find another publishing deal? Well, I shall find out.