He will have a beard
He will be broke
He will not want to go on holiday
When he goes on holiday he will visit every bookshop within fifty miles
He will already have a partner, better off than himself
He will talk non-stop about how terrible Waterstones is
Apart from when complaining about Amazon
Or moaning about the Arts Council
He will have friends who are poets
He might be a poet
At launch parties everyone will ignore you unless you are a writer
He will start work at 6.30am
His idea of fun is a book launch 200 miles away
His idea of nice wine is Kwiksave BOGOFF, left over from a book launch
He will not own a car, and can't drive
He will ask for lifts in your car, without knowing he is doing it
His office will be very untidy, spilling over with unsaleable books
It will not be clean
On principle he will only publish books that lose money
He believes in the creative economy while contributing nothing to it
He resents successful small presses
He will not have a pension plan
Other than you are his pension plan
He will never retire
His share of the phone bill will be 80%, but he will pay only 50%
He will have authors staying who have travelled 250 miles to read for twenty minutes to an audience of seventeen
You will have seen the same seventeen people at every reading for thirty years
50% of his income will go on buying books
He will talk to you at length about the book he is editing
He will ignore your advice when you suggest changes or wonder who would buy such a book
31. He knows the names of every book reviewer in the UK. None of them know his name
32. He anxiously scans the review pages of the Guardian every Saturday even though his last book review in any broadsheet was in 1992
33. He mutters
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