Farrukh Dhondy | Of ‘Sexploiters’; and How To Help the Sale of Books on the Internet…

Yes, writers want their books to sell, just as Popes want their prayers answered. A publisher friend tells me that the sales of books are negotiated now, not so much in bookshops but through the Internet.

My problem is that I don’t know how to advertise or get my books reviewed on, say, Goodreads or Click-Clock. I did some months ago use Facelift to tell all those on it that certain published titles of mine were available. I have no idea if putting their covers on this screen thing, as I was instructed to do, boosted sales.

The old saying is that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Contemporary technology has made it possible for hustlers and crooks to rush in where angels would be embarrassed to be seen.

One instance? My daughter Tir Dhondy is a TV presenter for the BBC, Channel 4 and other stations. She specialises in taking risks doing dangerous programmes -- tracking and interviewing gangs of Rolex thieves, Las Vegas criminals, parcel thieves, Bitcoin launderers, etc. I could say she is an angel who rushes in where others would fear to tread? (Enough family advertising –Ed… Just one more, yaar? --fd).

Recently, Tir went to the slums of Lagos to cover, for the Beeb, a phenomenon known as “Sexploitation”. This entails criminal gangs setting up Internet communication with young men by pretending to be sexy young women. As the correspondence becomes intimate, they post nude pictures and ask the young men for compromising photographs in return. When they receive these, they threaten to publicise them to the young men’s parents, friends, colleagues, etc, and demand sums of money to suspend this exposure. Blackest blackmail!

The documentary began with the suicide of one young man who took his life when he couldn’t pay what the “sexploiters” demanded.

There we are: hustlers and criminals spot a gap in the contemporary “market” enabled today by technological development.

And so, to book sales… In the past weeks, I have received insistent communications from four different communicants with female Christian names. These begin by over-the-top praise for and interest in one of my books -- the first three for my latest translations of selections from the work of the Sufi poets, Rumi and Hafiz.

The latest communicant starts with three very positive and even extravagant reviews of Hawk and Hyena, my book about my twenty-year association and acquaintance with the serial killer Charles Sobhraj. These communicants all claim they are professional promoters of book sales through the Internet, and they so admire my work that they want to put their professional skills to significantly boost the sales of my books and consequently my royalties.

They don’t begin by saying they will charge me for their work, but the first one, who volunteered to get a campaign going on the Internet for my Hafiz translations, outlined the steps she would take to increase the visibility of the book to readers. Then she wrote to say that her professional work would cost $600, snd I could pay that in two instalments, half before she began the serious promotion campaign.

There was a similar pattern from the other “promoters” quoting the fees they would charge, having attached favourable reviews from three or more people to their emails. Of course, all the reviews were flatteringly positive… hmmm!

They were different but, to me, had the odour of AI-generated similarity.

I thought to myself that a professional book-promoter and reviewer certainly ought to be familiar with world literature, and I replied to the latest one, saying I was sure she would require payment for her work, and I hoped she would “charge less than the Light Brigade”. Her prompt reply asked who or what was “the Light Brigade”. I said it was my attempt at a joke, but she was obviously unaware of one the most famous poems in the English language. Hmmm???

When I said I couldn’t afford what each of them asked, they said they’d conferred with their CEO and asked what I could afford.

I said I’d only consider payment by results. In other words, I’d get sales figures of the title from my publishers and my royalty share from these, and then pay the promoters a generous percentage of the royalties No acceptance of this proposed fair deal yet!

What would positively boost the sales of Hawk and Hyena are two possible newsworthy developments or occurrences.

The first? Sobhraj has threatened to sue me. Not for the first time. Years ago, I wrote a work of fiction based on some facts of his life called The Bikini Murders. I didn’t use his name, but all the reviewers caught on, and the book became a bestseller. He then threatened on Indian TV to sue me, but as a convicted serial killer wouldn’t succeed in any court.

Now he has threatened to sue again. If he does, it will be news and certainly boost the sales of Hawk and Hyena.

Secondly, Sobhraj suffers from a serious heart condition, and if Ahura Mazda, or the other one decides….