Thread 14: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The Observer's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

The 13 Observer items currently available on their online 'The real Salt Path' page: The real Salt Path | The Observer

3 more from The Observer:

‘Hope is extinguished’: CBD patients respond to Salt Path...

The real Salt Path | The Observer (The Slow Newscast)

‘We thought: it can’t be the Salt Path couple – they’d ha...

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement: Raynor Winn

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?^

Threads 2-11: Links all in the OP of Thread 12

Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5384574-thread-12-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5386458-thread-13-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse welcome. It would be helpful to read at least some of the Observer items above before posting. There are currently 16 interesting items on The Observer website and linked to above.

To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. We have done amazingly well together for thirteen very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

Are we all becoming Hyperglycaemic from all the fudge?
Have shares in Cadbury's gone up?
Can we remain cheerful in the face of such shameless glumwashing?
Will I need to fill up with much petrol this thread for the drive-by scoldings?
Will our Chloe H get exclusive interviews with the disgruntled peregrine, tortoise and Hollywood rabbits?
What has our Simon A got to say about this, preferably in verse?

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge be with you.

It feels like she’s running a bit scared in the Aussie interview about the diagnosis. This, IME, feels like a real sensitivity as do: ‘real’ names, fact definitely not penned a word before, crazy ease of getting quickly published, Moth dragging leg. Many more no doubt.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/burtonlife/posts/23939285142434214/

@Lostinnewyork

"I don't know the Belle Gibson story but she sounds same. I do think some serious scammers are deluded/ very unwell."

A good scammer will always be ready with the 'I didn't know what I was doing' routine if all else fails: it's part of the scam. People like this are many-layered and have a persona for every occasion. The anxiety around being found out must be unbearable for some of them, so they probably end up believing their deceit and shutting out the crime they've committed or negative part of themselves.

Belle Gibson sounds and looks bizarre in that interview with 60 Minutes Australia but who knows if she's acting or not? She even says at one point that a man with a machine came to her home and diagnosed her with cancer - referred to by others as a 'travelling cancer salesman.' Apparently, she still hasn't paid the fine she was ordered to pay because she broke Consumer Law and is still enjoying her ill-gotten gains.

So to contrast the two timelines:

Big Issue version
I had given up hope of getting an agent or publisher but randomly approached an agent 10 days ago, mentioning the Big Issue article (thought I’d give it one last go) and she came back to me within the day.
Just completing the proposal to be sent out to publishers, so fingers crossed. Don’t think she’d have considered it if it hadn’t been for your article, so thanks again.

Cornesy podcast transcript version
But eventually I did look for an agent and found one that I thought would be okay. Sent you know, as you do three chapters and just a few days later she got back to me and said, kind of send the rest of the manuscript.
Within a week she said she wanted to represent me.
And then just a couple of months later we had an offer from from the publishers and I've got a penguin on the spine of my book.

No mention of the BI in that version either.

But it does not actually say months spent rewriting, it sounds more that is the time it took the publisher to react?
But that also would not fit the timeframe between BI in July and publication in March.

Yes, I wrote another post contrasting the timelines in the two versions before I saw your post, and the contrast is not as big as I thought at first from what had been said about the pod. But it's still very different. And if either makes sense to how these things happen in real life is still another question...

But how does our naive inexperienced Sal know you're supposed to send exactly 3 chapters to an agent, if that is indeed how it's done? 🤨

Agents will say on their website exactly what they want to be sent, what type of work they represent etc -- so if SW googled 'agents who represent non-fiction/travel' or something, she could have found herself on the Graham Maw Christie website.

I just Googled 'London agents who represent non-fiction' and after a few advice posts from people like Jericho Writers, in fact GMC is the first actual agency page that came up. Their site will then tell prospective authors what exactly to submit for which type of book:

https://www.grahammawchristie.com/submissions

Well I emailed the SWCPA shortly after the 1st Observer story broke, and shortly after DW and I managed to find Burgundy Chapel on North Hill, Minehead. It's just 1/2 mile further on from where the SWCP takes a sharp left turn and where there's lettering in white paint (SWCP) and an arrow pointing vertically upwards! Thankfully we didn't need to attempt that part of the walk as the chapel path continues on the level through the woods.
I contacted the Association primarily to report that the ruined chapel is completely overgrown and needs clearing. (The smart display board by the ruin, shown in a photo on line, was taken 19 years ago! No trace now.
I also suggested that they disassociate the charity from mention of TSP etc. on their website. They wrote back to thank me for contacting them and said the matter was "under review", they didn't want to rush and make the wrong decision.

Tim was always yummy to our Sal 🤤😂

But it does not actually say months spent rewriting, it sounds more that is the time it took the publisher to react?

No, it doesn't specify, but I'd be surprised if her agent didn't work on edits with her before sending it out, especially as a debut author.

It's hard to know a likely timescale for those, though. Some of it would depend on what other books the agent had on at the time, therefore how much time she could dedicate to this one. Also there are quiet periods in the publishing year where no agent wants to send a book out. And some would also depend on how amenable SW was to suggestions, and how quick to work on them she was.

If an editor was genuinely excited about a book, response time would usually be faster than a couple of months. An agent will say in the pitch 'I'm only sending it to you and two other people, because I think you'll love this,' plus the moment any editor gets back and expresses an interest, the agent will then contact anyone else who hasn't already passed on it (pitches are usually sent out in batches) and say 'PRH are interested -- are you?' thereby creating conditions for a possible auction. Obviously, again, we don't know whether this was the case for TSP.

But that also would not fit the timeframe between BI in July and publication in March.

Yes, that would be impossible. Publishing lead in times are lengthy.

I just thought the way she said it - "as you do" - sounded more knowledgeable, like she was familiar with the process (or trying to impress the interviewer?)
Also, the list on that website does not say 3 chapters, at least not in the current version.

But I also find it very demanding - the author is supposed to provide market research on similar titles?!

Yes, you are supposed to tell potential publishers which current books your book is 'like', also what films are like it! I struggled with this as my books aren't like ANY that I could think of and I don't really watch films...

I did just wonder if the speed of bringing the book out might be because someone else didn't make their deadline and because TSP was edited and ready to go they bumped it up the lists a bit? I know some of my books have come out a few months early because I write quite fast and there's not a lot of editing, so my books can be used to plug a gap when another author is having a hard time hitting their wordcount, or can't make their edits by a certain date.

I remember someone saying that before the TSP publication there was marketing phase with postcards of the cover picture lying in bookshops - does not sound like a last-minute bumped up book to me?

Perhaps they see themselves as a latter day Mick and Marianne, although the latter vehemently denied that rumour was true and TBH I think she wouldn't if it had been, she was pretty candid about her life and its many ups and downs (unlike some)

Mick was probably dipping it in his tea

Back then I think a Flake was the height of sensual chocolate-eating, no?

As someone of a similar age to SW - as it seems are most of us on this thread - Flake sensual, Mars Bar Sex 😂

On the balance of probabilities, I think it is likely that all 3 letters are from the same consultant. The cognitive function clinic at the Walton Centre has 2 consultants, one of whom also works for BCU Health Board, and the letters after his name match up. Only 1 medical school in the UK uses that (Latin 🙄) form of the name for a medical degree and gives out MAs for Bachelors degrees in the sciences 😂 He also has a PhD and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. A less common, if not rare, combination.

And by a woman rather than a man?

Yes. And conversely, it seems she's made up a lot of stuff as well which is in the books. So not only are we missing the extraneous stuff, we get limited or questionably "true" encounters. So where are the "real, this actually happened" stories?

DO NOT GIVE ME THE EARWORM.

Especially not the one involving the woman wearing an awful lot of eighties make up and spiky hairgel fellates the Crumbliest Flakiest Flake in an overflowing bathtub.

Ah, now, times have moved on since then. Men can have their turn at flooding the bathroom because they’re so overcome by the chocolate that’s melting all over their fingers* that they turn the tap on rather than off.

*unless the bath is cold 🥶 but this always bothered me as a kid. Also the bits of flake that fall off would melt on your boobs, or fall in the water. That would annoy me. Worst bar of chocolate for wastage.

Minor correction: she writes to the Big Issue editor "weeks" after her published article to update him, saying she got signed by an agent 10 days after it was published and that they are now prepping it for sending to publishers. So this contact weeks later could tally with " a couple of months". Still, you are right - it's not enough time. It all sounds invented.

But they would have to have waited till after they were married for a twirl (marriage 1986, twirls came out 1987)

@TurraeaFloribunda my tutor at uni had an MA just for having passed his bachelor’s from that august institution three or five years earlier!

Random observations:

I always thought the dropping of the change épisode was nonsense on stilts. See also Mullion Cove café , Grant's beauties, and random eccentrics a long the way.

Struck by how rarely she name checks Mark Wallingford as opposed to Paddy Dillon. I wonder why?

I did like the comedy new âge session they attended (or didn't) at Glastonbury. Leads of that kind of stuff near me and have got entangled with it more than once.