What it’s like to put a book into the world with absolutely NO attempt to be commercial.
In 2009, I wrote, typed, laid out, hand-stitched and bound my second book. I made about 20 copies (not including this one, which failed even my low threshold for quality control).
It’s covered with material from one of my grandfather’s old shirts.
At a time when it seemed that everyone else was writing about tackling climate change by growing their own food, I wrote a book about tackling climate change by making all my own clothes.
Right down to the Y-fronts, which I crocheted using nettle fibre. (I bet you have a question for me about that.)
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Why am I telling you this? Because yesterday I posted something on social media about the need for authors and would-be authors to do two things at once:
- Write a book
- Build an audience for it, to demonstrate to publishers that people may actually want the book.
Publishers call this your platform.
In the comments on my post, somebody raised the idea that we (authors) shouldn’t need to prove we have readers.
Finding readers is a job for publishers, he said.
I don’t exactly disagree. But as things stand, many publishers will be scared to take a risk on even a stupendous book, if there’s no obvious sign of a market for it.
I don’t blame them. It’s too easy, as an author, to fall into thinking that publishers are lazy and they OUGHT to publish my book. To assume that they’re obsessed with the numbers of followers I may have on GhastlyX, or LinkedIn or whatever.
It’s HARD to build an audience ourselves. But maybe it’s worth trying?
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In 2009, after I sent out the 20 or so hand-bound copies of my book, a publisher I know astonished me by asking if she could publish the book.
So she did. It was published in paperback and distributed in the UK and the US.
And then ANOTHER publisher – one of the largest independent publishers in the UK – asked to buy the rights to publish it. It was published by Profile in 2010.
I’m so grateful to all who supported that book, which led to me being asked to write another book, How To Change The World, which in turn was published in 16 languages and remains my bestselling book.
And yet…
Please note how much hard work I put in before either of those publishers published my book:
I did the research. I made all my own clothes. I wrote thousands and thousands of words. I edited them. I added illustrations and photos. I laid out the pages. I printed them on environmentally acceptable paper. I stitched them together (in the right order!, eventually). I made a lino print of myself peering through a needle and used it to make endpapers. I cut up one of my grandfather’s old shirts. I bound the book. Then I did it all again, about 20 times, and sent them out to an audience of people I thought might like them.
Hard work, platform building, and I loved it.
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If you are determined to publish a book – well, I’m running a group for mad people like you.
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