The A to Z of British (and Irish) Popular Culture

When I decided to have a crack at publishing my latest book myself rather than through an established publishing house I had no idea of the many and various pitfalls I would come up against. I obviously took advice from friends in the industry who had also taken the plunge and indeed met with my erstwhile publishers Tim Whiting and Alan Samson at Little Brown and Orion respectively. That said, some of the things that frustrate you cannot be catered for, and in my case the biggest obstacle was to find a printer that could actually deal with books of the magnitude of the A to Z series. And I am not arrogant enough to mean the importance of my books when I use the term magnitude I literally mean the actual size of the book!

Various well-intentioned printers attempted mock-ups of the A to Z of almost Everything but alas none of them could produce a finished article that would hold the binding of the book. Try as they may by reducing font size and page display all attempts failed so I decided to try CPI Clowes, the printer that produced the 5^th edition of my best-selling book. Clowes offered me a competitive quote and are now handling both the physical book and also the E-book. Mine will be one of the few quality books available thus far as an E-book. That is not to disparage the existing electronic reference market but the truth is the established so called quality popular reference books such as mine have not been reproduced as it is felt it would eat into their physical market too much. This might be so but my way of thinking is that it is great for the reading public to have a choice and I know full well that some people buy my books because they look good on the shelf, other readers are diehard fans of the physical book, some staunch quizplayers will no doubt purchase both formats (at least I hope they will). But even if the E-market supersedes the physical, so what, surely the reader demand should be catered for and not segregated against. As a former accountant I understand the need to discriminate the sales markets but not the need to discriminate against the buying public!

I’m very excited at the prospect of negotiating with retailers and libraries as I haven’t a clue if anyone will want to buy the book in without the backing of an established publishing house. And of course the marketing of my books has always been done very efficiently by Little Brown, the sales team placing it in all sorts of unusual markets, the best of which was undoubtedly Readers Digest, who sold almost 10,000 on their very first ad and it became their best-ever selling book. And then there is the promotion of the book, the home team have always packed me off to the BBC for a week of half-hour slots on BBC Radio stations around the UK and Ireland. Will I have the same facility on my own? It is all uncertain and even today when I thought the book was in the can and all I now need to do was to set up some sort of payment system on my dedicated website for advance sales I overlooked the small question of ISBN numbers. I had assumed the printer would sort this one out but was horrified to find out that it was down to me! The usual method is to purchase an ISBN via a UK agent and the process takes about 10 days which would have meant I was struggling to get the book out before my intended target of the middle of June (as I have a short holiday planned with a Christian group in Studland, close to where my father lives). I might still struggle as other unforeseen circumstances arise but fortunately a quick phone call to Little Brown seems to have solved this particular problem as they have promised to send me a few numbers before the end of the day which is jolly decent of them considering I am not publishing the book with them.

One of the prime reasons why I have not sought out a publisher for this work and do not intend to for future works (although once I have failed miserably I will undoubtedly bash down the doors of all and sundry with tail firmly planted betwixt my legs) is to keep the costs down and thereby sell my books a little cheaper than at present. Of course I cannot dictate to any retailer and now my books have been increased to £30 it might be difficult to persuade them to lower the price but that is the idea, and I will certainly offer retailers the product as close to cost as possible in my quest to contain the price. Advance sales should be £20 as long as there aren’t too many to cope with and I’ll do my utmost to keep as close to this price has humanly possible, at least for the forthcoming pop culture book and the Sports book which was originally planned to be published via Orion but if all is well I shall now publish myself too.

And what does The A to Z of British (and Irish) Popular Culture actually contain you might ask? Well here is a brief synopsis of what is between the covers. There is a promo video floating around somewhere on Facebook or Youtube (Not sure about the website) but in a nutshell

Television and Radio

In-depth details of more than 2,000 TV and Radio shows

Including comprehensive cast lists past and present

Biographies of well-known presenters

And all the various reality show winners

Cinema

In-depth details of more than 2,000 films stretching back to the days of silent movies

Including comprehensive cast lists and plot synopsis

Biographies of more than 1,000 film stars

Plus all the famous British institutions, Bond, Potter, Doctor, Confessions

What a Carry On!

Pop Music

In-depth chart history of hundreds of bands and solo artists

Including dates and chart positions of singles and albums

Biographies of pop stars past and present

Plus every UK Top 10 listing since the dawn of the charts

Comedy

In-depth coverage of stage, screen and radio comedy

Including Music Hall, Double Acts, Ventriloquists and Stand-ups

Biographies of hundreds of comedians past and present

Plus catchphrases, routines, novelty records and films

Miscellaneous Section

In-depth coverage of those quirky British Institutions

Including Beauty Pageants, Celebrity Mums…..and Dads, Pipesmokers and Rears of the year

Biographies of hundreds of models, presenters, soap, reality and sports stars

Plus Comics and Cartoon Strips

And for the ladies – Magazines!

And for the gents – Classic Cars and Motorbikes

I hope you like it