The Holy Grail of Word-of-Mouth

The British publishers of “Sold”, which I wrote for Zana Muhsen some twenty years ago and which has sold around four million copies worldwide, have just re-designed the book's cover. The image of the sad, beautiful and frightened girl’s eyes peering out of the burka remains but there is more black in the surround which, coupled with the new red lettering, brings to mind the vampire books which have come to dominate the shelves of book shops in recent years.

I have an enormous affection for “Sold”, partly because it was one of the first books I ghosted and partly because hardly a day goes by that I don’t receive at least one email from a reader. Sometimes they start by saying it is their favourite book of all time, (always an endearing thing for any writer to read), and that it has left them unbearably moved. They all then go on to say that they feel an overwhelming need to know what happened to Zana and her sister, Nadia, after the close of this book, and its sequel “A Promise to Nadia”, which we wrote about ten years later.
As far as I know the book has never been advertised or reviewed in any media, apart from readers’ comments on sites like Amazon. So its steady sales of around 200,000 copies a year must be solely down to word- of-mouth. People simply like Zana’s story and tell their friends about it.

Zana and Nadia were two Birmingham sisters who thought they were going on holiday to Yemen when they were fourteen and fifteen but found once they got there that their father had sold them into virtual slavery as child brides. “Sold” is the tale of how Zana managed to escape after eight years and then started a campaign to free her sister and their children. The main platform of her campaign was the writing of the book.

It is wonderful to see a refreshed cover coming out in the country where the whole thing started twenty years ago.

Putting a Story on Facebook

Having been inspired by a talk from the internet marketing guru, Miles Galliford, at a recent meeting of United Authors, I decided to take the bull by the horns and try using Facebook to disseminate a story to the world.

It looked like being a bit of a long plod up yet another steep learning curve, but I got the hang of websites and blogging so surely this can’t be too hard. Miles certainly made it all sound very simple indeed.

The hook is the announcement of the autumn publication of my book “The Change Agent – How to Create a Wonderful World” by Tonto Books.

The story behind the book is that I received an urgent invitation to a mysterious private island in Bermuda from a man who has just donated £100-million to Oxford University.

The island gradually revealed its labyrinthine secrets as the host, futurist James Martin, explained the choice that faces us all: to create the greatest Utopia ever, or plunge ourselves back into the Dark Ages, maybe even destroying Homo sapiens completely.

At the same time he explained how a shy boy from a poor family in Ashby-de-la-Zouche had come to be Oxford University’s biggest ever donor and the founder of the extraordinary James Martin 21st Century School.

Given the nature of the story, it seems appropriate that we use all the most futuristic methods of marketing available, especially as Tonto have created a cracking cover, complete with a quote from Bill Gates.

The scary thing about the whole Facebook thing is that once you have pressed the button things happen very fast indeed and within a few seconds the bull’s deceptively greasy horns had slipped from my grip. So, can I take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who might have emailed me many years ago and is now wondering why they are suddenly being greeted as my very best friend in the world and encouraged to “look at my photos”.

I will, I promise, get this demented bull sedated as quickly as possible before it flattens the whole china shop, and then I can return to being as cool about the whole “future” business as Miles Galliford – and indeed James Martin himself - seem to be.

Books Written for Strictly Private Consumption

Just back from a week-long editorial meeting in the mountains of Tuscany with a distinguished international investment banker, who is now a resident of Monte Carlo.

The banker is writing his memoirs but, unlike most memoirists, he has no desire whatsoever to see his book on the bestseller lists. This is a strictly private affair, just a few copies to be produced for his grandson and other descendants to stumble across and pore over in the future. It is the literary equivalent of having a portrait painted for posterity.

With so many of us currently obsessed with tracing our family histories I’m guessing this is a trend which will grow. I have an Ancestry Addict in the family and I can imagine just how excited she would be to stumble across a privately published book of this nature commissioned by one of her ancestors a century or two ago. A full length book can go into a far greater level of detail than virtually any other accessible medium, while providing a thing of beauty to look at and hold in the future.

The grandson in question was also in the mountains with us and, unsurprisingly at eighteen months of age, showed no interest whatsoever in tales of his illustrious ancestors. In forty or fifty years time, however, the book will still be in his library and available to enlighten him on his colourful family past.

Billionaires Put Their Money into Searching for Answers

Last year, as I started work on my book about the futurologist James Martin, he had just pledged to give another $50-million of his own money to the school he had founded at Oxford University, The James Martin 21st Century School, if other benefactors would be willing to match the money. He had already given the school $100-million to get them started.

There were many who were sceptical that he would be able to find enough people willing to take up the challenge and match his offer during a time of apparent economic meltdown.

A couple of nights ago I went to hear him give The Commonwealth Lecture in the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street and found him bubbling with even more enthusiasm than usual. The pledges were all in and other donors, including such mighty names as George Soros and Bill Gates, had come up with an astonishing $90-million to add to Jim’s promise of $50-million.

The aim of the school is to “foster innovative thinking, deep scholarship and collaborative activity to address the pressing risks and create new opportunities for the 21st Century”.

It’s grand to know that so many people are willing to put their cheque books where their mouths are when it comes to sorting out the problems of the future – if only we could find some political leaders cut from the same cloth.

My book about Jim – currently entitled “The Change Agent – How to Create a Wonderful World” is scheduled for publication by Tonto Books in October.

Dinner With Zippy

People complain about the corporatisation of modern publishing and at the London Book Fair smooth be-suited purveyors of digital wonders did seem to outnumber the traditional tweeds, bow ties and boxes of remaindered titles.

Stuart Wheatman of Tonto Books, however, shines like a beacon of hope for those who like their publishers to be mischievous and eccentric, happier following their own hunches and enthusiasms than attending sales and marketing meetings.

The estimable Wheatman has bought a couple of titles off me and so we arranged to meet for supper in the Earls Court Road after the show had closed its doors, along with his editor in chief, Jill Morris.

Flushed and panting, Wheatman exploded through the crowd of new arrivals waiting around the door a couple of minutes late, lugging what looked like a school trunk, which he dropped beside the table as he sank gratefully into his chair, struggling for breath.

‘It’s Zippy,’ he said, gesturing to the trunk. ‘From Rainbow. I’ve got to guard him for the night and get him back to Soho in the morning.’

Zippy’s alter-ego, puppeteer Ronnie le Drew, is doing a book with Stuart and he and Zippy had been making a personal appearance at the Fair.

This seems a good start towards Stuart’s professed ambition to build a list of ‘quirky left-field lives’ in the style of John Blake. The wisdom of this ambition was born out by the news from the Book Fair that John Blake himself would not be able to attend this year as he was ‘trapped on his yacht in Turkey’ by the volcanic dust crisis.

The following evening I was back in a crowded Earls Court pub with Stuart, who was sandwiched between one of my clients, the colourful rock and country impresario, Mervyn Conn, and one of the pub’s regulars, a mighty seven foot transvestite of African descent.

What a wonderful and varied world book publishing still is.

A Despised and Secretive Breed

Feeling crushed today upon reading in the Daily Mail that Chris Tookey, the esteemed newspaper’s film and theatre critic, believes ghostwriters are “a despised and secretive breed”.

It must be wonderful to belong to two breeds as adored as theatre critics and Daily Mail journalists. Note to self, must try harder to break into a more revered circle of folk.

How the Fabulous Dreams of Melissa Bell Came True

Tomorrow sees the publication of Heart and Soul, a book I have helped Melissa Bell to write.

Melissa is a singer, a kidney dialysis patient and campaigner, and the mother of X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke.

The story takes flight when, as a shy, plump ten year-old, Melissa sees Lena Zavaroni winning Opportunity Knocks and dreams of one day doing the same herself.

Many years later she gets to see her daughter become an overnight star and fulfil all the dreams she herself was chasing so passionately, but by that time she is confined to a kidney dialysis machine for a large part of her life.

It is a story that anyone who has dreamed of being a star, or who has harboured wild ambitions for their children, will understand.

Heart and Soul is being published by John Blake.