Yesterday, in the bright sunshine, writer and collaborator Thérésa Hedges joined me in the big smoke to hit Earl’s Court’s London Book Fair in the hope of finding a publisher for our raw recipe book. (The Raw Deli’s Silvia Clausin was UTA due to being tied up with workshops at a retreat.)
There are some buildings in London that, for me, represent the essence of our great city and Earl’s Court is one of them.
Designed by architect C. Howard Crane and opened in 1936, it has hosted shows and events from David Bowie, to the annual Boat Show. On approach, it’s so imposing, monumental, happy memories flood back….it has a special place in my heart. I’ve seen tons of bands there over the years but I digress….
We still aren’t decided on a name for our book. It started as Seasonal Raw in two editions, Autumn/Winter, Spring/Summer. A personal project that has been on-going for what feels like months, my motives for getting involved were portfolio development. Silvia wanted something to sell at workshops and Thérésa to raise her profile. Then it grew and grew.
There was very little dosh around so we opted to use Blurb.com’s Booksmart software. That way we would be able to order small amounts on demand. This seemed to be the perfect solution, plus although I’ve used InDesign, we’re none of us graphic designers. (I did train in Graphics a long, long time ago when people still used Cow Gum!) Unfortunately during the last year that we were working on the book, the unit price of each book rocketed due to global econonic pressures.
We had come so far down the road. The text was ready, the recipes were tested and I had shot the photographs. Then we hit “THE WALL.”
Around the same time, I had a call from Arthur Brown, of Cooling Brown book packagers. (He’s a past client through DK.) Perfect! Just the ticket : a man who’s on the money. So we met him over a coffee. He’d had a look at our stuff and Silvia’s web site and thought there was mileage in our idea, especially since Silvia has some on-line video recipes to offer. So we decided to try and find a publisher.
The Book Fair was well timed. It took Thérésa and I about an hour to get our bearings once inside. The exhibition was enormous. All the major players were there: DK, Kyle Cathie, Jacqui Small, Mitchell Beazley, Octopus….it just went on and on. People were generally helpful and friendly and we got some great leads. Upstairs were the literary agents, corralled separately. We had less luck there. We couldn’t find any that specialised in recipe books plus they were SO ALOOF DAHLINK. We wandered about, eyes wide and finally came to rest for a bite to eat. I was ravenous as I’d forgotten breakfast entirely. Thérésa was much more organised. We discussed ideas for a new title over a bagel with yeast paté. Very healthy and loaded with magnesium and B vits. Tasty too, all washed down with Thérésa’s surprising raw cocoa smoothie. How organised!
We were tired and happy, very satisfied and filled with optimism. We’d come with a goal and had achieved it : to get as many contacts as possible. Job done!
All I can say is, if you want to get a book published, or want to know about publishing for Kindles or Ipads, this is the place to be. Who knows…..we might get a publisher very, very soon….so watch this space!
