HOW A DREAM BECAME A REALITY

HOW many times have you heard someone say that they’d love to write a book about their experiences in life? Too many to mention, probably. And then the conversation moves on… and that’s the last you hear of it. My book Beef Cubes and Burdock: Memories of a 1950s Country Childhood was published by Austin Macauley in May, 2018. I’d approached them in the March of the previous year but it was two months before they agreed to a contributory deal – an arrangement whereby the author stumps up some cash to offset the cost of publication. Like many writers, I could paper several walls with rejection slips. That’s so often how it goes, and there’s no point in feeling bitter and twisted when a publishing house turns you down. They have their reasons, most of which are entirely valid. However, the name of this particular game is persistence and patience and a refusal to concede defeat. If you don’t possess these qualities, it’s better not to bother. You have to keep the faith. What makes Austin Macauley different from the rest is that their contributory system makes it possible to bridge the yawning gap between the gamble of outright investment by them in a project that may well fail, and the sometimes mocked ‘vanity’ route. At this stage I should say there’s nothing wrong in ‘vanity’ publication. If that’s what you want to do, then fine. You’ll be in good company, too… Ezra Pound, W H Davies and William Blake were all what you could call ‘vanity’ writers at some stage in their careers. But the contributory system really worked for me. I’m by no means a wealthy person and I paid my part of the bargain in instalments, just as you would a utility bill. And the price wasn’t extortionate, either – about the cost of a two-week foreign holiday. Think about it. All right, I did have to take a slightly deep breath at the time. I’ve been a working journalist all my life and its been others who have paid me to write for a newspaper or magazine. But then I thought about it. Beef Cubes and Burdock was the product of accumulated essays I’d written down the years, combined into one book. I’d started writing it 35 years ago just after the death of my father. During those sad months of bereavement, I gathered my thoughts about childhood and the more carefree times of my youth, and felt an irresistible urge to put them down on paper. And with a typewriter, too. What’s one of those, you may well ask. Well, it was a writing machine that was universally in use before the computer age. And no, William Shakespeare didn’t possess one… the typewriter replaced pens that had presumably rendered quills redundant. The best advice you can give any aspiring author is to write about what he or she knows. And I was blessed with an almost photographic memory of my boyhood, growing up in rural Warwickshire. So what was there to hold me back? Contributory publication has its critics. I’ve seen criticism of it on the internet, much of it ludicrously over-the-top and, frankly, totally unfair. Let me tell you something. Austin Macauley is a very supportive publisher and their aftercare, once a book is out, is beyond reproach. I like to think that I’m a reasonably positive person and have high hopes for Beef Cubes and Burdock. And who knows… could my stories of country life in the 1950s be the next Heartbeat? So are there any television scriptwriters reading this? But I do know something. In years to come, my book could well have ended up as just a faded manuscript, gathering dust and its yellowing pages slowly disintegrating in a bottom drawer belonging to one of my descendants. Thankfully, that now will not happen. For whatever lies ahead in the future, my book Beef Cubes and Burdock has become a reality. And for that we should thank a publisher that merely and reasonably asks you to put your money where your mouth is to help make a dream come true. John Phillpott, journalist and author July, 2018

 

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