I was down the big smoke last week meeting up with the Paperbooks team. We discussed quite a few things, including an update on gettting Streakers made into a film. Not signed and sealed, but we’re on the march and there are plenty of irons in the old fire and I have a meeting next week. I will keep you posted, and keep my promise of getting us all a part as extras. Just look what happened to Ricky Gervais in Extras. You never know, my son.
We also discussed book sales, promotions, and when I got back to blighty my head was in overdrive. Being with an independent publisher has advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that, and especially so with paperbooks, they’re very flexible and open to ideas, schemes, partnerships, basically anything that sounds good. On the downside, is that they don’t have the huge financial backing of the larger publishing houses. Therefore, in the main chains, like Waterstones, you don’t get prime shop floor position for your books. No cash - no go in the 3for2s. End of.
Last Christmas, in Borders, they actually took copies of Fat Tuesday off the shelves and hid them until the Christmas rush was over. Well, this year’s going to be different. I’m not in the big time yet, so I need to find a way to get some more books shifting and in prime locations at the front of shops. Tomorrow I’m heading into town to see if I can talk a couple of the newsagents into stocking Streakers at a discount price. I buy from the publisher, knock it out to the newsagent at a discount, he makes a decent mark-up, I’m at front of store with a shit load of passing trade, everyone’s a winner.
I’ve got to start somewhere before this film deal sends everything into orbit, haven’t I? And believe me I’ve done a lot worse than this idea. When we were younger, David ‘The Fryer’ Shanley and my good self would do anything to turn a few quid. We had a market stall on Newcastle’s Quayside selling mops and buckets, we had a sportswear business, not in the same league as Mike Ashley, but there were some quality shell suits being worn by 90% of the DSS.
Our finest hour came when we bought a doughnut trailer and started doing all the fairs. Five for a pound we knocked them out for and although we never made any huge profits, we had some great laughs, none better than when we put disinfectant in the tea. We had to give a load of Panda pop away to keep the punters from rolling us. The best gig we had was when Newcastle won the old first division and Davey pulled me out of college and we hitched the trailer up and headed onto Great North Road. We were selling them as quick as we could make them and praying the open-top bus would break down. Once it passed us, it was like a ghost town. Still we were eighty up, not to be sniffed at. So, now it’s time to have a go with the books. Cushty.
Gary
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