How to Publish the Perfect Book: A Morality Tale
Publishing charity books feels good, but often that’s all it does. Mostly, and tragically, they sink without a trace. Publishing anthologies is ALWAYS a nightmare. All those fiddly permissions with different rights and territories held by different publishers, agents, estates. Publishing a charity anthology … well, you do the math.
On a gloomy day in February 2010 we were visited at our office by members of The Reader Organisation, which claims it’s on the cusp of a reading revolution. We met Jane Davis, the charity’s founder, who started corresponding with Doris Lessing when she (Jane) was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Doris offered to send Jane (broke, on the dole, young kids) money to buy books. Jane refused the money, but liked the idea of the books. So she joined her local library and she read, and read and read. Until she was better. And now Jane is on a mission to make others feel better through reading books. She is a kind of Jamie Oliver for books. She has exactly that zeal and energy and conviction.
The Reader Organisation runs weekly ‘read-aloud groups’ in care homes for the elderly, in prisons, in rehab clinics, hospitals, schools, libraries and children’s homes. The stories of their success are staggering and often deeply moving – from a group of fireman reading Chekhov and talking intimately about their lives for the first time, to the old lady who asked to read the part of Iago because ‘I was married to that bastard for thirty years’, to patients feeling less pain and depression lifting. Their work has been called ‘one of the most significant developments in mental health practice in the last ten years’ by Dr Fearnley, Psychiatrist of the Year 2009.
Naturally, that day in our office, we were helpless to resist Jane and her colleagues. So, we hatched a plan to produce an anthology of pieces for reading aloud, all tried and tested in The Reader Organisation’s groups. It would be a groundbreaking book, and all royalties would go to the charity. And our beloved author Blake Morrison was one of the trustees of the charity and would write us a brilliant introduction. Bingo! Wonderful. A nice little project that would fit in beautifully with Random House’s literacy initiatives and our own belief in the power of books and reading.
But that’s not quite how it turned out. We produced a nice little sampler to publicise the book and sent it out to anyone who’d ever expressed any interest in books or reading or charities or … you get the picture. And then the oddest things started happening. One day, my office phone rang.
‘Hello’ I replied.
‘Hello, hello, is that Becky?’
‘Oh My God,’ I shrieked. ‘Is that Richard Briers?’ (I’m notoriously bad at recognising people’s voices on the phone but there was absolutely no mistaking that voice.) Richard explained that he reads aloud to stroke victims and would do anything at all to help our wonderful project.
Next came a quote from Stephen Fry to use on our cover: ‘I’ve always known that reading aloud was one of the paths to greater happiness in life. It’s rather pleasing to hear of research backing this up convincingly. But reading aloud isn’t medicine to be swallowed to make one feel better. It’s pleasure. Pure pleasure.’
And then came an email from Alain de Botton and a quote from Fiona Phillips and one from Joanna Trollope. It seemed we were in the middle of something really rather extraordinary. The idea of the book and The Reader Organisation’s work had clearly hit a nerve.
As an editor, I spend a lot of time writing to people asking – well, begging – them to support my books. It’s a pretty soul-destroying – and completely embarrassing – part of the job. But it has to be done. But with this book. Well. They just kept rolling in. Just as I was about to send the cover to press, I decided to have quick look in my spam folder as I’d just been away.
And what, dear reader, do you think I found there?
Only a quote from Phillip Pullman! ‘Unlike playing the piano or doing conjuring tricks, which take hours upon hours of practice before they're ready to inflict on other people, reading aloud is an activity that everyone can take part in. It gives pleasure to the reader, and pleasure to the listeners too. The expenditure of money and the emission of carbon dioxide is almost nil. It sharpens the intellect, invigorates the imagination, and enlarges the scope of human sympathy, and if we all read aloud every day, the world would be a better place.’
(Which just goes to show you should always check your spam folder.)
And then Maureen Lipman chimed in with an incredibly moving account of reading to her husband when he was ill: ‘I used to read the Alexander McCall Smith books to Jack, my late husband, when he was laid low by chemo or just under the weather and he absolutely adored it, in spite of my dreadful attempts at a Mama Ramotswe accent. I loved it too, because it made me feel I was actually doing something to ease that helplessness a carer often feels. In the beginning was the word and words have magical properties. They transport us and divert us and challenge us and yes, they are the best therapy and the warmest company we can have. I’m much more thrilled when people tell me they’ve laughed at my books or my jokes have helped them through bad times than when they compliment me on a performance. Also, after I lost Jack, the only thing I could read, for over a year, was poetry, and my debt to the poets I read is huge. I think this book is an incredible invention, and like all great inventions, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.’
So, this book was now officially a phenomenon. None of us had ever seen anything like it. Richard Briers, Maureen Lipman and Lindsay Duncan came to the office to record stories and poems which you can download for free - http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/alittlealoud
The Times were commissioning Jeannette Winterson to write a major feature on The Reader Organisation and the book and would be launching our national read-aloud experiment, where reading groups will try reading aloud instead of their usual format and feed back the results. We had three Radio 4 slots line up – a R4 rule-breaking record that had us reeling.
The book was officially launched with Waterstone’s in Liverpool and London this week, and crowds defied the London transport tube strike on Monday to join us at Waterstone’s Piccadilly. There is nothing like hearing Jane Davis, the book’s editor Angela Macmillan, a seriously senior psychiatrist, an NHS CEO, a group member and famous author talk about the wonders of reading aloud. For us, it all started with one of these meetings. And now it’s time to really spread the word.
Becky Hardie, Editorial Director, Chatto and Windus
