Cartoon copyright Miriam Slechter 2009

Yeh it needs more work, and the underlying colour is black instead of white. I’ve toyed with renaming it something like ‘the black maths book’.

Oh yes, the handwritten block capitals. Miriam did them. I scanned them in and created a font. Of course I only thought to ask for capitals. And she somehow forgot to do me a Q, but hey, how many sentences absolutely must have a Q?

So I sent Adam a copy of the version which fifteen mainstream publishers rejected.

Now everyone else (apart from Julie Ringrose of course, see last but one post) was positive. They often made minor suggestions, but no one made sweeping criticisms.

Until Adam.

Which was great, because without his kind of feedback you can’t improve.

Adam wants a complete rewrite, wants it more humorous, wants it made more attractive to school kids. I’ll post samples of both versions soon for you to compare and hopefully criticise.

So that’s what we’re experimenting with.

We have two other projects in mind for our publishing side to cut its teeth on. One is about living with being human. It’s loosely titled ‘Everyone’s disabled : a fiercely unremarkable story’. The other will look at the forgotten people of society. Plus Adam has a friend (really Adam?) who may have a book of his own we’d want to publish.

So that will provide us with material to experiment on before we go public and invite submissions. Have to be strict at that point or else we’ll be submerged. Apparently submissions editors are mainly looking for a reason to reject each manuscript.

But I’m getting too far ahead.

Setting up a business involves both legal and practical considerations. Fortunately we have friends who are happy to advise on these aspects, which is a lot better than reading it up and keeping your fingers crossed. Adam may have sorted out a business address. We’re not planning a partnership – Terry Elsworth (retired colleague) warned against that. It will be Adam’s business with me supporting. Initially we’ll both be doing a lot of unpaid work. What will we call it? No idea yet.

I’m putting together a check list of all the things we need to sort before going live, but most of you won’t be interested in that so I’ll give it a post of its own later.

So we’re well on the way and quite excited.

Which leaves me to explain what kind of a publishing house we’ll be.

Next time.

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