It is a well-known fact that my favourite non-fiction read of 2007 was Unimagined by Imran Ahmad and also memorable in that I flaunted that cover picture of the lovely cuddly Imran even when Imran asked me to put up the new paperback cover instead. So in my trip around blogfriends to gather in Christmas Stocking fillers I stopped off at Imran's and he has very kindly offered two signed copies of his book which he will send to the prize draw winners himself, and I asked him if he'd write a brief piece about the book as an introduction.
No worries, I said, when 64mgb appeared in my in box and that's probably the December bandwidth shot to pieces and no, I'm not offended that this went to Oprah first in the hope that she'll love the US edition of your book and I just KNOW she'll reply eventually.
Besides, we're ready for a full-length guest author feature, my readers have a superb attention span and they will love to set a few hours aside on a Sunday in the run up to Christmas to read it. This might take you through a huge pot of tea and probably set lunch back an hour as well but in the end this is Imran's journey into print and I decided to let you have it uncut.
I hope you enjoy it, Imran has offered a fascinating insight into his Unimagined journey. The rocky road to publication and fabulous wealth, plus that moment of sharing his talent with the 'aspiring writer', so selfless and all in his own inimitable style. So my thanks to Imran for sharing 64mgbs with us and for the prize-draw copies of the book, names in comments and that lovely cuddly Imran will send them to the very lucky winners.
The Unimagined Path to Publication
1975
- Walking to school, I imagine how cool it would be to be a famous writer who wrote a book that everyone read. But writing a book must be such a lot of work. I can't be bovvered.
- After Sept 11 2001, the horrible, vitriolic
comments about Muslims written on popular message boards (AOL, Yahoo! etc)
make me despair. We're not terrorists - we are really boring people who pray all the time and don't drink! But then the responses of some apparent Muslims are provocative and insensitive. This kind of
hatred and stereotyping is only going to make things worse – a cycle of
hatred and violence and more hatred.
I know I have to do something …
- Finally, on Boxing Day, I sit down in the dining
room with my laptop computer, to write the book. I write for about half-an-hour, then
read what I have written. It’s not
bad. And it was quite enjoyable
to write. I continue.
- I still do my day job.
- I thought that writing the book would be hard and
getting it published would be easy. The reverse is true. Writing the book is easy, a wonderful
experience – it practically writes itself!
All I have to do is type as fast as I can.
- Every day, I come into the office at 7am and
write until about 8:30am. I write
all evening and all weekend.
- At various stages, I e-mail the manuscript to
friends in the UK, US and Australia. They all love it and say it’s really
good! (What are friends for?)
- February: I finish the book – at least a
manuscript with a beginning, a middle and an end.
With a manuscript completed, I read The Writers’ Handbook 2005.
- I write a book proposal (with one-page Executive
Summary at the front) and send it to countless literary agents.
- I wait.
- I expect I’ll get a big advance, be able to give
up work immediately and become a full-time writer. That Nigerian girl who wrote ‘The
Icarus Girl’, she got £400,000 apparently.
My book’s at least as good as that, so I can count on that
much. It’ll probably be published
this summer, or autumn at the latest.
- I imagine my sombre grey-suited fellow commuters
on the 7:02 am train to Waterloo reading my book and smiling.
- I imagine myself on The Heaven and Earth Show
– a spirituality/current affairs programme on BBC 1.
- I imagine myself on Midweek – a literary
programme on BBC Radio 4.
- I imagine myself talking at literary festivals.
- I agonise over what kind of convertible car to
buy after I get my big advance. Saabs
look the most comfortable, but I think I’d prefer one with a metal
roof. Peugeot make those. The 206 looks really cramped, so it
would have to be a 308. Silver, I
think. Do they have built-in Sat-Navs?
- I wait for my mobile phone to ring – one of the
literary agents calling, breathless with excitement.
- Over the weeks, my mobile phone never rings with
the longed-for call, but all the stamped-addressed-envelopes come back
with rejection slips.
- I write to another round of literary agents.
- I wait.
- All the stamped-addressed-envelopes come back
with rejection slips.
- I decide to make aggressive approaches to some
publishers, and I manage to convince several of them to take a look at the
manuscript.
- I wait.
- July 7: the London train bombings. An awful day. The same cycle of hatred starts up
again. I am desperate – this book
is more important than ever, to counter the awful demonization that is
taking place. Surely publishers
will see it this way?
- July 15: I’m in the US on a business trip. This evening I’m in Barnes &
Noble, Richmond, Virginia.
Harry Potter VI is being released at midnight. The atmosphere in
the store is wonderful, with kids in costumes. The store manager is dressed as a wizard. I’m enjoying this, so I loiter around in
the store, drinking a latte and looking at magazines.
- One article catches my eye: ‘Ten Things To Do
With A Thousand Dollars’. One
of them is self-publish your own book.
It talks about a company called BookSurge, owned by Amazon.
- Back in my hotel room, I look at the BookSurge
website. It looks so easy! They only want my credit card number.
- Back in London, I wait.
- All of the publishers reject the book.
- August: I decide to go ahead with self-publishing
via BookSurge. Excitedly, I run
through the manuscript a couple more times, spend an hour designing a
fabulous cover and submit the files.
We go through a round of corrections when I receive the proofs.
- September.
A small FedEx package arrives at the office. I take it to a conference room and close
the door. I take out the first copy
of my book. I’ve arrived! I’m a published author! It looks great!
- My batch of 250 books arrives and the book gets
listed on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
- I begin my marketing campaign. I send a copy, with covering letter, to
every single national newspaper, to magazines, to notable
individuals.
- I send a copy to every single member of The
Heaven and Earth Show production team – over 25 people! I send copies to BBC Radio for Midweek.
- I convince friends to buy the book and see a
small number of sales on my Amazon sales report from BookSurge – about 40
books.
- I send a copy to Scott Pack – the Head Buyer of
Waterstone’s, the UK’s biggest bookstore chain. He is known as the most
powerful man in the UK’s book industry.
In an e-mail response, he says that he will look at it when he has
a chance (he receives hundreds of books).
- One Friday evening, before I go to bed, I run a
BookSurge sales report. 50 copies
have sold in the US on Amazon.com, in the last 12 hours!
- The next morning, I run a BookSurge sales
report. 250 copies have sold in the
US on Amazon.com, in the last 24 hours!
250 copies in 24 hours!
Something must have happened in the US. One of my friends must have got Unimagined
mentioned on a radio show or in a newspaper, and 250 Americans have bought
it from Amazon. God bless
America!
- I mark-up the sales report in red, highlighting
the sudden surge in sales, and write an accompanying letter to Scott
Pack. I deliver it to the security
guard at the Waterstone’s office on Sunday night. When Scott Pack sees this, he will
definitely take a look at my book.
- On Tuesday, BookSurge advises me that a computer
error caused one single order (from Lucretia, a friend in California)
to loop around and be copied endless times. There was only one sale, not 250! I run the sales report again and the 250
orders have disappeared.
- I don’t say anything about this computer error to
Scott Pack.
- A week later, Scott Pack e-mails me with his
opinion. Thanks to the impressive
Amazon sales report, he took some time out to read the book. He really likes the content of the book,
but the physical book is not of sufficient quality for him to stock in
Waterstone’s. He says the book
deserves a ‘proper publisher’ and he can pass the book onto a literary
agency, if I am willing.
- I think about it. Do I really want to go backwards
a step to a literary agent? I
mean, I’m already published!
But, the truth is that my marketing campaign yielded no response
whatsoever. The truth is: no-one is
interested in a self-published book.
(I did get ‘thank you’ notes from Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton,
but that was it.)
- I ask Scott Pack to send the book to the literary
agent.
- Two days later, I’m in a meeting at the office
when Charlie Viney of Mulcahy & Viney literary agency e-mails me,
enthusing about the book. We have a
meeting. He loves the book and
would like to represent me. He says
Scott Pack told him the writing is great, but “the cover is awful”. He
suggests areas where I should write some more, and I must discontinue the
self-published book.
- Charlie asks me for some childhood photos. I show him the one from the Bonnie Baby competition, when I was dressed in a suit at 15-months-old. He exclaims: “That’s the cover of the book!”
- I shut down the self-published book and spend the
Christmas/New Year holiday on the sofa, tapping away happily on my laptop
until the early hours, with Carry On films and old comedy
programmes playing on the television.
Again, the book just writes itself.
- I still do my day job.
2006
- January: I e-mail the manuscript to Charlie. He phones me in the office. He just loves it! This is going to sell so easily. He sends it to the top ten UK
publishers.
- Over the coming weeks, I wait. Again I agonise over my choice of convertible car.
- February:
All of the publishers rejected it.
Charlie says that the most common comment was that it was “not
miserable enough”. But it’s not
supposed to be miserable!
- March: Charlie submits to four smaller
publishers. We get offers from two of them! A choice of offers! I go with Karen Ings from Aurum Press,
who writes in an e-mail: “Seldom have I enjoyed a manuscript so much.”
- We sign the deal.
Publication will be in March 2007.
The advance isn’t quite enough for me to stop work. It’s barely enough to buy a second-hand
Skoda.
- In the summer, the editing process is easy. Karen doesn’t ask for any significant
changes or for it to be ‘sexed up’. She likes the story just as it is.
- Aurum produces an advance proof of Unimagined and
sends it off for reviews.
- I set-up my website www.unimagined.co.uk and place on
it every comment about Unimagined that I can get.
- December: Googling myself, I discover that the Guardian
newspaper has mistaken the advance proof for an actual book and, thanks to
Sue Townsend’s glowing comments, listed Unimagined in ‘Books of the
Year’! (It’s not even published
yet!)
- I still do my day job.
2007
- I organise a charity book launch at my old school
(which plays a major role in Unimagined). I will give away ‘free’ copies of Unimagined
(which I have to pay the publisher for) in exchange for minimum £20
donations to the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice. I send invitations to many famous
people, including the well-known British actor Lionel Roebuck (not his
real name, to protect his privacy).
I’ve never met him, but I write to him c/o his agency.
- I am desperate to have a musical group at the
charity book launch, but I’m getting nowhere. I run into an old colleague I have not
seen in 15 years. We talk. I tell
her about my music group problem.
She says that she knows a music tutor who can rustle up a jazz
group. He agrees to do it!
- Monday: I receive a very nice handwritten letter
from Lionel Roebuck to say that he cannot make it to the book launch, but
he will buy my book the next time he is in town. He encloses a cheque for £50 for the Shooting
Star Children’s Hospice.
- Tuesday: I send him a copy of Unimagined
with the inscription: ‘Lionel, Thank you for decades of fine acting.
Best wishes, Imran Ahmad’
- Wednesday: I leave my office in Strand to go to
the bank at lunchtime and run into Lionel Roebuck! (This is unbelievable!) I thank
him profusely for the generous cheque.
He says he’s just going to buy my book. I say: “No need! There’s a copy at your
agency right now!” I am walking on
air. I am so grateful for this wonderful synchronicity!
- March: The book is released.
- I send a copy to Catherine Lockerbie, the
Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
- The Daily Mail gives Unimagined a
fabulous full page review.
- The charity book launch is really successful (the
jazz band is brilliant!) and raises thousands of pounds for The
Shooting Star Children’s Hospice.
- I appear on The Heaven and Earth Show and Midweek,
just like I imagined!
- I have my first public book reading, at Borders
in Islington (North London). It’s a
miserable experience – there are only two people in the audience! I go home feeling humiliated.
- I decide to send an inscribed copy to each of the
UK’s 646 Members of Parliament, in the House of Commons. I have to pay the publisher for the
books. The process of inscribing and
signing each book, putting it in an envelope and attaching an address
label takes me over 40 solid hours of work, which I do over three
weekends.( Think about it : 646 x 4 mins = 2584 mins = 43 hrs)
- But there’s one MP I don’t feel like sending it
to. In the media, Ann Widdecombe
always comes across as a grumpy old woman – a Conservative with a huge
capital C. There’s no way
she is going to read my book. I’m
just wasting my money and time. You
know, instead of sending the book to 646 MPs, I could just send it to 645,
but I can say that I sent it to all 646, and nobody will ever know.
- I hesitate, but eventually I do inscribe, sign
and pack the book for Ann Widdecombe.
- I load the 646 books into my car and drive to the House of Commons. The policeman at the delivery gate is not very amused, but that is another story. An intern from the publisher is there to assist me with the unloading, and a very kind gentleman from the House of Commons post room is of indispensable help with a trolley. I still have to give them a cheque for the postage, even though I'm delivering the books, as they have to send them on to each MP's preferred address.
- Catherine Lockerbie invites me to have a session
at the Edinburgh International Book Festival !
- I receive hundreds of letters back from Members
of Parliament, thanking me for the book.
(Nothing from Ann Widdecombe, of course, grumpy old woman.) Some say that they have already read it
and enjoyed it very much. David
Cameron writes me a handwritten note saying how much he has been enjoying
it.
- A publisher in the Netherlands contacts me
requesting the Dutch rights. He is
a small spirituality publisher and is very enthusiastic about Unimagined. I let him have the Dutch rights for a
zero advance.
- The Government invites me to a private conference
on ‘Islam and the West’. I meet the
Prime Minister (Mr Blair), the future Prime Minister (Mr Brown) and the
Leader of the Opposition (Mr Cameron).
- I go to the Edinburgh International Book Festival. My event is a huge success! Over 200 people, and their booms of laughter can be heard all over the Festival grounds. The place is buzzing when I come out – everyone wants to know what this event was! This is better than I ever imagined!
- A woman comes up to me, introduces herself as Sarah LeFanu the
Director of the Bath Literature Festival, and asks me if I would consider
appearing at her Festival. I enthusiastically agree.
- Catherine Lockerbie later tells me that she does
not normally consider unsolicited approaches, but she “just loved Unimagined
so much!”
- My last evening at the Edinburgh Festival,
I am loitering in the Writers’ Tent, as it is pouring with rain. There is an attractive, elegant woman
sitting here, making notes in her personal organiser. I dare to engage her in conversation,
starting with a comment about the awful weather. She says that she is Wendy Were – the
Director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. A voice inside me cries out: “You must
go to Sydney!” I give Wendy a
breathless two-minute pitch on what a great book I have written. She looks politely bored (this happens
to her all the time), but she does give me her business
card.
- A film/television producer e-mails me and we have
a meeting. He tells me that he
picked up Unimagined at the Edinburgh International Book
Festival and read the first thirty pages just standing there in the
bookstore. He came to my event, saw
how well it went, and decided there and then that he would like to make
the screen version of Unimagined.
- After a short negotiation, I sell him the screen
rights for a modest advance. He
starts working on the development of a 10 x 30 min television series. We start bickering over who should play
me (I want Pierce Brosnan).
- I send a copy of Unimagined to Wendy
Were’s office in Australia.
- Wendy Were sends me a discouraging e-mail to say
that she does not think it makes sense to invite someone to the Sydney
Writers’ Festival if their book is not being actively promoted in
Australia. (She hasn’t read it yet.)
- This e-mail is troubling. I am desperate to go to the Sydney
Writers’ Festival.
- I have to get some attention for Unimagined
in Australia, so I send copies to the ‘Literary Editor’ (whoever that is)
of the Sydney Morning Herald and other Australian media.
- My agent goes on a trip to the US and presents Unimagined
to all of the major US publishers.
This is really important to me, as I wrote Unimagined
with an American audience in mind.
- I wait.
- My publisher tell me that Unimagined has
been shortlisted for the YoungMinds Book Award, and that the
selectors “just loved it”.
- I don’t hear anything from Australia, so I send
another batch of copies to the same media again.
- November:
As usual, I Google myself in the morning and discover a wonderful
review of Unimagined by Bruce Elder in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- December: The Independent newspaper
selects Unimagined in its ‘Best Books of 2007’ list. Ann Widdecombe writes in the Independent
that Unimagined was “my favourite book of 2007.” I am ashamed and humbled, and I have
tears in my eyes. I’m a horrible, horrible person. How could I have judged her just
based on how the media present her?
I was completely wrong about her! I write her a heartfelt ‘thank you’
letter.
- Nancy Northrop, a sales rep with the Australian
distributor, e-mails me from Sydney.
She has fallen in love with Unimagined. She says, “You must come down here to
promote it.” I tell her I’m hoping
to be invited to the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
- December: The Sydney Morning Herald lists Unimagined
in ‘The Pick of the Literary Crop 2007’!
- Some chick in Devon called ‘dovegreyreader’
selects Unimagined as her ‘Best Non-Fiction Read of 2007’.
- I still do my day job.
2008
January : I am invited to address the Cambridge Union in a debate. Unbelievable! I finally buy a dinner suit
- February: Wendy Were sends me an e-mail. She says, “I finally got around to
reading Unimagined” and she would like to invite me to the Sydney
Writers’ Festival !
- I tell Nancy Northrop that I’m coming to
Sydney. She starts work on a
promotional campaign.
- I agree with my publisher that they can distribute the UK version of Unimagined in America, until I get a US publisher. Distribution in the US will start in October 2008.
- The Dutch version is released. It is called Mohammed, Jezus en James
Bond (there being no magical word for ‘Unimagined’ in Dutch,
apparently).
- Nancy Northrop arranges a packed schedule for me
in Australia, in addition to my events at the Sydney Writers' Festival.
- Catherine Lockerbie invites me to have a session
at the 2008 Edinburgh International Book Festival, even though it
is not normal to invite an author back unless they have written a new
book, but she says that I was “a very special guest”.
- At my own expense, I mail a signed paperback to 200 randomly selected secondary schools, addressing it to the Head of the English Department, I get a response from one school who invite me to do a workshop. I don't hear back from any other school - a 0.5% success rate.
- May: I travel to Australia for the Sydney
Writers’ Festival. I will have a television show to record on the day
of my arrival, after my 24 hour journey.
The trip on British Airways is wonderful, and I arrive rested and
relaxed for the TV appearance, which goes brilliantly.
- This time in Australia is truly magical and
spiritual. I am overcome with joy
by everyone’s kindness and warmth towards me. Nancy Northrop has done a fantastic job
in arranging media interviews for me, and my events at the Festival go
very well.
- Nancy drives me around everywhere. We become great friends. She says: “Unimagined is like a secret. Nobody knows about it, but everyone who reads it loves it!”
- At the Festival, I meet Janet DeNeefe – Director
of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali – and keep bumping
into her. One evening she sits down next to me in the hotel lounge, takes
something out of her handbag and shows it to me. It is the business card of Juliet Rogers
– CEO of Murdoch Books. Janet was given
it at the Murdoch Books party (to which I wasn’t invited, being a complete
unknown). Inexplicably, Janet gives me the business card.
- I e-mail Juliet Rogers and she asks me to meet
her in her office after the Festival.
(Her office is five minutes’ walk from my hotel.)
- I’m involved in an unfortunate incident at a
reception at Government House, involving the Governor of New South Wales
and a rogue canapé.
- My final event is An Unimagined Journey,
in which I address the audience and am interviewed by Bruce Elder, the
non-fiction reviewer of the Sydney Morning Herald. The venue is a cabaret style location
with round tables, and it is packed to capacity – 250 people! The atmosphere is amazing and the
audience is absolutely wonderful.The applause at the end is tremendous
and my signing queue is huge. This
could not have gone better!
- After the Festival, I go to meet Juliet
Rogers. She says: “We read Unimagined
this weekend, and we all loved it.
I learned more about Islam and the West from reading Unimagined
than I did from everything else I’ve read, put together.” She wants to buy the rights to publish
an Australian edition!
- I go to thank Wendy Were at her office and take a
box of chocolates for her staff.
She tells me that Unimagined ranked 11th in the
Festival sales! (This is later
confirmed in the Sydney Morning Herald.) In fact, Unimagined would have
ranked higher, but they ran out of copies.
Not bad for a book by an author completely unknown in
Australia!
- These days in Australia were the best ten days of
my life! I made many friends and
met many people whose kindness and warmth towards me just touched me
deeply. Yes, I really did
have to go to Sydney!
- Back in London, I’m a feeling a little blue,
until I get an e-mail from Janet DeNeefe.
She’s read Unimagined and she would like to invite me to her
literary festival in Bali in October.
This keeps happening to me!
- I receive an e-mail from Juliet Rogers. Murdoch Books has bought the rights and
she is really excited about publishing Unimagined in Australia.
- The Billingsgate Book Club in Sydney choose Unimagined as their book of the month and then write the most horrid review, calling me a "hypocritical twerp". I bury my face in my arms and cry myself to sleep. My boss wakes me and reminds me about my presentation for the Executive Steering Committee meeting at 2pm.
- Bruce Elder of the Sydney Morning Herald
writes the most amazing Foreword for the Australian edition of Unimagined.
- I meet Professor Ruth Evans - Head of English Studies at Stirling University - at the University 40-year celebration, and she sends me the most wonderful e-mail about Unimagined. Subsequent to this, she agrees to contribute to the Reading Group Notes of the Australian edition.
- Leading up to the US release in October, Unimagined gets a wonderful review in Kirkus Reviews, the US book industry's internal journal.
- August: I return to the Edinburgh International Book Festival and meet other aspiring writers.
- October: I travel to Bali for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. It's okay. While I'm there, I get an Indonesian publishing deal, and also invitations to the Perth and Byron Bay festivals in 2009.
- November: Manchester Grammar School selects Unimagined in its Year 9 Top Ten reading list. Now this is true recognition.
- December: Working on my tax return, I calculate that I still haven't made a penny in profit from my book - in fact I'm still running at a huge loss.
- The Department of English Studies at Stirling University places Unimagined on the core undergraduate reading list. This really brings a tear to my eye. I'm not even dead yet.
- I still do my day job. (Thank God for the annual 25 vacation days)
- Do it for joy not money.
- It takes years.
- Keep on trying.
- Follow every lead.
- You need some good luck along the way.
- Don't give up your day job.
- Keep your website up-to-date
And in case it's slipped your mind, names in comments and Imran will send a signed hardback and a signed paperback to two lucky winners.
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