Valentines Love

Well thank the lord that is over. I am always one to celebrate and have a good reason to have fun, but I do find the whole commercialisasion of special days slightly over the top. There is such a social pressure to show your level of romance that it contradicts what romance is about - being impulsive and taken away on a feeling of love.
From first thing in the morning, all media chanels hit us with the fact it is Valentines Day - sharing best and worst stories - highlighting special things being done! It is prescibed and fake and I want it banned!
I do love many people and one person in particular, but I want them all to know that instinctively, rather than because I spend a fortune on food and flowers or even worse flights and fancy!
On a rather happier note, I am pleased that I now have 'confidentiality agreements' signed by all the main players in the newspaper world for covering our next book Good Morning Afghanistan. The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday and The Sun all see the value of it and we have everything crossed that they decide it is worth serialising.
The President of Afghanistan (who endorsed the book / wrote a foreword) was in London yesterday. I was tempted to try and find him to see if he would promote it in his rounds. Obviously Tony got there first, but he (like us) recognises that the region had been 'sorely neglected, under-funded and under prioritised in the five years since the fundametalist regime was toppled' and Mr Blair assured President Karzai that Britain would make sure 'the job is done'. Clearly this book shows why there is a need for understanding and action.
Emel magazine is apparently the Muslim media of choice in No10, and we (having already had Clare Shorts review of Prickly Pears of Palestine in it) have Good Morning Afghanistan in there to to nudge Tony so that next time he will actually make reference to it.

Terrible Tuesday

Trying to get people to look at stuff (which in theory is relevant interesting and helping them do their job) can be a real challenge.
We have spent the last 3 days (Friday Monday and today) building relevant lists of people who have previously reviewed books on, or written articles about Afghanistan, people who are interested in books and people who are interested in current affairs.
We have then sent out 100's of personal emails and spent time phoning around, sounding 'jolly' and 'happy', to check whether they wanted to cover the story and or review the book.
So far not one of them has even received the email. It has either been deleted as not being of interest (although if that was the case then surely they would remember looking at it and thinking it is not of interest - especially as they were only sent an hour or so before calling them), or simply dropped into a spam rejection filter as it had not come from an accepted email address.
We are usually really lucky and supported by media as our books are human interest stories which they love. However, even when we are giving away a goldmine (we have with previous book honestly - www.yukongoldminingclub.com - but am not bitter honest) trying to get them to be interested proved difficult. With the goldmine, after a week of much the same as we are getting today, a friendly news journo at The Observer opened my email and saw that it was a story worth telling. Despite me sending the same story to 20 other journalists at the same paper and 5 copies of the book to various desks, it was still easier to send a bike around to pick up a 6th copy than find one of the elusive other 5!
Well we are at the same place again - we know we have a story which is relevant and interesting but trying to get people to look at it is another matter. We will simply have to increase the thickness of our skin and carry on regardless in the hope that tomorrow is not weepy wednesday!

Getting to grips with content

Another monday and a whole load of things to get done this week.
I really rate our latest book Good Morning Afghanistan and cannot believe that media wont go mad for it. It has all the necessary touch points to make a good and interesting and relevant story and fits very well with our ethos of trying to make things we should all know about accessible to a wider audience.
I am often daunted (in a trivial persuit kind of way) of not really getting the basics right on many world issues and as a result made to feel distanced and unaffected by them. I would rather change the subject or not get involved (trivial persuit again) rather than feel ignorant. However, I do think that now there is more chance and need for people to get to grips with what is happening in our world and the impact we all have and responsibility we have to engage with the inevitable globalisation issues out there.
The walk to the shop and catching up on the local gossip is still there, but in a much more global way. Being empowered to engage is therefore something that I hope much of what we do is about.
My favourite speech was part of Mandela's release speech at The Parade in Cape Town (which I was fortunate enough to be at) where he talks about our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. We hope (as he was saying) that by shining light on stuff in an accesible way, that it will give permission for each of us to shine and impact our world in the best way possible. Ignorance can be bliss, but knowledge is better. Change can be scary, but change creates growth.
I was sent a link by my wife about content and am feeling enlightened by it and want to share it on this new week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
Enjoy your week.
Dan

Oh **it its friday already

Doing stuff for a blog is a strange thing. I keep meaning to write things down each day (and there is lots to tell), but somehow keep forgetting (or is that making excuses). Slightly ironic considering what my job is, but I find writing for public consumption really quite daunting!
I was having a chat with David (who keeps trying to get me to give away stuff to members of the club) about the website and the need for updating it and he is under the impression that I need to write too and that his stuff is not enough on its own! I think his tone is great - however have agreed when he started to give advice that I am usually the giver of rather than the taker.
"Do not think about what you are writing, but write something everyday. Spend 20 mins writing and 5 looking through and editing it after. It does not matter if most of what you have written is deleted. Some will be there and the more you do it the easier it gets."
So further proof of being a great teacher, crap student I think!
Anyway here I am, minutes after the chat and nearly taking heed of the medicine. However, rather than writing in a word processor package and spending 5 mins editing at the end (as I and David advise), I am posting straight to the blog. Am sure that it is because doing it this way, I have an excuse for it not being very good. What is that about!
I had been aware when hearing about and reading stuff in the news this week of using it as part of what I can write. Proof is that despite it being Friday already, I still have notes about a couple of stories I read a while ago (when he first started telling me I had to write!) that I thought would be of interest for those who had not heard them.
Anyway excuse me if it is old, but...
A man lost his wife in a game of Poker! It happened in Russia - his wife was so annoyed at his audacity that she actually left him for the person who won her!
Another was about a Chinese man who had to have his contact lenses surgically removed after he had left them in 24/7 for a year!
Anyway - enough for now. If I do too much then it will feel like too much of a hurdle and if I take my own medcine, when trying to change habits, do it in bite sizes otherwise you will end up not doing it.
As they say the proof will be in the pudding - lets just wait and see.

Good Morning Afghanistan

It never ceases to amaze me how exciting it is when a new book comes out. Without fail, I am convinced that there will not be a single person in the world that will be able to do without it.

Last week, we took delivery of our latest gem and even though I say it myself, it looks GREAT. For a few weeks after such a delivery I walk around wanting to hug people and have a tingling excitment in my tummy - almost like I want to thank them for their inevitable support.

I had been out of the office and Toby had been ill. The books were due to arrive on the thursday and Waseem, the author, and his wife Farah and Pedro (from Fnik PR) who is handling the publicity were due in on friday to pick up copies. I arrived back in the office on Friday and there were no books. It was a panic trying to find them, but well worth it when seeing all their faces holding the book. The meeting we had to arrange what needed to be done to make this a 'must have' item for all people was punctuated by BIG smiles and happiness all around. It is such a buzz when you get to make someone so happy and see genuine pride in their work. I wish we could bottle the feeling for the times when things were less good.

Today is also very exciting as we have a new person starting work with us full time. Laura loves books and has done some work experience over the last few months and persuaded us to create a more perminant role. This extra help in sorting the 'stuff of books' out again gives the feeling that everything is all going to go well and the pint is half full. Long may it last.

Gold Fever

I am joining in this whole blogging thing for the first time. To date - everything up here has been placed by Toby and now having finally accepted it is not that difficult, am determined to let you all know more regularly what is happening in the world of Eye Books and me Dan Hiscocks.

I am about to be called by CBC (the equivalent of BBC in Canada) about the Goldmine Giveaway we are doing. It does seem to be attracting lots of attention. Each time I think of what we are doing, I get slightly overawed at the whole thing. To have a goldmine is amazing, but then to give it away!!

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and give this thing a go. Am sure I will end up using it too much, but to my mind the best ones I have read seem to ramble on about sweet nothings (so am pretty confident).

Eye Books is having a high time

Wow what a busy time we are having since our last bit of news.

We now have our 3 books for Christmas out there and am pleased to say that they seem to be getting favourable reviews.
Check out:
http://www.eye-books.com/thegoodlifegetsbetter/home.htm
http://www.eye-books.com/pricklypearsofpalestine/home.htm
http://www.eye-books.com/siberiandreams/home.htm


For those that missed The Observer a couple of weeks ago check our what they said about The Good Life Gets Better:
The Observer

The Rt Hon Clare Short, MP, is reviewing Prickly Pears of Palestine in tomorrow's New Statesman magazine and has some good things to say. I will add the link when I get it.