The edge has moved

I’ve just heard from the feature writer at the Daily Mail and they love the piece she’s done so much that they don’t want to cut it, but that means it won’t fit in this Saturday, so instead they’re running it next Saturday, 5th March. On the one hand, at least I can enjoy my weekend off, but on the other, that’s another week on tenterhooks!

Standing on the edge...

On Monday night I heard that the Daily Mail had decided to run a feature on me and my project, and I have discovered that when they make a decision they don't hang about. So this Saturday 27th February, look out for the Group Photograph and at least 2 pages of story. The feature writer heard me on my second appearance on the Jeremy Vine Show and it's been fabulous how she has so completely connected with my project, and wants to tell the world about it (thank you, Amanda!).

On Wednesday a photographer came up from Slough to take my picture. In the time that I've been working on this project, any DIY on my house has taken a back seat (!) so in order to have a chance of a nice background we met up at my old workplace, Fakenham Library. There was a slight look of bemusement on his face as he had been briefed to tread carefully and do the best he could because I was "old & frail & shy" - hilarious! - I think some wires got seriously crossed on the picture desk and they thought I was one of the men from the group photograph! Luckily for him, I am reasonably able-bodied and we also managed to get outside on a beautiful day and take some other shots in other locations around Fakenham.

There are final checks currently being made for the article, and I am making sure everything is in place to deal with any surge in demand for my book. It is taking a while to get things sorted out with the book trade (in terms of getting it into bookshops), so I am still mainly selling through my website at www.groupphoto.co.uk/the-book. I am much better prepared than before I went on the Jeremy Vine Show - I have a decent stock of books and a company that is ready and waiting to fulfill all my orders. They have already filled a load of book wraps in preparation for posting, and there is a system in place to enable them to print the labels to send them out to everybody. They are also ready to take on the next reprint, should it be required, which will save time compared to when the printing was being done in Belgium.

It's so difficult to know what's going to happen. Over 1.5 million copies of the Daily Mail are sold every day, and over 15 million read it online. That said, people are not going to be buying Christmas presents (unless they're exceptionally well-organised) and I've discovered that a lot of people think of books as luxuries these days. Whatever happens, I don't think I'm in for a quiet time. I feel as if I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, but I draw strength from some wonderful things that have been said or written about my project recently:

• I gave a presentation about my project in Fakenham Library last Thursday. Not having stood up in front of people to talk about my project since the beginning of October, I was a bit rusty starting off but I soon got into my stride when I saw the interest on the faces of my audience, and it was lovely to hear their responses when so many came up to talk to me afterwards.
  (And whilst I'm on the subject of presentations, I'm still having difficulty working out how to organise a programme of future events. I've been asked to take part in Who Do You Think You Are? Live in April and the Chalke Valley History Festival in June, and there are still details to be worked out of what I might be exhibiting (and therefore of how much work I'm going to need to do to prepare for them). As soon as I have a clearer idea of that I will be getting in touch to make plans with everyone who's asked. I've got 3 presentations in the next week that were set up before the Jeremy Vine Show, in Mickleham (Surrey), Norwich (Norfolk) & Firle (Sussex) - see www.groupphoto.co.uk/presentations for more details.)
• Patrick Miles has given me a great deal of encouragement ever since he saw my animated film in my shed cinema during Norfolk Open Studios 2006. An article in the Times prompted him to write this post on his blog:
  https://georgecalderon.wordpress.com/archived-watch-this-space/  - scroll down to the heading: "Watch this Space 10 February 2016" - not only showing his typically enthusiastic response to my project but also some thoughts about the First World War Centenary commemorations. 
• Helen Tovey, the editor of Family Tree Magazine http://family-tree.co.uk/, has written the most fantastic review of my book - see http://extra.groupphoto.co.uk/ft_feb2016_page40.pdf. It was an absolute joy to see how she so completely got what I've been doing with this project.
• A friend who read the book last weekend, as well as awarding me the honour of an invitation over for cauliflower cheese, wrote to me saying, "I notice it has the effect of making me want to be a better person.  Not in a good/bad kind of way but in a more honest and relational way to self and others." It’s extraordinary to me to think my book has had that effect, but beautiful. 

And that brings me on to some sad news of someone who showed great kindness and support to me. I first met Donald Stileman's daughter Elizabeth 17 years ago when I visited her to hear her memories of her father. I can picture her with a twinkle in her eye at the welcoming reception for the Gathering of the families in Ypres just before my exhibition opened in September last year. She was so excited to be there and thrilled for me having seen how things had developed over the years. She was the only one of the children of the men in the group photograph who was able to be there, but the fact that she looked fitter than me belied her nearly 85 years. It was terrible news to hear the next morning that she'd fallen on her way back to the hotel and broken her hip, and absolutely typical that she and her husband Tony should think of others when telling me they didn't want everyone-else in the Gathering to know lest it cast a pall over events. I visited her in hospital in Ypres and again typically she was more concerned with how I was bearing up under the stresses of the occasion than about her own situation. I next saw her in November when I met up with her & Tony for lunch in Fakenham and it looked like she was well on the mend, but only a week later she was taken ill with something even more serious and last Wednesday she died. She lived life to the full and was absolutely dedicated to her family who I am sure will miss her terribly. It is shocking how quickly such a vibrant life can be taken away and a reminder to get on with things whilst the going is good. My very best wishes to Tony and her family.

2nd reprint is here

The 2nd reprint arrived on Wednesday 3rd February. I now actually have a stock of books in this country and can start doing some publicity again. I didn't think it was right to do any plugging when I didn't actually have any physical books to sell, so I've done no promotion since my first appearance on the Jeremy Vine Show on 8th December (except going on his show again on 14th January, and how could I turn that down?).

Firstly what I'm doing is sorting out the administration of this whole business. I've hooked up with a new company who are taking over the storage + fulfilment of orders + distribution to booksellers etc, and who will also be doing any further reprints.

The arrangement we're going with at the moment for orders from my website is that they are being sent out weekly – I send them a listing of names & addresses on the Friday and they process the orders and get them in the post on the following Monday. That’s the way it’s got to be at the moment in order to try and keep the packing and postage costs down to a reasonable level. Even so, there are costs associated with getting other people to fulfil my orders and so I've increased the price of the book by £1 on my website to try and cover some of this.

I've now put online recordings of my appearances on the Jeremy Vine Show:

• 8th December 2015
  (for background see that day's blog post)
• 14th January 2016
  (for background see that day's blog post)

It's amazing what just a few minutes of speaking on the radio has led to, and I've had to deal with all sorts of things that I just did not envisage 2 months ago:

• The Sterling/Euro exchange rate.
  For the whole of my life up until now I've only really thought of exchange rates in terms of getting money for foreign travel. I've now come to realise what a huge factor it must be for businesses who are trading across borders, how they are just at the mercy of foreign exchange markets over which they have very little control. My books have been being printed in Belgium and if I had been billed at the end of December it would have cost me about £2000 less than when I paid at the end of January. In the first two weeks of this year, the Euro went from being 73p up to 77p, and every penny difference was costing me over £450. By the time I realised this it was too late, and then it was a case of looking at what the markets were doing and guessing when a good time to jump into paying my bill. This was not easy to decide (understatement!), not least because the forecasters really don't know what's going on either. The Governor of the Bank of England announces an unscheduled speech, everyone gets jittery, the pound slides, he says nothing very important, the pound recovers. In the end, it sounded like things were only likely to get worse so I decided to pay as soon as possible - and that has been a weight off my mind (but the predicted dive of the pound against the Euro hasn't happened, even if it is binging up and down between 75p & 77p on a daily basis). I also discovered that there is a way round the rubbish exchange rates offered by the high street banks - I used a foreign exchange dealer called HiFX www.hifx.co.uk and they dealt with things efficiently and securely.
• Problems with Royal Mail delivery.
  Considering the thousands of books that have been posted out, it really has gone remarkably smoothly - but even though the number of problems has been small, each of those takes time and energy and multiplied up it takes a good chunk of effort to sort them all out. Royal Mail estimates that 98% of 2nd Class post arrives within 3 days. That's still 2 in every 100 that doesn't and I have to deal with emails from people concerned as to when their books might be arriving (over Christmas, five for Blackburn postcodes ended up taking 3 weeks to arrive), a few books have just disappeared into some kind of postal whirlpool, 7 have come back to me in the last week having not been collected from sorting offices (and in most of these cases the intended recipients have said they didn't get cards put through their doors to tell them there was something to collect - and I then have to pay the postage back to them), 1 was found in a garden shed where it had probably been for a few weeks without any notice from the postman, 1 was found in the dustbin just a day before it would have disappeared in the refuse collection, 1 was left behind the house's postbox where it became rain-soaked, and the winner is 1 which was thrown by the postman over an 8-foot-high gate into a garden where it was shredded by a dog before before being abandoned to the rain (I have the pictures to prove it - I am not getting them framed). And in the end, according to the Royal Mail, if the book doesn't arrive in pristine condition then it is my responsibility to ensure the customer gets another one or a refund, and then I have to make the claim with all the form filling etc that that entails. As I said, it's a small number of cases, but maybe you can detect a hint of frustration at the brain freezes that some postmen seem to undergo.
• Deciding when & how many to print.
  OK, so I've now got a stock of books - but how long is that stock going to last? Orders are still trickling in despite the fact that I have done no publicity, but I have irons ready to wiggle in a number of PR fires and once the wiggling happens, who knows what could happen in this Internet Age. 3000 went in a week in December - yes, it was in the lead-up to Christmas (and interestingly a lot of people seem to only buy books when they are to be presents for other people), but with the reviews and feedback I've been getting, I think there are a lot of people out there who would buy immediately if they knew about it. And if I wait until there is the demand, I could be faced with running out again and it'll take 3 weeks to reprint, but if I reprint now I will have a bill for many thousands of pounds and also need to pay for the storage of the books. Hmmm. You can't prepare for everything in life, and it looks like I'm going to be taking it day by day for a good while yet.

In the middle of January I went over to Ypres in long-wheel-base van with my Dad and picked up what remained of the exhibition. There wasn't really that much, given that a lot of the exhibition furniture belonged to the Museum and quite a lot of the displays were made of stickers and projections, and in particular the stained glass windows installation was a one-off build that couldn't be re-used except for the individual window panels (which I have got). The tree drawing panels and the banners were awkwardly over-sized (hence the need for a long-wheel-base van) but the majority of the load space was taken up with Belgian air that we imported to Surrey. Over the next week I returned the items that had been loaned by the families, and now all that is left is go back over to Ypres to photograph the belongings of the two Berlein brothers before they are returned to South Africa, and to take everyone involved with the exhibition out for a drink to thank them for what they have done for me. I still haven't got a UK venue for my exhibition, but I have faith that if I keep getting myself out there, then things will happen.

I've got a few presentations coming up (see www.groupphoto.co.uk/presentations for the current calendar of events), and once I've got a few more details sorted out with book admin side of things I will be getting in touch with all the people who've expressed an interest to organise some more.

Yet again, I am thankful for the thoughts and support of so many people. I can't pretend I've found this easy and there are times when I'm entirely uncertain of what the best course of action is and whether I'm doing the right thing - and then an email will pop into my inbox that reminds me what this is about. One of my favourites was from an Anglican priest in a notorious loyalist estate in Belfast who plans to use my book in his sermons. There is something I never thought would happen when I set out on this - and maybe it won't have any effect - but you just never know, and if it does, that would be a beautiful thing. This project has never been about the money, and it's certainly not about trying to improve this country's postal service - I just have to remember what it is about for me and what it can mean to other people - and then stick to it.

PS For a fantastic piece of recent inspiration for me see 'The Red Tree' by Shaun Tan

Another chat with Jeremy Vine

Well, Thursday was another one of those days where the World stands on its head. In the morning I went for a meeting with the manager of Jarrolds, the biggest independent bookshop in Norwich. That was very encouraging and gave me some insights into the book trade, which is still a very new business for me. On leaving him, I was walking towards Norwich Cathedral (he'd mentioned they had an exhibition space, and I thought I'd check it out) when I discovered that someone had left a voicemail on my mobile. It was very difficult to hear the message but I picked up something about wanting me to ring the Jeremy Vine Show. I had not a clue about what it might be for and I couldn't hear the number clearly enough to ring back (and the number wasn't on my phone because he must have rung when I was in one of Norfolk's many blank spots). So I thought I'd continue to the Cathedral and have a look (nice exhibition space, but too small and too difficult to black out for my installations) before heading back to check my home phone. I'd started walking along the river to where I'd parked my car when my phone rang, and indeed it was a researcher from the Jeremy Vine Show - they were doing a feature on internet businesses and knowing that I had had a bit of an overwhelming demand situation (!), wondered whether I might come on to talk about how I dealt with it. This was just before midday and they wanted to talk to me at 1.30, so I continued the walk back to my car, calmly drove home and in arriving back at 1.10 I was able to get a bite to eat and listen to a bit of the show before they rang.

The show is up on iplayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vbwkv and the segment that involved me starts at 1:39:08. And having been talking about dealing with a rush of orders, I then had to deal with a rush of orders. I sold out of what was left of the 1st reprint, and changed my book web page to show that it was now going to pre-orders for the 2nd reprint: the 2nd reprint is arriving on 2nd February and being posted out in the first week in February. This second interview has also led to some national press interest. That, and the fact that I am getting the most amazing emails from people who have read the book, tell me that there are still legs in this yet.

I've also been getting emails asking about arranging for me to give presentations. I've now got 41 requests and I'm just working out how to handle that, given that I'm not entirely in control of my calendar at the moment, and also that these requests are coming from around the country, including many places that are not exactly close to my home in Norfolk. I want to be able to keep costs down for people booking me, so I'm trying to formulate a plan that involves me doing mini-tours in various areas - and I will be getting in touch with everyone about that soon.

This week I've got a meeting with the company who've been sorting out the packaging and posting out of my book orders and I hope we are going to come up with solutions as to how to handle everything better - and then I'm heading over to Belgium with a van to pick up everything from the take-down of the exhibition. Here's hoping that it doesn't end up being too much of an adventure, but with all this snow about, it may be that providence has different ideas from me as usual!

All pre-Christmas orders out - and the next phase...

The most important news is that I am very pleased to say that all pre-New-Year orders were posted out by the fulfilment company by 7th January, and I've been getting some fantastic emails from people who received their books yesterday. It is a relief to have been able to deliver on my promise to everyone who had faith in me with their orders, and also a spur to get the idea that this is not a one-off peak that is just going to fade away, as can be seen from these testimonies:

• "I feel that I am 'living' your book not just reading it."
  
• "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of new publications for the Great War centenary and very few of them stand out as innovative and different.  One that does is Joe Sacco’s 'The Great War — An Illustrated Panorama',  a sort of ‘Bayeux Tapestry’ (a 24 foot long cartoon panorama) of the First Day of the Battle of the Somme, folded into book format, accompanied by historical notes and observations, and another is your 'A Group Photograph'. Both are superb ‘one-offs’."

• "It is fascinating. My husband hasn't put it down since it arrived." 

• "The only thing on the radio that has ever inspired me to buy something was when I heard you on the Jeremy Vine Show. No regrets. Great value for money considering the years you put in to creating what I can only describe as a work of art." 

• "My husband has been reading it since he opened it and it's been page by page, cover to cover. ( I've never seen him do this with a book before, normally it's flicked through then read when he has time)."

I've still got a lot of work to do to get on top of everything and this has not been helped by various real-world practicalities that do not get instantly fixed however much one may wish them to:

• I've ordered the 2nd reprint but with all the printers and paper mills having been shut for 2 weeks over Christmas and then needing time to get going again, I'm going to have to wait till the beginning of February for it to arrive - meanwhile I have 100 books left and it's not going to be long till I'm in the situation of having to take pre-orders again (but this time everyone will know from the outset).
  
• In order to be able to sell through UK bookshops I have needed to take over publishing of the book from the Museum (who were the original publishers). To do this I've had to set up a publishing company www.arvoveritas.co.uk, register with Nielsen Bookdata, and get a new ISBN for the book. This also means that I'm having to deal with the practicalities of organising all the printing, storage & distribution - and paying for it all! It's just not as simple as saying "I'm going to get an enormous print run" - especially if one has no idea of how many are going to sell, and whatever is printed has to be stored somewhere whilst it's waiting to be sold.
  
• I'm also discovering the realities of the book trade - that a lot of booksellers order from publishers via distributors (who take a 10-15% cut), and then the booksellers expect to take from 30% (for some of the independents) up to 50% for Waterstones or 60% for Amazon. It's a wonder that anyone bothers writing or publishing books when the returns are so meagre. I've just read of an author who had a US bestseller and his paycheck at the end of it was $12,000. It's shameful that the big name sellers don't realise that their profits are based on the creativity of their authors and that they need to do more to support them.
  
• It's very difficult to plan ahead at the moment when so much is up in the air, and I'm having to handle such a large amount of email. I'm having a meeting with the creative agency who have helped sort out the fulfilment of my orders to see how I might do things better.
  
• I have various ideas for further publicity, building on my appearance on the Jeremy Vine Show, but I'm holding off doing anything major until I've got a decent stock of books and a plan to handle any further surge. The funny thing is that I am still very much under the radar - if I had sold all these books via normal retailers my book would have been right up there in the bestseller lists over Christmas, but actually I'm only really known to Jeremy Vine's listeners and otherwise I've not heard from anyone-else in the media or publishers or agents.
  
• A number of people have been asking me about doing presentations and I'm working on a plan to be able to handle the fact that most people are a long way from where I am in Norfolk and I don't want to end up charging the Earth.
  
• I'm also getting offers to host my exhibition but a lot of people don't seem to realise just how big the exhibition is. In its current form it fills an area 2 full tennis courts in size, and it is not something that can easily travel about - not least because I would not get permission for loan of all the families' memorabilia for such an undertaking, but also because two of the most important parts are large installations that take some building. That said, I am working out a plan for doing something smaller and more transportable that still contains the essence of what makes this project original and unique.

The last month has been quite extraordinary (certainly a Christmas I will never forget). It's rather caught up with me in recent days and I've just had to spend a lot of time sleeping to get over some seasonal lurgi, but I'm starting to come out of that and I'm looking forward to finding solutions to everything and getting my work seen and read in 2016.

1st reprint is here!

I am very much relieved to be able to report that the 1st reprint has arrived. I went over to Peterborough yesterday to pick up a few books and everything's looking good for the mail-out next week. There are still quite a few people whose email addresses aren't working for me, so here is the information about the delivery from the email I've just been sending out to everyone:

• The fulfilment company is packaging and posting the books out next week (unless anyone has asked for it to be delayed going out). They are starting on 4th January and are aiming to get all orders out by 7th January, so your order will be with you very soon.
• Each book is going as a 2nd Class small parcel, so a bit of time needs to be allow for it to get through in the post (though usually in my experience it doesn’t take much more time if any than 1st Class).
• If anyone have ordered more than one book, each one will be coming in a separate package (don’t ask me how the Royal Mail works out that it is vastly more expensive to send one parcel than two parcels when the weight is exactly the same!).

If anyone has any problems with their order, please email me on andrew@groupphoto.co.uk. (So far the major issue seems to have been a few orders going to Blackburn postcodes not turning up, and I’m wondering if that has anything to do with the floods).

And a bit of other news:

• I’m currently waiting to hear when the 2nd reprint is going to be delivered – and am hoping I don’t run out of the 1st reprint before it arrives. 
• I’ve been contacted by someone from Waterstones and hope to organise getting a load of the 2nd reprint into their shops, and maybe a book tour to talk about my project. Apparently my book caused quite a scene & was the talk of Christmas.
• I will be looking to get out on the road to give presentations on my project from February 2016 onwards. If you can get me an audience, whether it be in a school or a village hall or a lecture theatre, please do get in touch. See http://www.groupphoto.co.uk/presentations/ for more information.
• Sadly the last day of my exhibition in Ypres is this Sunday, 3rd January. I am looking for a venue to host it in the UK – see http://www.groupphoto.co.uk/exhibition/ for more details of what the exhibition involves, including the floor plan. It is not a small exhibition, and requires proper infrastructure in terms of security/insurance/technical support/etc in order to put it on. If you know of a venue that you think might be suitable and might be interested, I’d be grateful if you could write to them and let them know about what I’ve done. It seems to be rule of life that people pay more attention when other people blow your trumpet than if you blow your own.

Thank you to everyone for their interest & for their patience, and I hope the book lives up to expectations.

All the best for 2016,

Andrew

Delivery news and more

Most important news up front:

• I’ve paid a fulfilment company to package and post all the 500 books that arrived on pallets from Belgium yesterday (it was just too much to handle for me and my elves - it was OK to ask for emergency help for the first big load but I wouldn't have any friends if I asked them to continue into the thousands that have got to go out). I've just heard that all 500 are in the post and have just emailed the recipients to let them know they're on the way.
  
• The reprint is arriving on 30th December and again I'm paying the fulfilment company to get them in the post as early as possible - they're starting work on that on 4th January.
  
• In case people are not checking my blog, I'll be doing another email out to everyone waiting for orders and I'm just working on an exclusive item that you can print out so that your loved ones have something to distract them from the fact that they haven't got their present.
  
• With all the efforts to get the parcels in the post this week, I've got very behind in responding to emails - I will do my best to catch up over the next few days.
  
• I've had quite a number of requests to sign books and I'm afraid that hasn't proved possible in most cases - other people are getting the books out of the boxes and packing them for posting, and so I'm not anywhere near them with a pen when they're being packed - and that's even more the case when they're going out via the fulfilment company.
  
• I've been discovering the hoops I need to go through in order to get the book into major bookshops - and it sounds like it's going to be some weeks before that gets sorted out.
  
• This has all been a very steep learning curve, going from a small cottage industry (literally) to a mass-dispatch operation. I've been making mistakes but getting better at doing certain things. And it's been interesting (!) having to deal with both Amazon & Paypal wondering what on Earth's been going on and wanting me to prove that I'm legit and have got everything in hand.
  
• One of the biggest barriers to getting this many parcels out quickly has been sorting out the postage for each one. No longer can you just order a vast number of stamps and then just stick them on each parcel as you do them. And without access to a franking machine, you have to either go up to a Post Office counter and get them to print out postage stickers for each parcel (not practical with 600 parcels, particularly at Christmas time), or you have to print out your own labels via the Royal Mail website - and even at full steam I was struggling to do more than 50 an hour. And then when you've printed out the label it's got to go in the post on the next working day, and with this volume you've got to get them to the sorting office before 3 pm. And it's been difficult to farm this out because everything's coming through my email and only I know what's what. So I've done the lot and not much sleeping has occurred this week (how on Earth does Santa manage to do it and still maintain his Ho Ho Ho rosy cheeks?).
  

Looking back on this last 10 days I've been thinking of what I could have done differently to be better prepared. There are certainly some things that could have been in place, but others would have required the spending of a lot of money on things like packaging which may have ended up unused. I really had no realisation that the response was going to be anything like this. Just because you go on the radio doesn't guarantee that anything's going to happen more than people listening to what you're saying if you're lucky. I had no idea how much Jeremy Vine had bought into my book until we were talking on air, and there was no way I could have predicted that he would make a statement like “Honestly I can't recommend it enough – the whole year we've done different books on this show but this is the one that is just so powerful”. In the end, life throws all sorts of things at you - you can't prepare for it all and you just have to do your best in dealing with everything that comes your way. And that is easier when I've had the support of some very special people and the kind understanding of so many of Jeremy Vine's lovely listeners. Thank you.