FROM ONE BLOGGER TO ANOTHER

You’ll forgive me, I’m sure – you will, won’t you? – for reproducing this extract below from the world-beating blog of John Marquis, accomplished author, journalist (my all-time favourite editor), artist and many more things besides

 

SELF-PUBLISHING PARTNERSHIP

EARNS THIRTY GRAND FOR CHARITY

 

I’VE written before about the merits of self-publishing, and the well-known novelists who have turned their backs on the mainstream trade.

Take the Chinese novelist cum sports writer Timothy Mo. He considered the advances offered by established publishers too puny for his gilded talents.

So he launched his own imprint, Paddleless Press, and went it alone with some success.

His fellow Booker short-lister J.L.Carr also became disillusioned by the shortcomings of major houses and launched his own firm, Olive Tree Press,  from the back bedroom of his semi in Kettering, Northants.

But one of the most heartening, and lucrative, ventures into self-publishing that I’ve encountered features my pal and former colleague Mike Truscott, whose many books on local history and Cornish sports heroes have now earned just short of £30,000 for charity.

Each title is diligently researched by Mike before he commits words to paper, then he hires a commercial printer to produce his attractively presented books.

While Mike himself researches and writes the story, his wife Janet supervises production. Their teamwork has created one of the most remarkable self-publishing ventures I’ve ever known.

Most remarkable of all is that every penny goes to Cancer Research UK, with all their labours donated free.

Latest titles from this Falmouth-based partnership is Streets Ahead, the story of Cornish footballer Andy Street, and Sixty Years a Soccer Boss, the astonishing tale of Melville Benney, Britain’s longest-serving football manager.

Mike, in an earlier incarnation, was the doyen of Cornish journalists, working as chief reporter for the Falmouth Packet group, and for rival weekly The West Briton. He also spent four years with the Liverpool dailies (the Echo and Daily Post), and freelanced for Lloyd’s List. For 25 years, he ran his own PR business, a tribute to his entrepreneurial flair.

He also happens to be one of my personal Top Twenty - the finest newsmen (and women) I’ve worked with during a 50-year career in newspapers and magazines.