*WARNING: LONG POST BUT CONTAINS OFFER OF DOSA*
Hello friend,
I hope you're well. I know you know we were fully funded after 3 days and everything since has been a bonus. The 100% funding is great because it means we can pay all the contributors, get the book made, pay for time and printing and typesetting and cover design and all that sorta good stuff that goes into the making a book.
So what's the next 100% about? Well, now I know people want the book, I have a new goal in site: 200% funded. I think we can good it. There are three big benefits to having this book be 200% funded.
1) It shows the publishing industry how many people are excited about a book written by 21 writers of colour, and how there's a market for our work.
2) It allows us to promote the book more widely. So we're planning on doing a bunch of literary festivals in the months after the book's release. Which is great, because they pay for us to attend, we might be lucky and get a fee for our time as writers, we might even sell more books. But, the extra money from being 200% funded will get our writers out to places that can't pay us travel or a fee but would really benefit from us rocking up to their communities on the good ship immigrant. The extra money will give us a budget to go to libraries, bookshops, schools and talk about race and immigration within communities that need these writers. I mean, they're all role models, people to aspire to, heroes and most importantly, relatable. I want us to be able to not be hampered by budget, which is the thing that often stops writers from getting to go to local bookshops and/or libraries, which are such important parts of our community, of British life.
3) Dosa. Dosa dosa dosa. I love dosa. And if you help us get to 200%, I am putting on a celebratory party. It'll probably be in London (sorry, it's just easier). It'll be outdoors. I'm hoping it'll be late summer. It'll be in the evening. There will be dosa. I'll even chuck in some money from my wallet to ensure there's some free dosa. But we will have a pop-up dosa and readings party. We'll get writers from the book to read their essays, and you can eat dosa and listen. And then we'll go raving. Doesn't that sound like fun?
*EVERYONE WHO HAS ALREADY PLEDGED SINCE DAY ONE IS INVITED TO THE DOSA PARTY*
So you have either the polemic-y reason, the practical worthy reason or the fun reason. What do you do now?
Well, if you haven't pledged and are going to, now's the time.
If you haven't pledged and don't want to, well, erm, why are you reading this? The internet's got loads of other stuff on it!
If you have pledged it, and want that dosa, please tell your friends, family, colleagues, followers, peoples on instagram, twitter or facebook.
If you have zero interest in this book but love dosa, tweet me @nikeshshukla #dosamylife and I'll tell you about the best place to get dosa in London and/or Bristol. Free of charge. Cos I'm nice.
Let's get to 200% funded by August, so we can have a dosa and readings party.