Dear beloved pledgers,
Copies of The Surfboard are arriving in the office later this week so I can sign and dedicate those before they are sent out. All the remaining copies will be sent out from the warehouse soon after.
It's not a story I mention in much detail in the book, but before John, Justin and I started Unbound my agent, the legendary Simon Benham, was hawking a book idea I'd had around London publishers. The book was pitched as a journey to understand something called 'spielzeug' that I had encountered researching a previous book called Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If you want to hear how I first discovered the idea of spielzeug, check out my Do Lecture
The pitch got great feedback but it was always followed by a polite shake of the head. The consensus was that it wouldn't sell. One publisher questioned whether 'people wanted that kind of book from me', which was incredibly annoying on the one hand and hugely flattering on the other. Another said I should re-pitch it as a business book. So I got excited and did. They loved it! But then in an aquisition meeting someone pointed out that I wasn't qualified to write a business book because I had never run a business. They, too, turned it down.
I was frustrated and enraged. Who decided who was 'qualified' to write a book in the first place anyway? No-one ever asked readers what they thought! There was this constant assumption that publishers always knew what was right. And what was best. Even though they sold books to shops and not readers! It was authors and readers that mattered. Why weren't they in control of what books were made?
So I decided to write my book in the way I wanted and ask people to pledge for it in advance through my own website. If enough people paid for a copy I would write it and send them a copy. I mentioned this ludicrous plan to John and Justin over ales in the pub and they thought it was a marvellous idea. But all authors should be able to do that, not just me. Someone just had to build a platform they could all use. I thought they were mad. I just wanted to write my book. But they were not mad. Unbound is the result.
While running the business for the first five years I forgot about the idea I'd had for a book. But it didn't forget about me. I started to think about it again a few years ago when the business, and my role in it, began to trouble me. When it was finished I was incredibly excited, I put it up on Unbound and asked people to support me.
I hope you will forgive me if I get emotional for a moment and say that publishing my own book on Unbound has literally been a dream come true. John, Justin and I have built our dream company. It is doing what we all hoped it would do. Many wonderful books have been published thanks to Unbound that would not have been made in any other way. We have helped authors be heard. We have given readers the power to choose which books they want to read and I am very humbled to be a writer again.
So today I am not Unbound's co-founder. Or CEO. I'm the 379th author who had an idea for a book he wanted to write and put it up in the hope it would be funded on Unbound. Thanks to you I got to publish the book I felt I had to write. It's the best one I've ever done. It has more of me in it than any other. I hope you enjoy it.
Love
Dan
PS - I'm having a launch party in September (probably the week of the 17th because it comes out on the 20th) and I'm going to invite you all to it to say thank you in person. More info on that soon.