Between writing blog posts, dealing with comments, doing some birdwatching, and fitting in the rest of the day, I did a lot of thinking, dictating, typing, and editing yesterday.
By the end, I had an outline for a 30,000-word book, split into 12 chapters, supported by up to 30 infographics in a simpler form than those I have been publishing here lately. I summarised all of this in the conventional form an author sends to an agent or publisher, which I have done quite a number of times in the past.
I also had a title, and to see how it might look, I spent some time using AI to work out what a cover might look like, because that helps me understand what I am trying to achieve.
This is the current draft cover, which also reveals my current thinking about the title, which could, of course, change (not least to correct some obvious errors):
For the sake of completeness, this is a draft back cover, because if you cannot write that, you cannot write a book:
The title is deliberate. The problem we face is that the people who hold office in this country, and many others, appear to have no idea why they want to do so, what they want to achieve, or how they might do any of it. The book addresses those issues. Its underpinning may be found in modern monetary theory, but that does not provide a manifesto, so the book does much more than explain some essential economics. It also discusses using sound economics as the basis for effective governing.
The subtitle is also deliberate. I wrote my book, The Courageous State, in 2011. Jacqueline actually came up with the title, and in the 15 years since then, no government has risen to the challenge of creating such a state. In fact, we have retreated a long way from it, having been governed by a succession of cowards ever since. It seemed appropriate to pick up the theme again.
As for the draft cover, I put a lot of thought into it. There is, quite deliberately, no character who stands out in the image. A courageous state is for everyone, and politicians are no more important than anyone else. The plants are there deliberately. They metaphorically represent the planet. The low structures on which some people are sitting represent the boundaries of the state, but they are deliberately shown to be permeable. At the same time, they represent infrastructure which people can use, because that is what a courageous state should supply.
That said, this book will contain nothing that a regular reader here will not already know. I will make no apology for that. This book will deliberately pull together familiar themes so that they might become more familiar to others.
This also makes the writing of the book a fairly straightforward task. If I can keep distractions to a minimum, I can fit it in over a few weeks at most. To put this in context, I could write a 2,500-word chapter in a first draft during a walk from my house into Ely and back again, with the first half being edited whilst there, having a coffee. I know that because I regularly write a 1,250-word column for the National newspaper during one leg of that journey.
This, however, opens a bigger question. I sense an urgent need for this book. If I go to a large publisher, an 18-month timescale might be optimistic. A smaller one might halve that. If we self-publish, albeit on Amazon, we might halve that. That said, a self-published book would not get into bookshops, except perhaps Toppings in Ely, whose team I know quite well.
So, your opinion is sought twice, if you do not mind obliging me:
And this:
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The status of a published book I think still ranks above self published material. This deserves being treated as the important subject it is.
That said, the calculation is also how many people who are still naive to these perspectives will take up this book in either form. This book is for the congregation rather than the choir.
I agree – this is for the congregation, not the choir.
It’s rather German Democratic Republic for me. The people are homogenous with the exception of the mini-me in the white lab coat stood on the seat next to the bush. I’m not keen on people who put their feet on seats on public transport and have the same view in this instance.
I like your initiative. Good luck.
Your title works. Tricky to know if an alternative would be better for folk who don’t follow here. I’m guessing the sub-title is also open to suggestion? I’m sure some right wing proponents believe in a very different “Courageous State”?
Effective Governance: manifesto for a practical alternative to the neoliberal consensus. (Too long? – but you see the intent?)
Or: an alternative to the failing government systems in Western society.
Titles are meant to tease: there is an implicit question – find out what I mean.
I have often asked my Labour Junior Health Minister MP, representing the poorest part of Bristol, whether the current Labour government’s action/inaction – genocide -authoritarianism – scapegoating of the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the disabled, the unemployed, is what she entered Labour politics for in 2015. I’ve never had an answer. I genuinely can’t decide whether she is a greasy pole-climber, or a hopeless hand-wringer.
But she has, for two years now, been a junior member of a “government” with a huge majority, that won’t govern, except when it is repressing (some of) us, while letting the markets and the mega-rich run the show.
She never responds to challenges on economics, never engages with arguments about how government is financed, even to rebut them.
MPs like her, are worried at the moment, but not about me. There are not enough of us rejecting the basic assumptions of neoliberalism, and the household analogy, so the only people they respond to, are fascist thugs in black shirts and balaclavas, and they WELCOME the extra support from the blackshirts, for their nasty divisive scapegoating rhetoric.
The book looks good but I don’t think MPs will read it. Do MPs think or read?They MIGHT be influenced if hundreds of their constituents read it, and write to them – so who is the intended audience?
The audience is the 10,000 or so who read here regularly, the 100,000 or so who visit YouTube often, the fast-growing Substack base, and the many thousands who read what I have to say on Facebook, LinkedIn, and elsewhere. Why 30,000 words? To mean that the effort required is not high. And the price will be low enough to share, but only if I self-publish.
Hmmm…………………I honestly think that you should lose the ‘courageous’ bit on the cover. You are launching a book into a society dominated by fear. Unison recently failed in a bid for a strike ballot.
My opinion is that people do not know what democracy really is. Your book could be a way of telling them what it is really about by linking it to sovereignty (monetary and political/national) – because in a way that is what being courageous is – an expression of sovereignty (agency) – this works on an individual and state level.
Your infographics have expertly teased out the detail of how fiscal/monetary policy can work for everyone because democracy is really about everyone. No one has done this more expertly than you have – bringing money (the means) together with democracy – you have gone right into the fundamentals so to speak of power.
The big lie with Neo-liberalism is that it denies, decries, undermines state power – democracy – whilst actually using it for its own ends at the same time. The way it pours money into political donations is proof of that – it legitimises what it hates at the same time.
I suppose you may be concerned about just producing another book about the state of Britain but I’m damned sure that no one has gone into the fiscal fundamentals as much as you have. That has always been your USP – unique selling point.
Just my view…………I’ll read it whatever.
Thanks, PSR.
I think courage is the willingness to accept risk, uncertainty, or cost to do what judgement and conscience suggest should be done.
That is why it is there.
The title and cover look great. It may look a bit GDR but then again everyone is important, unfortunately the last 40 years has seen the few prosper at the expense of the many.
I like the cleanness – that is my choice.
May I suggest
If you know the staff at Toppings perhaps they could suggest a publisher?
And/Or have a look in the shop for ‘That sort of thing’ and see who publishes it – who are Danny Dorling & George Monbiots publishers?
Local – to me radical author Chris Smaje is published by Chelsea Green
Anyway I am off to Totnes by Paddle Steamer today
I have an agent, but the tedium of the publishing process is unattractive.
I am sending the proposal to a couple of publishers nonetheless.