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.
Hello Richard
Have you had the opportunity to read the new Compass report Ending Business as Usual? I‘ve just started on it and already there are positive signs.
There is a blog post on this today.
To summarise: it is neoliberal at its core and, as a result, will not do what it claims.
If you ask a former senior adviser to Gordon Brown to write such a thing, you are not going to get change.
Compass must have known what they were doing.
I have told Neal Lawson what I think.
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.
All I would advise is that being courageous in a society that is as abused as this is about getting on with life despite the state’s increasing reluctance to help you and leaving you to the market.
If anything, the book should be aimed at the country’s political class – a Chinese style ‘Guanzi’ for Britain and the West about how to rule peacefully. The clue being – intervene in economic matters if you want a peaceful country. But I maintain that your work is fundamentally about authentic democracy. It is the sort of democracy I can believe in – that meets my own rather severe test.
I voted that I like your title. But reading PSR’s comment I am also minded to suggest an alternative. Its length may not appeal, but careful layout could handle that: “How to make Democracy work”.
Paul
‘Making democracy work’ is punchier.
Thank you
That is the long, short and tall of your work for me – it is all about democracy really. You in actual fact made me realise that we have not got a democracy at the moment. It is name only. That’s why my stance of ‘I’m still waiting for/wanting one’.
Those nasty, vicious public choice theorists pouring scorn on politics being about making people happier and healthier being ‘self serving’ and not ‘pure’ in some way.
I mean honestly…………..are we supposed to vote to make our lives worse?!! It flies in the face of what has made us a successful species – if you have quantum of the tribe who believe in reciprocity – the sort of non-money debt, kindness and obligations to each other that David Graeber spoke about, you can have a better society. These extreme libertarians have essentially divided and conquered by spewing out their filthy lies and reductionist view about human nature.
‘Making Democracy Work’ – yeah – I’ll have some of that please – a nice big dollop of that for me please Sir.
Noted
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.
On the design I understand that you like the cleanness but for me it’s a little clinical, maybe a warmer background tone or more colour in the figures, like the woman in the red dress might be good. The first glance impression is of a preponderance of men in suits – a bit too “city”.
The book sounds brilliant – it should be a handbook for all MPs and should be publicised to all local left leaning parties.
I think the title works but what came to mind when I read it was, “What the state could do for you!” just a thought.
Thank you
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.
Your last book, Money for Nothing and My Tweets for Free, was self-published. How did that do? I bought it, and got a badly-bound copy that has fallen apart. Did others? While that book was cheap, it wasn’t available on Kindle, which could be even cheaper so prospective readers could fell they weren’t risking much if they didn’t agree. And so on. Personally, I don’t usually notice whether a book is self-published or has a publisher; it’s the content I want.
Self-published books may not get reviewed as easily. I’m sure the readers of this blog could help with this.
Thanks
Noted
My concern with the title is that people who don’t aspire to govern (but who do want to be well governed!) may be put off as it not for them. Given the aim is to open people’s eyes to what can be done, a title that animated them to find out what that means, would be better. Developing that title is the tricky bit.
My best attempt/suggestion so far is “A better future is possible – here’s how”.
I’m sure you or other posters could do better!
Thank you
I like the title, but it depends on Who is your target audience? What level of understanding do they have about politics and economics? What people are you trying to reach?
Depending who this audience is, “how to govern” might sound a bit dry?
Similar books aimed at the layman that I have read seem to have a title as an emotional pull.
What emotions do you want to elicit when readers have finished the book and put it down?
It sounds like you are initially coming in at a broad social commentary perspective, this is about people, it’s real, it’s human, people can relate.
Wait until a formal publication and hopefully some marketing that comes with that, it gives it more credibility, I’m dubious of self-published material because of the amount of rubbish and misinformation out there.
Noted
I understand that pubishers watch sales of self-pubished books, and watch for those acieving 10,000 sales.
At that point they will step in.
So my suggestion is to self publish, promote widely, and be ready for a publisher to take it to the next stage..
I think this is possible…
Hello Richard.
I like your current title and I also like the sub-title.
A sub-title along the lines of ‘Making Democracy Work’ doesn’t er…work for me. It makes me think – I already know how democracy works: I vote. I’m not buying this book.
Maybe it works better for other people. I prefer the ‘Creating the Courageous State’.
If I could have voted for the small publisher route, as opposed to large publisher or self published, I would have. I agree with what Richard Bergson has said.
I don’t mind the cover. A bit more colour in the clothing of the people would remove the GDR look, without losing the ‘for all’ sweep. If you look closely, there is colour in the clothing but at first you think they’re mostly flat black images.
Good luck with it, whatever you decide.
Thank you
I have no idea how big the Kindle Unlimited subscriber base is, or how you get a book published there, but my own experience is that I am always willing to look at a possibly interesting book that is available “free at the point of delivery” with my monthly subscription but am much less likely to buy such a book even if it’s price is too cheap for me to notice in reality. Might be worth investigating.
It is important to share your convictions with the Universal World. The world is short of positive philosophers, and, in my opinion the current crop of global politicians have never read a good book and have no philosophy of life. I am sure your book will be read in places you never envisioned. Best wishes.
The two political books I have bought & read recently were from OR books, ePub format, and paperback copy. (Fraud by Paul Holden & Complicit by Peter Oborne),
I can read ePub on my android phone using FOSS LibreraFD app (works also as a pdf library/reader/catalogue). There are FOSS alternatives to Kindle.
Noted
Two comments, possibly incompatible with each other.
Might a Penguin paperback be appropriate? They seem to havea long running series in modestly priced core texts – one that springs to mind is Ha Joon Chang’s ’23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism’
Might it be possible to publish as a normally-priced book, but with the online pdf being free to read? The example I am thinking of here is David Mackay’s excellent and comprehensive ‘Sustainable Energy – without the Hot Air’ (https://www.withouthotair.com/)
Either way, I look forward to it.
They often take 2 years to produce. Is it worth waiting that long?
I think a traditionally published book carries so much more legitimacy and that it will be worth the wait.
Since you have been traditionally published before and your profile has only risen since, and given the book is 30k words, I don’t think you’ll have a problem. But then you’d know more about that than I would!
Thank you
Richard
I am no book worm but the title feels familiar. I assume you have bashed a few search engines with it. Assuming no one has got there first maybe that familiarity is a good thing.
I discovered the world of publishing on demand when I wanted to read Michael Crawford’s book.
Libraries will not buy them but I was able to get it through Five Leaves in the city.
The quality was not great.
I heard Iain Dale talk on the radio a while back about his small publishing house. He said he could make money on a few thousand books. The problem with this story is that it was over twenty years ago.
Maybe it is still possible ?
Is there independent book printers left in the UK ?
Very few booksellers are left, as far as I know.
I hope you will stick with your own original ideas & ignore all those suggesting changes. Title, subtitle & cover are all perfect, in my opinion. I would pick this up if I saw it on a display table in a bookshop (even if I didn’t know who you were). It sparks my interest. Don’t fall for making things too obvious….!
What you have proposed – title, cover picture and back blurb – are all fine with me.
However, taking note of what others have said – how about ‘Finding the Courage to Make Democracy Work’ as a sub title?
Also, I have self-published on Amazon, which is very easy and quick, though it demands scrupulous proof reading to ensure every comma and dot and grammar etc are on point. The print on demand books are now of a good quality. My subject is extremely niche and so I have not had to market or try to sell (that wasn’t the purpose), but I believe it is possible to build quite a big sales capacity with the right promotion. Others might know more about this than I do, especially yourself. Waiting for a main publisher is probably not necessary – I hope.
Thanks, Anne.
FWIW should the title include the the concept of “for all”? Implying that the current failures don’t benefit most people.
Maybe the subtitle could be “Making Democracy work for all”
Just a thought
Noted