A tale of self-publishing, part 1
The inspiration
2008 was the year. One hazy summer evening, quaffing fruity drinks in pubs, boyhood bestie Paul Irwin and I came up with what was surprisingly quite a good idea despite our refreshed state — to produce and self-publish an independent guidebook to celebrate the town in which we grew up.
On pressing ahead with the project, we faced a few stumbling blocks and no small amount of negativity from certain townsfolk; but after applying ourselves like men possessed, the guides appeared in print and were snapped up immediately on publication. With two editions issued over two summers, a very respectable 120,000 free copies were distributed.
Excited come spring to share my first bumbling attempt at web design, whitleybayinthe70s.com was devoted to a childhood of adventure and getting up to mischief (as all kids should).
As a direct link to our youth, and to provide reference material for the site, Paul and I built up a collection of old 1970s postcards and local tourist guides, mostly found on eBay. Those ’70s annual council guides offered packed beaches, endless sunshine, and hot and cold water in every room. Pages of ads and hazy colour photos recalled those years, in particular the smells and screams from the world famous Spanish City fairground — our own version of Coney Island — which was open all through summer, and right there at the end of our street.
Yearning to recapture those times though the town had long since changed, we wondered if such a holiday guide could be done afresh; an all-new little pocket-booklet with things to read and foldy-out maps. Info on where to eat, drink and stay overnight too would ensure a handy up-to-date mini-guidebook that folks might wish to use and keep hold of.
Our plan at first was to supply the booklets to the DFDS cruise ships berthing on the River Tyne a few miles away… perhaps the many hundreds of passengers who disembark daily might like to come and spend their Euros in the shops and bars of Whitley Bay rather than travel to the big city?
Initial designs were prepared with which we sought opinions in a meeting with the helpful head of local Tourism, and one individual ‘representing hotels’ who also showed up. “Well it’s very nice but it won’t have much appeal, maybe a hundred copies would be enough” to paraphrase our hotelier chum. Other assorted characters assured us it would never work, the town is finished, why bother, etc.
Never should a few blinkered opinions deter anyone if a project could benefit many, and indeed, once we had presented our thoughts to the very enthusiastic Chamber of Trade, the guidebook concept grew with more widespread possibilities. It would serve not only to focus on things of interest for visitors to the area, but to provide much localised detail to enlighten townsfolk of their own surroundings.
Deciding early on that ‘added value’ would come from the written word, we approached various local writers to provide articles for inclusion. This would elevate the guide from just a list of businesses to something of lasting allure.
Design and artwork were handled by myself so no concerns about budgeting there, just countless hours of gathering info on the town’s offerings and amenities, sourcing images, endless fine-tuning. But how were we to fund the vast printing costs? Our desired first run of 20,000 copies of a 62-page booklet in glorious full-colour was not going to be a dime a dozen.
Paul, then owner of EastCoast Taxis & Tours, had no shortage of corporate contacts, and in no time we had a whole bunch of restaurants, shops, hotels and so on who were very willing to take out advertising space. We received some very kind funding from our friend at the Tourism Board who also graciously agreed to help distribute the guide through their own channels and outlets. So with this and the ad revenue combined, most of our costs were taken care of in advance — this allowed us to forego any cover charge and give the guides out for free.
Then came the day on which the first vanload of boxes showed up… 20,000 guides to chuck out there. They looked amazing we thought… but what would the people of Whitley Bay make of it?
Continue to A tale of self-publishing, part 2 >