Birth of a new book
No thrill, no fireworks, no blistering new dawn. Book publication days, like Christmas are often underpinned with disenchantment. Anticipation prompts unsustainable optimism. Reality inevitably falls short.
No thrill, no fireworks, no blistering new dawn. Book publication days, like Christmas or giving birth, are often underpinned with disenchantment. Anticipation prompts unsustainable optimism. Reality, despite the generous bouquets, bottles, cards and copious congratulatory emails and Facebook messages, inevitably falls short.
Our reward, we writers must constantly remind ourselves, is the writing itself. Preparation, planning, forecasts and build-up, promotion and publicity are the price. Come the big day, the work has long concluded but the graft has only just begun. When the author is spent and beaches beckon, they press Play.
The documentary
Throughout August, I was involved in the making of a documentary about the book, Freddie Mercury: A Secret Daughter? for Honey Bee Media/Channel 5 TV. Ungodly starts, location changes, trains, boats, planes, flight cancellations and long airport delays, multiple rearrangements and last-minute voice-over re-recordings were par for the course. It culminated in a Montreux rendezvous.
I had visited that breathtaking lakeside location annually as a young reporter during the days of the Rose d’Or television festival and accompanying rock performances. I’d been back a number of times since, notably in 2023, having arranged to meet Freddie Mercury’s daughter there to view her father’s private notebooks, and to begin to unravel the extraordinary life and relationship he had hidden for more than thirty years.
International editions
A major interview with la Repubblica, one of Italy’s leading national newspapers, ensued, ahead of 10th September publication of Italian edition Con Amore, Freddie. It quickly soared to number one on Amazon. Up next, the French offering, Affectueusement, Freddie. The title is a high-profile pre-order item at legendary Shakespeare and Company on the French capital’s Left Bank.
To come are local-language editions in Polish, Czech, Slovak, Brazilian Portuguese, and Dutch. Half a dozen further foreign language deals, currently in negotiation, will soon be announced.
Publication week began with a press round table involving a dozen national journalists. The world’s first podcast interview went to Walthamstow Rock’n’Roll Book Club’s Music Maps, scoring them their highest first-day listenership.
World exclusive serialisation
On Friday 29th August, the Daily Mail/mailonline’s three-day world exclusive serialisation commenced, running across the weekend and into Monday 1st September in both the Mail and Mail on Sunday. Each title hailed Love, Freddie as ‘the showbiz book of the year’. On Saturday 30th August I was interviewed live in the GB News television studio by Anne Diamond and Ben Leo.
Publication day was upon us. Books in the UK are almost invariably published on a Thursday (and on a Tuesday in the US). An exception was made for a Friday in this case because 5th September was Freddie’s birthday. This latest would have been his 79th.
Once pdf copies had been distributed to pre-registered reviewers, it was a leisurely stroll into London to greet 37 family members and close friends at the exclusive Soho Mews House, Mayfair, for a private champagne reception to wet the book’s head.
The following day brought an interview with Alexis Conran on Times Radio; then two for India Mid-Day and The Times of India, both huge-selling titles in an important market where 400 million people read at least one newspaper every day.
I then joined Mark Ellen and David Hepworth for an episode of their acclaimed podcast Word in Your Ear, and was cross-examined live on Talk Radio Europe by Hannah Murray.
Strike chaos
By which time London had ground to a halt, thanks to a mass walk-out by tube train drivers that left the capital choked with additional traffic and in utter chaos. Despite which there were Dutch press and Brazilian television commitments to attend to, a live gig to review, and a newspaper column to research and write.
The unanticipated roadblock was my felling by a dose of Covid, which caused the cancellation of a sold-out bookshop event and which has confined me to barracks ever since.
My hour-long special with host Andrew Eborn, the renowned international lawyer, broadcaster, futurist and president of Octopus TV, did go ahead, but over Zoom. Reader, one neither looked nor sounded one’s best.
But the show must go on, sang Freddie. So it did.