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Nick Emm, from Nottinghamshire, is the creator
of a new series of books that is rushing off the shelves of bookstores
around the country.
We find out why he chose the subject of bowel movements for his
set of books that were primarily aimed at kids but have crossed
over to the humour market...
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Once upon a time I had a day job... and
I'm happy to say that's both the beginning and the end of that particular
story.
I believe real riches come from living our lives
as we truly want to live them and poverty has never been disabling
or a source of unhappiness to me, in fact I see it almost as a necessary
element of persuing ones dreams and ambitions.
Circumstances played a crucial part in my 'wake up' call. I was
a successful Financial Advisor working for one of the top ten assurance
companies when my marriage broke up.
I had always wanted to write and rather than dwelling
on the heart rending gut churning misery that always accompanies the
failure of relationships where children are involved, I used the time
'alone' to focus on the ideas that had always flooded my head but
that responsibility had kept firmly stashed away in a 'maybe someday'
file.
A really unpleasant teacher called
Mr Firebrace got me into writing... He'd
asked us to write something 'descriptive' and he chose mine to read
out, which he did beautifully. It was the 'you'll never believe who
wrote this...' introduction, and the 'even a completely useless person
can sometimes create something good...' summary which has given him
his place in my memory's hall of shame.
Despite this, it obviously registered with
me, it let me know I could write.
I published a series of books based on stories
I made up for my son... when he was very young. I made a complete
pigs ear of it and they went out of print very quickly and were a
complete financial loss.
Writing is hard work, publishing is high risk
and I learned both those lessons the hard way.
In 1998, I was sitting in my bedsit. The room
was quiet and I sat chain smoking rollups and praying for guidance
when a song came to me. Words and music together. The Poo-Rap now
appears in the back of every book.
I had great fun developing the characters...
and loosely based their personalities on people I knew.
I tried to make them quirky, colourful and individual
and set the stories in a pleasant place within the sewer as opposed
to somewhere disgusting and decaying.
The societal structure of Windy Bottom Park is based on a funny line
from 'Monty Python & The Holy Grail' where King Arthur announces
to a couple of peasants the he is their King, to which the peasants
reply 'We don't know anything about a King, we're an autonomous collective.'
It makes absolute sense to me.
The big problem was how to write about
Poo Poo without causing offence... Five years later they're now
out there but I was foolish to think that I'd succeeded in making
them 'sanitized' and acceptable to all.
These are 'crossover' books, so although they deliberately have the
look and feel of children's books, they work on several levels.
People either love 'em or hate 'em. They get
it or they don't. Age range 8 - 80.
My little first floor flat in Long Eaton is
strewn with projects and work in progress... Ideas that I'll
probably never develop lie in piles on the floor and illustrations
of Angels, pigs and Poo Poo cling to the damp walls with blue tac,
the varying shades of yellow identifying the age of the assorted
pieces of work.
One of the piles on the floor contains a large file marked 'correspondence
1982 -1998'. It holds rejection letters from probably every known
publisher, TV company and radio station in the universe.
It sits there gathering dust and reminding me that belief in myself
is the lesson here. At any time during that 16 year period I could
have quit, gone back to being a wage slave doing a job I hated.
It stops at 1998 because it was then that I decided
to self publish and despite meeting with failure the first time,
have never gone back to sending stuff to slush piles.
I had been working on various 'Angel' projects and my film script
when I met my 'soulmate'... almost a year ago to the day, and
when my darling Gabrielle (O'Brien) first came to my flat she looked
around and rather than saying 'How can you live like this!!!???'
she said, 'You must get your work out there darling.'
That was the catalyst for me to suddenly call Waterstones Head Office
in August last year. When I phoned Waterstones I explained that
I thought I had something 'different'... but I found myself
almost frightened to say the series title.
Finally and apologetically I said that the series was called 'Poo
Poo People'."Don't apologise Nick, Poo Poo sells. When can
I see them?" was the response. After picking myself up off
the floor, I set about creating two 'mock up' books and my good
friend Adrian Wood, a multi talented graphic designer and now our
Director of Design, took my illustrations and manuscript and produced
two lovely books.
Armed with those I traveled down to Brentford to see Special Promotions
buyer, George Gray. He immediately ordered 9,000 books and they
went into every Waterstones store in the country on the 27th of
October 2003.
The biggest adversity anyone creative has to
face is themselves... I found it easy to kid myself that I was
moving forward professionally and personally but ignored the fact
that only one project had been brought to fruition.
The fact that it had been a financial failure was glossed over completely
when I regaled those who showed the slightest interest in my writing
career. I talked of film scripts not even out of the idea stage
and books where the pages were still virginal and icy white, as
if Speilberg was about to make them and as if the Booker prize this
year would be mine.
I don't do this anymore, and funnily enough gave up drinking for
life about a year ago.
The breakthrough was less to do with dogged persistence and more
to do with finally discovering that love is the most important thing
in the world... and that it is the key to happiness.
Having Gabrielle's love and belief in me is mind blowing. In just
six short weeks I wrote and illustrated six books and we'd set up
Edo Press Limited in Radford.
Radford's great! It's easy to reach, lowish cost, very close to
everything, multi-cultural, and rockin'.
So, what now? Technology has made it possible
to contact distributors anywhere in the world and we currently have
interest from Oz, Japan, and the US.
This is still ongoing so nothing concrete to report yet. We have
a stand booked at the Spring Fair at the NEC in Birmingham to penetrate
the gift market and six more Poo Poo titles will be coming out around
May/June 2004.
My original intention was to remain completely
anonymous, hence my pseudonym Otto Flood... as there are now
lots of projects that really are coming to fruition and I wanted
to avoid being labeled as the creator of any particular one.
The one most likely to stick is Poo Poo People but as I write this
now, I am proud to have been their creator, and to be associated
as such, but will keep the name as I like it.
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Read about Poo Poo People : The
Nottingham publishing success story.
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