{"id":238,"date":"2013-01-17T09:24:21","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T09:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/?p=238"},"modified":"2015-01-08T15:39:37","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T15:39:37","slug":"putting-ten-things-ive-learnt-about-love-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/2013\/01\/putting-ten-things-ive-learnt-about-love-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE together…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ten<\/a>I have dreamt about having a book published since I knew what books were. As a kid, I wrote a lot, and then \u2013 distracted by GCSEs, A levels, and the general angst of being a teenager \u2013 I stopped writing. I still dreamt of being a writer, but I couldn\u2019t seem to manage to put pen to paper. I had nothing to say. It was too hard.<\/p>\n

My first job was as Literature Development Officer in Leicester. As I met and worked with writers from Leicester and further afield I slowly realised that maybe I could be a writer, maybe it wasn\u2019t entirely out of my reach, if I worked hard and took it seriously.<\/p>\n

That was ten years ago and I\u2019ve been working hard and taking it seriously ever since. In 2012, after writing two other unpublished novels, I was offered a two-book deal by Picador for my novel TEN THINGS I\u2019VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE<\/a> (and a new, untitled book). Picador have subsequently sold rights in thirteen other countries. A real dream come true.<\/p>\n

TEN THINGS I\u2019VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE is released on 31st January 2013. When Geoff Westby at Picador suggested I could go along to the printers to see it coming off the press I jumped at the chance. I have always been fascinated by how things are made, and the opportunity to see this novel, which I have spent five years writing, being turned into a physical object was too good to pass up.<\/p>\n

So on 19th December 2012, I went to Mackays in Chatham, Kent, to see TEN THINGS come off the press. Actually it was being \u2018bound\u2019 rather than printed, which meant I got to take home a beautiful finished copy.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a photo of me feeling a bit overwhelmed holding the first book off the press.<\/p>\n

\"sarah<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a whistle stop tour of the binding process. I have blogged about the process of printing the text here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The raw materials:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"bound<\/a>

The text \u2013 the beautiful endpapers are bound in with the text.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"hard<\/a>

The hardcovers. I love the beautiful blue foil printing on the spine.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The dustjackets<\/p><\/div>\n

The process:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. The text goes into the machine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"text<\/a>
\n2. The hard cover is glued onto the text. With paperbacks the cover is glued to the book spine (see my blog about the printing process<\/a>). With hardbacks the end papers are glued to the front and back inside cover.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"hard<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gluing<\/a>3. The glue is given a bit of time to dry and the books are positioned to have the dust jackets folded onto them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"conveyor<\/a>\"rollercoaster\"<\/a>4. The dust jackets are folded over the hardcover.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"dustjackets2\"<\/a>\"dustjackets<\/a>5. The books are stacked up (a machine turns every other one 180 degrees so they are stacked alternately.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"coming<\/a>6. Each stack is plastic-wrapped and packed into palettes for transport to the warehouse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"packaged<\/a><\/p>\n

The people<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"andy\"<\/a>

This is Andy who was in charge of the binding.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"team\"<\/a>

From left to right: Francesca Main, my fabulous editor at Picador; Jo Thomson who designed the gorgeous cover and endpapers; Daniel Barnett from Mackays and Sophie Jonathan, assistant editor at Picador.<\/p><\/div>\n

Even when you know them all, it\u2019s a thrill to see people sitting on a train reading the book you\u2019ve always dreamed of…<\/p>\n

\"geoff<\/a>\"francesca<\/a>\"sophie<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d like to say a huge thanks to the team at Picador<\/a> for making TEN THINGS such a beautiful thing (and a brilliantly edited read!), and to Mackays<\/a> for their generosity (and attention to detail). TEN THINGS I\u2019VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE will be published on 31st January 2013. You can preorder from all good bookshops, including Foyles<\/a>, Blackwells<\/a>, WHSmiths, <\/a>Waterstones. You can read an extract on Picador’s website<\/a>; get a flavour for its portrayal of London on Pinterest<\/a>, and like it on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have dreamt about having a book published since I knew what books were. As a kid, I wrote a lot, and then \u2013 distracted by GCSEs, A levels, and the general angst of being a teenager \u2013 I stopped … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}