It’s been a long hibernation

About 18 months ago, not long after I finished and put on sale The Ten Word Film Review Book, I was trying to think of ways I could promote it beyond my immediate friends and family. I struck upon the idea of suggesting to my local independent cinema in Oxford, recently reopened after a Covid lockdown, that I could give them some copies for what they cost me, then they could sell the books and keep any profit they made for themselves. So one day, after seeing a film there, I dropped a copy of the book into the box office, and, uncomfortable about the prospect of explaining my idea in person, sent an email where I spelt it out. I was clear that I would make no money on such an arrangement, and that all I was hoping to gain was some word-of-mouth publicity. It would be a small, mutually beneficial arrangement.

I didn’t hear anything for a few days, and then got a response. It said (and I’m paraphrasing, because it was one of very, very few emails I’ve ever deleted within minutes) “Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we don’t sell books. Good luck with your sales pitch.”

In terms of my morale regarding the book, its effect could hardly have been more seismic. Hardly the most natural self-promoter at the best of times, I found myself wondering who might I expect to be interested in it when a small independent cinema could be so indifferent and offhand. The ‘sales pitch’ comment, when I had been explicit that I was an amateur writer just hoping to get my book seen, felt like a particular punch in the gut. I found it hard to maintain enthusiasm for continuing to push the book. Plans I had had to keep awareness of it afloat – an Instagram account, this blog – fell by the wayside. 

A year passed. I moved to Abingdon. With the world feeling like it was starting to reopen after a long 18 months of Covid vicissitudes, and having enjoyed visits to my new local cinema The Abbey, I decided to try again. I dropped off a copy of the book, and followed it up with an email as before. Needless to say, my expectations were nil, and when I didn’t get a response I was unsurprised.

However. One Friday afternoon, ten days later, I received an email from the manager of The Abbey declaring that she thought the book “brilliant”, and did I have time to talk over the weekend? And in fact we talked later that afternoon, and she could hardly have been more enthusiastic. Far from sneering at my ‘sales pitch’, she was brimming with ideas for how they might be able to help, and in a purely altruistic way too, without any commercial angle for the cinema (because, what with them being a cinema, they don’t sell books either). But the next day I dropped off some copies to be placed in their café. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the cinema and on my way to the gents was met with this majestic sight:

Now, I’m not so young and wide-eyed that I am going to extrapolate from two isolated incidents and draw any grandiose conclusions from them. That said, it did make me wonder whether if one lives and works in a city like Oxford, the default position is to look for a way to say no; whereas when it comes to a town like Abingdon, it is easier to look for a way to say yes. From my perspective, every time I pass The Abbey, on my way to the GP, the park or Waitrose, I get a warm glow of recognition that sometimes, putting it at its most simplistic, good things do happen to fair-to-middling people.