A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Madrid Book Fair...
24 Jun 2011

Sheridan Simove recounts his experiences on a recent publicity tour for his book What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex. I’m just back from Madrid after what can only be described as an amazing whirlwind adventure… Last Thursday night, I didn’t sleep a wink. I left my flat at 3.30am to join the Stag and Hen groups at Luton airport to fly to Spain to launch ‘Qué Piensan Los Hombres Más Allá Del Sexo’ the Spanish Edition of my blank book ‘What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex’… I arrived in beautiful, sunny Madrid at just after ten in the morning and immediately got whisked off by my Spanish Publishers to the Madrid Book Fair for an interview with the biggest Press Agency in Spain, EFE. Next, I was promptly filmed for TeleMadrid, a prominent news TV channel - who (astonishingly) turned the footage round within the hour and it aired on Spanish TV at 2pm that day. I watched the report about my Spanish blank book go out, in my hotel room…most surreal… Next, I retired to my sumptuous hotel bed for a much needed snooze, and after finally getting to sleep around three in the afternoon, I was woken by my buzzing ‘silent’ phone. The ‘BBC equivalent’ of Spanish television - TVE - had seen the piece the first journalist had written (it was on the web - on a journalist intranet only) and wanted to interview me in half an hour for their main news show to air the next week… So I showered and dressed and did a full-blown interview. Dinner was next, at a random restaurant, and the owner recognised me from the TV interview that went out that afternoon. Just incredible… See the fantastic Spanish news reports report by visiting my site and clicking on ‘Latest News’ or cut and paste this into your browser: http://www.shedsimove.com/node/20545 The next day, we visited the biggest bookstore in Madrid to view my book in situ, but it was completely sold out. The shop assistants (who were surprisingly excited to see the man whose books they’d been selling so well from their counter) then checked across all twenty of their stores - and the book was totally sold out across the whole chain in Spain (that rhymes!). We went back to the Book Fair to see if there were any copies left there as well, but again, they’d sold out. Maria, from the Publishing Company was panicking that they couldn’t satisfy demand. All in all, it’s been another incredible part of this rollercoaster ride that the blank book is taking me on. For me, this latest episode in the surreal saga of the book shows how working with brilliant people can make absolute pure magic happen. By ensuring a publicity trip was written into our contract for the sale of the foreign book rights (and yes, I realise it seems faintly absurd that we sold the foreign rights to a blank book, but we have - around the globe!), the brilliant Spanish Publishers then did a superb job of garnering interviews which in tune led to an enthusiastic author and entrepreneur from Wandsworth, London being flown over to a foreign country to successfully publicise a totally blank book, which promptly sold out. Job pretty well done, I’d say! On top of all this, I arrived back to find the Mongolian edition of the book in my mailbox and photos in my email of Amsterdam’s biggest bookstore that has created a hilarious window display centred around the English version of the book. So those are even more wondrous (and slightly comical) triumphs. We’ve currently signed deals with publishers all around the world – including Croatia, Australia, Serbia, UK, Spain, Mongolia, China and Wales, and have deals pending in France, Hungary, Russia and numerous other places (and eagerly looking for a publisher in the USA, in case you know anyone…). And it all goes to show…even from nothing, wonderful adventures can blossom… The Spanish edition of the blank book appears on two National TV News Reports - view them here: http://www.shedsimove.com/node/20545 WOW! In Amsterdam, the biggest bookstore gives over its window display to promote the Blank Book. Take a look at this amazing montage: http://www.flickr.com/photos/americanbookcenter/sets/72157626975228698/ HOLA AMIGO! Shed speaks Spanish in this video for the Spanish Blank Book: http://bit.ly/mdjKA5 Read the full story of how Shed got to the top of the Amazon Charts with a BLANK BOOK… Great feature by the Londonist http://londonist.com/2011/02/london-entrepreneurs-shed-simove.php