We’ve been absolutely blown away by how many people have bought our Windsor Christmas Tales book – thank you, thank you, thank you! Our book is a community project and, as with a lot of labours of love, it was never going to make anyone a millionaire. But it is art. And it brings joy. And those are both very valuable commodities.
So how did we do it and how long did it take? If you or another writing group out there has any ambitions of producing a book at some point, we hope you find this an interesting read.
And talking of interesting reads… this is the must-have Christmas read of 2022
“The perfect way to get yourself in the mood for the festive season.”
How do you bring a book to market?
With twelve authors involved, sometimes decisions took a bit of time. But the expertise amongst us was impressive: we had a phenominal set of skills. So here’s how we did it – the journey of how Windsor Christmas Tales came to be:
| January 2020 | Our last face to face Windsor Writers Group meeting before you-know-what happened. One member suggests producing a book to cement all the writing knowledge learned since joining the group. Half the room groan at the idea (they’d done it before) but the seed is planted… |
| April 2020 | The project is sanctioned at the AGM and project streams are created including promotion, editing, artwork… |
| June 2020 | The writers brainstorm story ideas together and the story length was established at around 3,000 words. This may or may not have been faithfully stuck to… |
| The rest of the long, hot 2020 summer… | We pen our Christmas stories and poems whist sweltering away in the heat |
| October 2020 | Authors read each others’ stories and give initial feedback |
| February 2021 | The editing team are in full swing working through the stories and providing comments & amends to each author |
| April 2021 | Authors complete their amends and finalise their stories |
| June 2021 | Cover design is approved. Several illustrators respond to our brief and Bryony Usher gets appointed as the story illustrator. There is some healthy debate over typeface! |
| August 2021 | Blurb is written. The foreword is kindly written by Ruth Brandt and the authors write their biographies. |
| September 2021 | Proof reading and formatting (yawn!) |
| October 2021 | Platforms for producing the book are investigated, debated and voted on. The RRP price for the book is established |
| November 2021 | Initial print run of the book. The book has a soft launch and sells out just before Christmas. |
| A Big Long Rest to Recuperate… | |
| Summer 2022 | The marketing team engage with retailers ready for Christmas |
| September 2022 | Marketing commences. Flyers for the book launch are produced. |
| November 2022 | Windsor Christmas Tales has its official Book Launch at The Old Court and receives a fantastic representation from the Windsor community. Press articles appear. The book starts selling. |
And that’s the end of the story so far. December is here and Christmas just a couple of weeks away. But there’s still plenty of time to grab yourself a copy of Windsor Christmas Tales and enjoy the fruits of our labour as it’s now only a click away on Amazon. Waterstones Windsor are now fully re-stocked as is the Craft Coop Windsor and there are still a few copies at the Windsor Museum which is a great place to visit (and FREE!)
We are all very proud of Windsor Christmas Tales and of the great reviews it has achieved and we are so grateful to all the Windsor residents (current & former) together with visitors to our magnificent royal town who have supported our book.
Windsor Writers' Group 