Thank You! (Yes, you too, there at the back.)
Yet another brutally honest Substack outpouring about the world of writing
Substack - particularly the Notes section - is heavily populated with people sharing their subscriber milestones but it’s arguably even more heavily populated with people talking about how sick they are of seeing people sharing their subscriber milestones. I’m not going to screenshot the latest, quite significant one I just passed, but…. you know what? I AM going to celebrate it. I’m going to celebrate it because it is solid gold evidence that all of the exhausting work I have done on here over the last eighteen months - while simultaneously writing two novels - and put so much of myself into is being read and enjoyed. I am going to celebrate it because it’s proof that a writer from a working class provincial family with no higher education whose face doesn’t fit in the UK literary establishment can find their own, alternative way to be read and appreciated, without networking or relying on the assistance of the elite. I am going to celebrate it because it means, while I am wondering why my publishers haven’t paid me money they have owed me for a long time and why my agent hasn’t been chasing harder for that money and doesn’t appear to be as interested in my books as he once was and all of these facts have been keeping me awake at night far too often, I am not sitting here in terror because I can’t pay my rent or heat my house over the winter. I am going to celebrate because, when I go into yet another bookshop here in the UK and see it’s not stocking my new book, nor any of the thirteen I wrote before it, it fucking hurts, but not as much as it would fucking hurt if I didn’t then come home to at least one message EVERY SINGLE DAY from someone somewhere in the world with a Substack account who has loved one of those books and has often been moved to recommend or buy them for friends. I am going to celebrate because, due to this site, I have sent well over a thousand books all over the planet this year and - while that process has left me ragged and stretched close to breaking point at times - I enjoy it and believe one day, maybe in a year or two, when more of those books have been read, it is going to start making a difference which will eventually knock down some of the walls I keep seeing in front of me: walls that are not any less real just because they are made of hype and topsoil buzz and trends and marketing budgets and bullshit and flannel instead of bricks and mortar. I am going to celebrate because every day I am buzzing with so many ideas for more writing to do here that I frequently feel lightheaded. I am going to celebrate because, at a point when genuine, concerning question marks surround how I’m going to publish more books after the one I’ve just completed, I have the reassurance of knowing my work is being enthusiastically read and shared here. I am going to celebrate because I know my recent books are fucking brilliant and deserve more attention than the attention they’ve received - they deserve this, this word-of-mouth exposure they are getting here - and because I have learned that, while modesty is a fine quality and I am proud to have been brought up by people who emphasised that to me from day one, I have also realised how damaging it can be to push yourself to do excellent work then act, while communicating with a certain kind of person from a different background to you, as if that the work is not excellent. I am going to celebrate because this, right here, is my creative future. And without it, who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t have much of one at all.
I’m going to keep going. You can be sure of that. Thank you for helping me do so, at a hard time.
I want to ask you one more favour, which, if you are able to do it, will help me out a little at what is quite a worrying time, in terms of my publishing future: If you genuinely enjoy my writing here, and you would like to read more of it, can you let me help you find a way to get one - or more - of my books into your hands? I ask this because the more people read these books, the less enormous an obstacle the wall I mentioned earlier - that one that stands in front of me because I stubbornly choose to do things my own way, instead of writing the inferior, more obedient books people told me to - is in terms of my existing books remaining in print and me being able to publish more of them in the future.
One easy way to do this is by taking out a full annual paid subscription to this page, which will give you access to my archives and future paid posts. It’s a little cheaper than a monthly one, and I will send signed and personalised hardbacks of my books Villager and Notebook to everyone who takes one out, wherever they happen to be on the planet. PLUS my mum Jo (you can read more about her work here) has just sent me the little selection of linoprints and linoprint bookmarks you can see above, and all of the next few people to subscribe will receive one of these, until they are all gone (there are just over 20 in total). When I get notification of your subscription, I will email you for your address, then send out the books within three days (usually sooner).
If you can’t stretch to that, I am very happy to send UK readers signed hardbacks of Villager and Notebook for JUST the price of postage. (If you want to give me a bit more for them, that would be fabulous. If you can’t afford to, no problem.) Just email me at hello@tom-cox.com if you’d like one, specifying your address and if you’d like Villager or Notebook or both. I say “UK readers” because I know both of these books are considerably more expensive to send overseas and it would be less expensive for people outside the UK to get them from Blackwells, who are somehow able to do free international delivery on all on my most recent seven books: 1983, Villager, Notebook, Ring The Hill, Help The Witch and 21st-Century Yokel. However, If you’d prefer Villager or Notebook from me, signed, I will send them to you, wherever you are.
The books are also of course available at Amazon UK and Amazon.Com. If you have already read and enjoyed any of my books, it also helps enormously if you can leave a review of them at either of these sites.
There’s also Bookshop.Org if you’d prefer to avoid Amazon and shop independently.
I wrote a short guide to the books here in case you are wondering what to read first.
Thank you for making the time to read this, in our insanely hectic world.
I’m so excited about the new things I’m going to write here. I hope you are too.
Tom
I’ve also added this link on my website for people who can’t afford a subscription but would like to support my writing.
I'm already a paying subscriber, and I have all your books except 1983 (which is on my to-buy list) and Everything Will Swallow You (which I'm anxiously awaiting). However, there is one more thing I can - and will - do, which is to tuck my extra copies of Villager and Notebook into two of the "little free libraries" in my small town of Ipswich, MA. I think I will inscribe them with messages to future readers ... something enticing and a bit mysterious - an invitation into another world. I wonder where the books will end up. I wish I could follow them. I will make sure to mention your Substack to these as yet unidentified readers so that they might come and join the delightful community you've created here. xo
Oh dear God, is this an immigrant snacking on a cat?!
(This is meant to be a joke. Please don't take offense. My country has lost its fucking mind and I'm trying to cope.)