September 7th, 2014
How A Community Player Inspired A Book
Jane Hunt, Catapult PR
People are asking what the new book is all about, but that’s the wrong question. What they should be asking is ‘who inspired it?’ which would lead them to find that it was someone with a great sense of community and a real drive to implement that vision.
It’s not often that the personalities I meet in the PR world become an inspiration to me. In fact, it only happened for the first time in summer/autumn 2012, when I felt the desire to write, to make someone proud. Whether they were or not, is debatable. The new book, however, was originally conceived whilst writing a PR proposal. It fitted a need I was struggling to fulfil at the time – a need to write a book to a particular word length that existing books could not satisfy. It also fit a mind-set – one that had emerged at Bologna, when I looked at a book cover and thought it would be a good thing if I could write a book that would end up with a cover like that. Put the two together and the mind worked overtime, resulting in the idea that came to fruition in June.
It had such an impact on me that I completely abandoned another book in chapter 18 – one I need to return to soon, as I actually feel that has a big future too. It made me develop a desire to write a book that would be adopted by schools, because of its ability to reinforce part of the National Curriculum. Ironically, my original inspirer could pick it up and implement it in their work tomorrow. However, I plan to do something really bold with it and try to gain a third party endorsement more powerful than any other I can think of. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Whether or not the community campaign that inspired this will ever get its funding is a question up in the air right now, but maybe only for a few weeks. That would leave me a busy girl, so just as well I wrote the book in the interim period. It will be used to satisfy the need I had originally, but I won’t stop there. I think this book could tick a lot of boxes, so targeting UK agents and publishers will now be on my to-do list, though I do know a man that I would love to give it to, if he could give it the profile I think it deserves. If I got the high profile third party endorsement, I’d definitely do that I like to look after those who look after me.
If I achieve my dream of getting it adopted within the education sector, it could be huge, so there’s a challenge. This is why I need my Neil Clough project manager working with me, understanding the business, showing commitment to it and sharing the rewards.
It’s incredibly satisfying to do something totally British, after giving Italy its own little gift of books. Which country next and who next? Now looking in earnest for the next person to inspire me to write something quirky and dynamic. That’s the beauty of PR – you never know who you might meet next.
