AUTHOR
Meet John Howard
About
After his children's manuscript was rejected twice in quick succession by two different agents at the same literary agency, John Howard contacted them. When the agency insisted such a mix-up could not have happened, he decided to run an experiment. Submitting extracts from his washing machine manual under the title The Tin Drum, he waited. Before long, a reply arrived praising the submission and thanking him for the opportunity to read it – before concluding that it simply wasn't for them! This story made the national news!
And so he turned to self-publishing!
Fast forward past John’s many school visits, seeing thousands of children, to the day when Waterstones (then) head buyer, Scott Pack, said The Key To Chintak is, ‘a wonderful read,’ and ‘you may not have heard of John now but you will not be able to miss him soon.’ Waterstones subsequently added it to their prestigious 3 for 2 range nationwide. It got into Waterstone’s top 10 and was the second bestselling children’s title from a small publisher at the time.
A Washing Machine?
Author John Howard was born in Dublin but raised in Sussex and worked in IT until he sold his company and decided to invest his money and time in fulfilling a long-held dream to write a children’s book. When even the huge publishers have trouble getting the chains to stock a wide range of their books, he achieved the almost impossible – getting them not only to read a self-published book but to stock it and promote it. Believing that the best people to advise on children’s books are children he has been indefatigable in visiting schools to road-test his book. John’s efforts at other forms of promotion have been equally committed. Let’s just say he is good at guerrilla marketing, and leave it at that!
