Empire of Booze is back!
A shameless plug for the reprint of my first book. Short version: buy my book.
In the old days once a book had been published, it generally had a couple of weeks to make a splash. Then if it didn’t get the publicity and reviews coverage, then it would usually disappear without a trace. I remember from my own days in the press office at various publishers the increasingly desperate calls and emails from authors who hadn’t quite realised that it was too late. Often they’d start doing tours of bookshops and libraries, or print fliers to hand out locally in the hope of jump-starting sales.
But now in the age of social media, podcasts, Amazon, Substack and all the wonders of the modern world, there is a greater possibility of a second chance which brings me on to my first book Empire of Booze: British history through the bottom of the glass. The premise of the book is that almost every alcoholic drink such as champagne, claret, rum and gin were either created by or for the British. It came out in 2016, got a respectable amount of coverage as you’d hope as my previous job was in publicity, won a Fortnum & Mason award and sold about 6,000 copies. Much much better than most books do. All set up to be a surprise bestseller in paperback.
Of course, it didn’t happen. It was always very unlikely to. Most book don’t sell. I also think the timing was bad. When I first started working on Empire of Booze, narrative non-fiction was all the rage. You know the kind of thing, how one man’s quest for cheese conquered a kingdom and changed the world. By the time it came out, such books were dead. Furthemore a book celebrating British exceptionalism in 2016 seemed to really annoy some people. I can’t think why.
The paperback did absolutely nothing. I wrote two more books, neither of which set the world on fire. Having left publishing with the aim of making a career as an author, I suddenly needed a job so started working for an online whisky retailer. At various whisky trade dinners, I’d meet people, often quite high up in companies like Diageo, who had read and loved Empire of Booze. Invitations to speak about it kept coming through. I remember going off to one in 2018, and when I told my daughter where I was going she replied: “you’re not still talking about your book are you daddy?” During lockdown I switched to online talks, which people paid to attend and was even asked to do a whole lecture series which I didn’t have time to do.
Not that it made a huge difference to sales but there was life in the old dog yet. Then I went on the Rest is History Podcast with Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. I’d just emailed the producer out of the blue after listening to one episode where the hosts had pondered the origin of port. We recorded the show at Berry Bros in December and it came out on Boxing Day last year. And then things went ballistic.
Well not quite ballistic. The book sold out instantly. In a miracle of bad timing, the paperback was between reprints. At one point copies were going for over £100 on rare book sites. Empire of Booze went to number one in wine books on Kindle. But best of all I got lots and lots of emails from people saying how much they loved the book. Now the wheels of publishing turn slow but they grind exceedingly fine so only four months after the show went out: paperbacks are here!
When I first started work on Empire of Booze I foresaw potential sequels. So if this reprint sells, then perhaps a publisher might be interested in a sequel called Empires of Booze looking at the Dutch, Belgians, Portuguese and Spanish. I’ll move on to Republics of Booze and then Khanates of Booze. So please buy a copy either from Amazon or bother your local bookshop.
My best wishes! The book is excellent, and it deserves a raving success. Appropriately, I read it in Spain near the sherry triangle (in 2016), and I found it immensely informative and entertaining. I look into it again and again to refresh bits and to look at the examples you recommend to try. In particular those led me to things I'd have never tried on my own. That alone would be enough to make the book worth reading.
I know I've been wanting to complement the work after having read it since about 2017.