Nobody Panic - A Big Announcement

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Stevie and Tessa are incredibly excited to have a Big Announcement and hope you’re as excited as they are once you hear what the Big Announcement is. Without wanting to give the surprise away, here are some of the links they mention that you should definitely have a look at: Pre-order a signed copy at Lutyens & Rubinstein: https://www.lutyensrubinstein.co.uk/product/signed-nobody-panic/Or pre-order a regular copy from:Blackwell’s: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781529364408Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781529364408Foyles: https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/health-wellbeing/untitled,anonymous-9781529364408Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/nobody-panic-how-to-be-a-functional-adult-without-screaming/9781529364408Hive: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Anonymous/Untitled/25842563Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Panic-functional-without-screaming/dp/152936440XHachette: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/anonymous-9/untitled/9781529364408/Want to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Hello, welcome to Nobody Panic with me, Stevie, and my good friend, Tessa. Hey, Tessa, what's the adult thing you did this time?

Stevie, the adult thing is that we have written a book. No, no about this. No, I told me. I cut you out of it. It's just me. No, you were involved. Our joint adult thing, this whole episode is going to be just. one big adult thing. Our adult thing is that we are writing a book and it comes out in November, but it launches today. Today, so you can pre-order it at all good bookstores. Obviously, it's a very,

it's a detective novel. We've written a, yeah, it's just trying to get into that Agatha Christie, Grisham, niche. Ben diagram. Yeah. Yeah. Gaping. It's a charming old lady detective, but in downtown Manhattan. She wears twin set and pearls, but she's also reeling from the death of her partner. It was her fault during her time with the FBI. So if that sounds up your alley, then click on that link. It's not. So actually, what we thought we'd do is we would just, you know, ask each other questions, you know,

and maybe illuminate the process of this very academic pursuit that we've been doing. The two very literary people. And our book is, it's high art, let's be honest. So, if you were to describe this book, you know, to me, using words, including perhaps the title of the book, how would you go about that? Thank you, Stevie. Thank you so much. And that's such a wonderful question. It's so it's an honour to be discussing this with you on this literary platform.

So the book is called Nobody Panic, colon, how to be a fully functioning adult without screaming. And it is a collection of everything we've ever learned during this podcast. It's not just transcripts of episodes. It is each one is a standalone chapter. And we've included all our favorites and some we've never tackled before. We've got how to do DIY. We've got how to leave a WhatsApp group. We've got how to get over a broken heart.

how to go to a wedding, how to do your taxes. It's in there, baby. We wrote the book we wish we'd read. May I just pop in here and just say, you know, you say these chapters, you know, these how-to chapters. People might be thinking, you know, okay, so, you know, you've just written some chapters,

but no, no, no. What I found most illuminating about this book was that, you know, you say how to do your taxes, but it is a poem of 18 cantos. Yes. Thank you, Stevie. Initially, I attempted to write a rap, and I couldn't. That's a surprise to me.

It was, I concluded, I gave myself the self-note that it was best if I stopped this. And instead, I wrote... Culturally, as well as practically. Culturally, practically emotionally, best if I park that idea. And instead write an epic, A, B, rhyming canto. And I've written them. I've had anything too many pages on tax. It's actually, I think that chapter is genius.

I had no hand in it. We'll go into our process, of course. Because that's what the listeners want to know. When I read, normally, you know, we kind of send each other edits of chapters that we were doing and then the other person kind of looks over it. I looked at him. It was like, absolutely going bang in. And it just went in.

It was absolutely perfect. No notes. No notes for me. No, no. Now, Steve, if I could ask you a question about your book. No. Okay. Where can people buy it? And how? And if I may just, while you look up that information.

I've got it in my eye. I will tell the listeners that what we have heard, and obviously we are new to the world of publishing, but what we have heard is that pre-sales are the most important thing. So if you are thinking of buying the book, please may we ask you to buy it now and not in November when it comes out because if you think, yeah, yeah, I'll buy it when it comes in the bookshops. But if we could ask you to buy it now, it means that, and you can get it anywhere online. Waterstones. Anywhere. Anywhere.

BNQ. Homebase. You just go on Google. It's on the homepage. Etsy, eBay. It's there. It's there for you. I've eBayed a signed copy already.

It's illegal to have done that, but that's what we're doing. No, you can go walk into your local bookstore. You can go on Waterstones. You can go, you know, where we're not supposed to go, but you know we're going to go there. Jeff's house. Jeff's house. He needs that money to go to space.

There will be a pre-order link. And what it means if you pre-order it is that the bookshops and the booksellers think, like, ooh, a bit of interest for this book. We should get more of it. And then maybe there's a bit of buzz, you know. So if you could... Basically, we're trying to create hot buzz. If you could help us create hot buzz, that would be really marvellous.

We would be thrilled at that because... We'd love the hot, hot bath. A little bit of a behind the scenes is that when you're doing a book, somebody within the publishing house will sort of give you a sort of target that is absolutely insane to the amount of books. And you know, you go, it's fine. If I sell three, I'll be happy. Tessa is trying to hit that target.

Listen, right. Another peak behind the camera. And thank you so much for asking me, Stevie. It was more of a statement rather than a question. Sorry. No, but I've picked that up, that mantle that you've put down. I've run with it. The book is hard back.

It is a beautiful shade of blue. I think if you go on our Twitter or our Instagram today, or indeed, on eBay, you'll see the big Q. The shelves being cute. You'll see the front cover. It's a, I think, a very lovely shade of blue. It's got a cool design. The blue of our eyes, may I say.

It's the blue of our eyes. And then the dark blue of our soul. And we think it's nice. But in the design process, we asked for a number of things. We wanted a ribbon like you might get in a cookbook down the middle. We wanted the edges of the paper to be Barbie pink. We wanted a lot of guilt work. It's a lot of guilt work.

Just like as much, we were gilding the lilia as much. We wanted color illustrations. We wanted, we wanted so much fath that they kept saying like. I wanted it to sort of look like the King James Bible. Right. That is basically, when they asked for our like image ideas, we sent. We sent the King James Bible. We wanted to be like.

I'm not joking. We also said, I said essentially the King James Bible and then four film posters from the 60s. Yes. And they were like, the Godfather. Okay. Yeah. That is genuinely. our style references with the King James Bible

and the poster from the Godfather so so in retrospect we've not been the easiest to work with but listen the point is they were like okay if we do all these things

your book will be like four foot wide and it will cost like 120 pounds and you'll only be able to buy it as a cot like this is unsustainable and also it will only appeal to like 47 year old men which is hey if you're listening that's our market baby

We love you. But we're coming for you. But listen, they said, then they gave us a number of books to sell. And they said, if you hit this number, you can have your ribbon. The ribbon, yeah. You can have the edge of the paper, the Barbie Pink paper. So if you could help us. We won't say the number, but just imagine it's too big.

Just imagine that. It's way too big. But if you could. So therein lies the sort of vague, the pre-order hysteria within that. But also, so it's out on the. the 4th of November. Remember, remember, the 4th of November, which we love because it comes right in the middle of sort of, you know, firework, bonfire night, which sort of makes it impossible to sort of do anything meaningful on around the day. But we will be doing a launch. We will do a proper launch. We'll do a big live podcast. We'll have the books for sale. We'll do signings. I'm going to be selling these books until I'm 70. I'm going to be bringing around copies of these books until I die. If you ever see us in the street, you'll know it's us because we'll have a small red wagon of our wares and we'll be selling them to anybody.

Stevie, if people want to pre-order a signed copy that they can get personalized, that they can buy for themselves or as a gift, where can they go? They can go to, if you look up Lutyens and Rubenstein, a lovely indie, a lovely indie band, a lovely independent bookshop. It's based in West London. but obviously you can, you know, because of the World Wide Web now, you don't have to be in West London to enjoy that. You can go on there and we're going to sign some copies. We can personalise them. We can write a fun little message to somebody.

You know what I think that would be great for, Tessa? I think that would be great for Crimbo. Oh, God, yes. It's August. But what we're talking about is pre-sales. You've got to be thinking ahead. You won't. So the book won't get the book until November.

So you're thinking, oh my goodness, I can give this as a gift. A bomb fine. A bumfire night gift. A bumfire night gift. It's L-U-T-Y-E-N-S and Rubenstein. R-U-B-I-N-S-T-E-I-N. They are adorable. Even before they agreed to do our signed copies and support us,

I got a birthday gift from them, not from them, but my mum got me for my birthday, a year of books from them, which meant every month I've been receiving a book that they've carefully chosen, and they thought, said, I think you might like this book. They come with a little typewriting. a note, it's so up my alley, and they tell you, they say you think you'd like this. And you're like, I did like it. Thank you. Also, it's worth saying that if you go on the website, there is like a dedicated page for Nobody Panic there. So if you search, you will find us. And that's basically

how to do that. If you'll find us, but if you think, to hell with the sign, I don't care about you signing it. I'll buy it and I'll bring it to a thing and you can sign it in front of me then, and we'll be happy to choose. Well, not breaking our contact. We will stare each other down. I'm going to be so into signing. I'm going to have a belt with marker pens on ready to sign at a moment's notice. Got for a belt, okay. Like a toolkit? Yeah, or like a machine gun bullet, you know, all the way around there.

Just ready. She's ready. Very good, very good. Locked and loaded. You can pre-order it from anywhere and you can also just walk into your local bookstore. So all good retailers will have the pre-order link or will be available for you to pre-order it. But, Tessa, a question for you from me. and Stevie Martin.

Fing people who aren't O'Fay, maybe this is the first Pogos episode that ever listen to in which case I'd urge you to go and look and listen to some other episodes. And the fact that you chose the one called the announcement is, you know, fine. How would you describe the book?

You know, who is this book for, Tessa? Stevie, thank you so much for asking me. I would say this book is for everyone. It's for everyone. But I think when we set out to write it, we had, I think, ourselves several years ago in mind. We were writing for how we felt what it was like to be in your 20s, but also it's still very relevant today,

but just what it felt like to feel that you had absolutely no idea what you were doing and everyone else seemed to. Yes, and I think a theme running through it is, yes, there's the odd thing that is relevant to a particular age group, but the theme running through it is sort of confidence and not being frightened to do what you would like to do because everybody, the one thing that we've found and reading everyone's emails and direct messages

and people coming up to us on the street is that the suggestions and stuff are so hinged around oh, I want to do this but I'm too, I'm too frightened. I can't. I can't do that, can I? Oh, maybe I shouldn't do that. Or like, how can you do something that you're frightened of? That's the biggest sort of shift since we've been doing this podcast is that it's been like,

that's really been instilled within me about like, don't be scared. Being scared is good. It's adrenaline. You can do it. If you can distill the book, I'd be like, it's you can do it. And also, here's how to put up a shelf. That's so right, Stevie. And in many ways, you can do it.

You can put up that shelf. I think absolutely a through line of the book is about confidence. It's about being like, yes, you can. There's no reason that you can't do any of the things that you think you can't do, whether that is shelf building or public speaking. And it's a through line exactly as CVSA. And there's a stream undercurrent that says, yes, you can. And I'd say this is a book for you guys first and foremost.

And I thank you very much for listening and hanging out with us all these years. But it's also for people leaving home for the first time. People going off to university. People who are in there, who are 47-year-old motor car enthusiasts. There's a bit in there. There's a big chapter on classic cars. On classic cars. You're going to love that bit.

On top fendium. I don't know what car is, but that's... If you do buy it before that, you will be disappointed. You know what? You will. I'll help my hands on. You will be disappointed. But only for a moment, and then there's other stuff in there that you'll think, ah, I'm glad. They tricked me with the classic car stuff. Does it choose your own adventure chapter in there where you can just, you know, you can follow your own experiences? There's, you know, bloody, a play.

There's a play. There's a play. There's a play. Plays Danny DeVito. And why not? And why not? Stevie, how did you choose to write the chapter on restarting a dead friendship. Oh, as a 19th century Gothic horror novel. And yes, when I wrote it, it was the length of a novel. And the editor said,

good idea, but quite hard to read. So it's had to edit it down. How many words was the original manuscript, Desa? It was. It was three times as many words as they legally said we were allowed to write.

It was. They said, this is three times too long. And we said, Not really not every word is perfect. And we will be cutting nothing. But we did. We got it down to be... It was surprisingly easy to cut it down by a... Certainly half.

Because it was just like, oh yeah, that child drew is absolute wank. Okay, great. That's gone. It has been interesting that when you first hand it in, you think, yeah, that is, that's it, that's perfect. And then someone says, oh, would we use the word perfect about this work? And then you come back with fresh eyes and you think, yeah, okay. Okay, okay.

That can always do with a tighten, a tightening of the screw. Yeah. So what you will be holding in your hands by November, because listen, we've still got some tightening to do. By your time you're holding in November, that will be the tightest, tightest words. Four words.

It's going to be four words of the book. And it will just be, yes, you can. Baby. Baby. That's very crucial. Tesa, would you describe your writing process? Because obviously, you know, we wrote this, during times when it was illegal to, I mean the whole time,

it was illegal for us to read or hang out, despite how many times you were like, could we go on a weekend retreat? Couldn't. So in my head, we wrote it in a Gothic house covered in bats, but like we didn't. And that's a real shame. No, and that is a shame, but we wouldn't have got anything done.

No. This book is dedicated to our good friend Google Drive, where you are allowed to work in the same document and see what the other person is doing and edit in real time and then also go back and see the changes and see what other people have removed and then go, hmm, I see.

I see. And there's something like, so the thoughts on that then. You took it out, did you? Or just quietly popping it back and then the other person goes, well, that entire chapter seems to have reappeared. Oh, no.

That's back in, is it? So that's been our process. we basically wrote down every single chapter that we what everything that we've covered in the past everything that we still wanted to cover everything we wanted to talk about there was originally 97 chapters i'm not joking i checked it feels like there's 97 now isn't that no there is half that okay we wrote them all that and then we did them all

and then we selected our favourites to progress to the judge's houses and from there they were they were put through their paces we divide them up and we gave ourselves a lot of deadlines and by we I mean, Stevie gave me a lot of deadlines. Also, I want to be very clear, the publishing house gave me the... Sure, sure, sure, sure. I did not set these deadlines.

No, sure, sure, sure. But I was just avoiding and ignoring them. And Stevie was whipping me into shape. And listen, we wouldn't be here without you. Oh, and I would not be without you. And neither of us would be here without Hodder Studios. Without Hodder. Thank you so much for getting in touch with us

and saying, I assume all your work's been cancelled. Do you want to write a book? Yes. We're like, yeah, yes, yes, please. Yeah. Lovely to have something to get up for in the morning. Thank you, Hodder.

And it has been lovely. It's been a real joy. It's genuinely, it's been really nice. It's been nice working with you, Stevie. You know what? It's been an absolute pleasure of working with you as well, Tessa. But yeah, so that's our lovely big announcement.

That's our big announcement. We're very, very excited. Very excited. And please do, you know, if you want to buy it or you're interested, even if you can't buy it or you don't want to, pretend you do on social media. You know, that's always nice, isn't it? Yeah, if you think, oh, I'd like to, but I can't, or I shan't.

I mustn't. Yeah, that's it. Absolutely. Just tweeting it or pointing other people at it is lovely. Just pointing at it. If you see it in a bookshop, just point at it. If you do, oh my God, if you do ever in the future, see it in a bookshop, I'm just telling you what I will be doing, which is moving it in.

to the window display. So if you could, in the future, if you ever, just move it on to the, like, just put it in the, like, fiction we recommend. Yeah. Table, you know? Oh, yeah, when it says, like, hot, dystopian. Yeah, dystopian young adult fiction

and then just pop us right there in there, pop it in there, please. And also, just walk around very loudly saying, well, that book's very good. That would be very helpful as well, you know, regardless of whether you've read it, actually. And in the, the lead up to launch, come November time,

come, once the leaves start to turn, we'll be doing prizes and giveaways and making up, you know, fun, goody bags of stuff. Yes, thank you so much for basically allowing us to get to this point where we got to write a book. And we're so excited to show you. And hopefully that this announcement wasn't too cloying and self-congratulatory.

Yeah. On the right side, on the right side, I think. I think it was nice. And I hope you feel proud, listeners. I thought, oh my God, I thought you're talking to me. I was like, I am proud. I hope you feel proud, Stevie. And I hope, I don't know.

Yeah, exactly what you're saying. Like, we couldn't have done it without you guys because otherwise we'd just be two girls on Zoom. Yeah, being like, can we do a book based on a podcast that doesn't exist? Yeah. That's not a cell. Yeah. Yeah, so it's because of you.

So thank you very much. We're going to be recording the audio book soon as well. And that's going to be a lot of fun. So you can also get on an audio book as well. Of course. And that will be nice because you can hear our voices, just like you have been able to with the podcast. What beautiful synergy.

So it's out today. Go pre-order it. So Tessa can hit those highs. Baby, I've got to get that ribbon. Okay, we're all in this together now. You jump by jump. I'm going to buy Tessa a ribbon at any point anyway. And just glue it and just glue it in.

Just glue it to her. So much easier. Let me get my ribbon. We'd love if you wanted to pre-order it or to buy it or just to point at it or not. All the links from the show notes. They'll also be all over Twitter and Instagram and, and I suspect it will be, if anything, too much today. Actually, apologies, but...

Sorry about this. And best wishes. Yeah, thanks so much. And we will return soon with another just normal episode where we're not talking about our book. No, we'll be back next week and see you then. Okay. Bye.

Bye.