AUTHOR
Meet John Howard
About
Fed up with literary agents rejecting his well-tested children’s book, and wondering if they were turning the title page, John Howard submitted extracts from his washing machine guide, in a manuscript entitled The Tin Drum, to them instead. Some time passed before he received the same reply as before - that they had read and enjoyed his submission, but didn’t feel it was 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!
