Get Booked – Jim Chambers, Urban Scarecrows 080822

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Here on Get Booked, we love talking to authors and book enthusiasts about new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, the inspiration, the mental health and well-being elements, opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there, and giving you the extra special insight into a different book and the author each week. Now on today's show, we're going to be talking to the author of Urban Scarecrows, Jim Chambers. Hmm. Jim Chambers is originally from Derby in the East Midlands, the eldest of three, born to Dick and Barbara Chambers. His working-class roots have been a source of pride. His father an enduring point of reference, the person he most admired in life. But the life of a butcher was not for him. Instead, he followed a developing interest in business, subsequently enjoying a career in and around the education market. Now with more time on his hands, he follows his twin passions of walking and writing, self-publishing a novel, Paradigm Shift, in 2013, which foretold the Brexit outcome years before any referendum. The Hope Affair was published in April 2021, and his latest novel, Urban Scarecrows, was published in May this year. He's a family man, having been married to Barbara for 45 years. He has 4 grown-up children: Nicola, Andrew, Christopher, and Elizabeth, and at last count, 4 grandchildren. So a busy guy. Jim has a talent for really making you think about things in the world of politics and telling a great and gripping story amongst it. The Labour Party election victory of 2019 ushers into power a radical socialist government which swiftly mutates to a British form of totalitarian Marxism in its quest for social justice. And equality. Dominic Green, the main character in Urban Scarecrows, a Labour Party activist and celebrity chef, is caught up in the economic and social crisis as the country lurches towards civil war. Taunted by the jibes of his volatile Spanish wife Rosa, he moves from denial to acceptance to opposition and becomes a totemic media figure in the struggles. His marriage is in terminal decline. Rosa cannot forgive his philandering in— or his support of the government. His family falls apart as Rosa leaves him, and one son is incarcerated while the other attempts to liberate his sibling. Labelled as a turncoat terrorist, he is hunted by the brutal SNPS State Police, whose attempts to subjugate the population includes urban scarecrowing. Who can he trust as he goes on the run whilst assisting the resistance movement? Will Rosa forgive him as she tracks his public pronouncements and his efforts to free their son? Will Dominic escape the clutches of the SNPS as the net closes? Will international outrage translate into military intervention as sections of the armed forces rebel? And can Dominic survive and recover his relationship with Rosa and their surviving son. An absolutely fantastic book, and I am so looking forward to chatting to Jim. Right, it's now time for us to introduce you to today's guest, the author of Urban Scarecrows, Jim Chambers. A dystopian novel with the added twist of retrospect. What if the 2019 UK governmental elections brought in a new dawn of A Labour government focusing on creating a totalitarian Marxist society dressed up as egalitarianism, propelled by extreme force and agendas. Human rights abolished in the name of forming a new path. The result: a civil war with catastrophic and brutish consequences. Can a celebrity chef save the day, of all people? This is such a fantastic, in-depth work of fiction, and yet you can't help but let the reality of a doomsday potential perspective seep in. How it all takes just a few dictators to plunge a country into turmoil, garnering support through coercion and fear. This is not such an alien concept in everyday life. Jim, Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you, Hazel, and thank you for the intro. I mean, I shall— I should— you, you do it so much better than I do, so I listened intently to that. Do you know what? I can't wait to chat to you about this book because the thing is, it seems incredibly dystopian, and we see all these ridiculous kind of concepts on Netflix, and yet it's happening already in other countries, and the way— the knowledge you have of the whole process, as I said in my intro, just makes it sound that much more believable. And, you know, we're only ever one choice or two in the government, or they're suddenly just having to deal with some sort of doomsday. It's scary, isn't it? Yeah. You know, my wife and I were debating this. We've been married for, well, we're coming up to our emerald anniversary, and it's obviously a condition of our ongoing marriage that she reads my outpouring. So we had the 'it could never happen here, could it?' and 'let's hope for goodness' sake that it couldn't.' But then you don't have to go that far to to look at sort of outrageous things happening, you know, on the continent of Europe, you know, in Ukraine, I mean, or over in America in the free world, you know, the shooting of innocent children in school. And you don't have to go back very far into history to see that all manner of dastardly things were perpetrated in the United Kingdom as well. Oh yeah, I mean, there's a fantastic book out there about, and I'll change the title of the book slightly to make it more radio-friendly, and it's '52 Times the British Were Complete Silly Sausages.' And we kind of gloss over the fact that, you know, Britain was the one making horrific and brutish decisions, very similar to urban scarecrows, but we seem to have glossed over it and focused on other countries that seem to be doing things that are more captured in mainstream media. And do you know what, I mean, it's— I've been talking to so many people about urban scarecrows because, you know, it does feel like something out of a movie, and yet people talk about, oh, The Handmaid's Tale. Have you seen that? I haven't actually, my wife has, she's a fan. Yes, and it's incredible, you sit there with complete and utter outrage at what's happening to everyday people in modern-day life, and then you go, well, actually, no, this exists The exact thing is happening in some countries in the world today. And we just seem to gloss over it because sometimes we just can't cope with the reality of what's going on. But this is what I found so riveting about this book. And I must say congratulations because it is fantastic. But it does just feel like a couple of wrong decisions in government veering off into a particular path. We're only a couple of decisions away from something like this happening. It's scary, absolutely scary, and by the way, I'm going to sign you up because I think you make a great advocate. Have you got so much feedback? I mean, it was released in May, wasn't it? Uh, yeah, yes, that's right, end of April, beginning of May, so We've been going through, to be honest with you, the phase that I most dislike, which is the promotion of your work. And, you know, I've worked in business all my life, so promoting products and companies and all of that is not alien to me. But when you produce your, you know, your own work in a book, it's so personal. So I've really loathed doing that, if I'm honest. And I'm not very good with social media, and I've had to— I've been on a sharply steep learning curve. So I'm not at the top of that, but I've made some progress. Well, this is your third book, isn't it? Is it your third? It is, yeah. The first one was really, really— it was, um, I got a bit more time on my hands, so I just ploughed on and did what I wanted to do, despite my daughter saying, "You really ought to learn a few tricks of the trade, you know, Dad." Can't she do it for you? Yeah, well, she is a marketeer, and she has her uses for sure. But after that, I worked with a writing coach in Derbyshire who was wonderful. She was, you know, she was very, very taxing to work with, but also inspirational. Very talented lady. Well, how did you come up with the idea of this concept? Because what, what struck me through this book, obviously with it being published in May, you finished this book a while ago, and yet you were kind of foretelling Putin and certain things that are happening within the Chinese government about how they would support this ridiculous issue that's happening in urban scarecrows, and it's like you kind of pinpointed who would be supporting who already, and it's like, do you study politics? Do you have a little bit of a love of possibly predicting just how dangerous and dodgy people in government are and those who run the country? I've met a few ministers in my time, and I'm often sort of just amazed by how ignorant they often are about whatever their department is they represent, and the arrogance, whether they're blue or red, you know. So I've done that, and I just take an interest in politics and To be honest, you know, we all know that roll on a few years, there'll be another Putin or, you know, or another Trump, dare I say. You know, history just has a way of repeating itself. It does, doesn't it? And we were all up in arms and incredibly shocked about what Trump managed to get away with, and it somehow ended up being a form of entertainment, and yet he was one of the most powerful people in the world. I mean, I think that's how Boris Johnson will be remembered as well, somebody who did a few extraordinarily difficult things that possibly only he could have done, but who conducted himself in an outrageous manner that offended large portions of the population, rightly so. But we are also a nation of, especially, well, the British, we like to get offended by anything and everything, don't we? And none of us believe in the same thing, so we're all, there's all there's always going to be outrage somewhere. Now, are you talking about the greater British public or about the media? Because it does strike me that media is sort of inculcated with this need to redefine history, with this leaning towards soft left, ultra-liberal in their attitude. And this book was written slightly in reaction to that because I'm a character who likes to row against the tide a little bit. Well, I think a lot of what we hear about politics is based on moral panic and selling, you know. I constantly have to deal with, like, I have an early, well, a preteen and a 15-year-old, and he is constantly telling me how woke he is and how he knows about all these political issues, but he gets all the information from inaccurate sources, but they tell it in a way to make you want to listen and to like and subscribe and to follow and to be influenced by these people that either haven't got a clue or are just saying what people want to hear. And it is incredibly scary. And I mean, I did have the argument the other day with my 15-year-old and he came out with completely incorrect facts about politics. And his statement was, 'You adults, all you want to do is pretend that we just don't know anything, but maybe things on the internet are real, Mum.' And I said, 'No, they are, but you have to know where to find the information. There's so much incorrect and skewed information out there, and you can find in theory, the proof of anything on the internet if you look hard enough. It's just where you're looking. It's scary how the media can focus on whatever it chooses to. Absolutely, and as a father of four, I think it's really important we listen to our young people, but also recognize we were young once and once had views that we've probably modified somewhat as we've— years have slipped by, dare I say. And I have to say, you know, my my daughter and my son, they've got sons and daughters they're bringing up, and I don't envy their task, nor yours, in the world of social media and some of the pressures and some of the things they're exposed to. It just scares me, to be honest. Oh yes, and they don't— I understand it. Do you know what, when I was 15, my source of information wouldn't have been the BBC, and the Daily Mail definitely used to be a, you know, a source of entertainment 10, 15 years ago, no matter how incorrect it was, but getting teenagers to want to read proper news outlets, just, it's not geared towards them. So they're getting their information from people who have found fame and an influential platform from doing Love Island, which, you know, does not give them a theoretical knowledge of politics or the world. No, absolutely. And I think if you roll on a little bit, it's really quite quite disturbing, quite distressing how free speech seems to be in short supply in British universities and American universities. And, you know, that's exactly where, you know, it's one of the institutions that should absolutely be a vehicle for young people speaking their mind but being tested by alternative viewpoints in the world. And yet, paradoxically, what in theory saved humankind in Britain in Urban Scarecrows was influencers and celebrities and the media used properly. Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair observation, but, you know, the other big thing to my mind, and I think this is very, very true today and has been, is one of the things that saves our country, I think, from the sort of extremism, and that is the great silent British majority. Because you know what? Most people simply want to bring up their kids. They want them to have a good education. They want to have good health. They want them to have opportunity. And we as a generation always want the next generation to do a little bit better than we did. Yeah. And common decency and common sense is what imbues the vast majority of people. And yet it's not that viewpoint that prevails until you get to general elections or some other sort of referendum, if you like. But it saves us, in my view, and I think the mainstream media would do better to recognize the power of that rather than to listen to some of the imported wokery. Well, yes, wokery, I love that word. Yeah, it's extremely confusing for most people to try and grasp the concept of what they should be doing when they're voting because you never know what you're hearing is actually real anyway. And so a lot of people, you can imagine, they just want to go, "La la la, I'm not really sure, can somebody just tell me what's right and wrong?" And it's finding those right people to kind of offer up that information. Maybe instead of hearing from our local ministers, we should read books like Urban Scarecrows to give us the skinny on what really goes down. I don't know about that. It's, um, yeah, I hope that Urban Scarecrows and books like that are an escape from whatever is worrying us about the world we live in, whether it's the cost of living crisis or Ukraine, or, you know, I don't know if you saw mainstream TV last night and those perhaps the most shocking pictures I've seen for a long time of disabled kids in Ukraine, you know, and these predate the war. So these are things still happening on the mainstream, on main continent of Europe. They are, but a lot of people are not, myself included, I wouldn't go on to the news as a daily exercise because it either depresses you or it frustrates you because I either don't trust it or it's depressing. Yeah, yeah. And I've betrayed my age, aren't I, by, um, by, by acknowledging that I do tune in on a daily basis. And, you know, I just think, you know, I suppose it's a generational thing. I think whichever source you have of news and events it's quite important that you look at other sources as well so you can corroborate and you can take different, different reports and just see, weigh them up really, and test those sources. I think I try and keep up with what is incredibly important, things that we really have to know about or when my eldest will make an assertion about something that's happening in the news, I will then actually go and find out what's really happening, regardless of, you know, what he's been told on TikTok is happening. So there are exceptions to the rule, definitely. But I mean, one of the reasons that when I was first offered Urban Scarecrows to read, and I was thinking I liked the concept, and I'd read a little bit about you and thought actually that might help me understand a little bit more about political goings-on because you are well-versed. And that was my reason because, you know, this— I prefer to get my knowledge from books and media outlets just kind of— I just don't trust them. They're all, they're all kind of geared with some sort of agenda the majority of the time. And So I think I learned a lot more from Urban Scarecrows, even though it was fiction, than possibly what I would see anywhere else. That's the power of a good book, isn't it? Opening our minds. Well, that's a very, that's, that's a very rich compliment, and I appreciate, appreciate that enormously. What I'd hoped was that, well, first and foremost, I hope it's not just the political book. I hope it's, you know, somebody said to me, and I didn't know them, and therefore it has more traction, if you like, you know, it was a riveting good read. It just kept me glued to the page, and I just wanted to stay with it to find out what happened to the characters at the end. Yes, definitely. I loved that. The characters, they are such a wide collection of human beings in terms of, I mean, the main family in itself with Rosa being, you know, a very fiery Spanish lady, and then the whole celebrity element of Dominic, and then you have the kids that have, you know, one's more into his political outrage than the other. And they all have— you must have had so much fun coming up with these different characters, especially with the MI5 elements and just everybody that you came across. And there's always that kind of seedy businessman as well. So how much fun did you have with these characters? It's great, you know, and I think what I've— I mean, the espionage stuff comes with it. That's a genre that I I love personally, so I read quite a lot of espionage books, you know, people like John le Carré, um, that's sort of my hero. Um, so that's, that's sort of pretty useful here, but business is really where I, where I come from, plus life, you know, the university of life. And you meet so many people, you know, people who are, um, you know, so, um, so stimulating and interesting and dedicated, um, You know, I've worked with some people who've been helping long-term unemployed people back into work, and they're some of the most inspirational people I've worked with. Not the best paid people either, by the way. But I've also met some rogues, and I've met some scoundrels, and I met arrogant government ministers, and, you know, and so it goes on. I've met old paternalistic owners as well as financiers and bankers. And it just gives you a rich vein of material you can mine for your fictional world, and that's really where I've gone to primarily in building up characters that appealed, amused, outraged me, and I hope some of that transmits through the book. It did, there was— I found it quite heartwarming and some of the characters just kind of took you by surprise, and you never really knew which way they were going to go, and you could kind of— do you know one of those books where you sometimes don't know whether you've watched the film about it, when the characters— you know, the characterization is spot on, when you're kind of there and you kind of feel like you might have seen it? Yeah, absolutely. I'm really pleased to hear that. I was hoping that some of the, you know, the other characters, Rebecca and Stephanie, it wouldn't be immediately obvious how they would turn out. The main protagonist Dominic as well. So they're all on a journey and some are seeking to disguise who they are. I won't be more explicit than that, spoiler alert and all that. Well, that's the thing, some of the people that were the heroes were also not always particularly great people. Well, that's reality, isn't it? Nobody's perfect. And I think it was quite nice to read that. We're all human, aren't we? We all do things that at some stage we sort of muse on and regret. Or, you know, we've all known a bit of success and a bit of failure. And as a businessman, you know, I've made a bob or two here and there, and I've lost a bob or two here and there. And, you know, work with inspirational people, work with scoundrels, um, You know, it's part of life's rich pageant. It is. Do you have one of those pictures just as people enter your property that says, 'An author lives here, whatever you do might be taken down and used against you in my next book'? No, I don't. I think some of my friends would— I don't know how to put this politely— would make fun of me. I might put it rather more explicitly than that if I were donning my hiking boots and treading the trail with some of my friends. Oh, so you're a walker then? Yeah, very much so, and it's a great combo, by the way, with writing. And also, you know, if you've got anything on your mind, or even if you're in a bad mood, or you're suffering mental health problems— unfortunately I don't, but I know plenty of people who do— you know, go for a long walk along the Gritstone edges of Derbyshire's Peak District. It's great, you know, if you're thinking about a business problem or you've, you know, you've got a plotline that you're a bit stuck with, just get out into the elements, let the wind ruffle your hair and, you know, and walk. And the more you walk, the more you think, and the broader the perspective you manage to recover. I think it's a great time to actually be able to just switch off. I think I sometimes go a step further with my, um, I do a lot of open water swimming because when you're walking or running, there's still that tendency that we keep the earbuds in and we're either listening to a podcast or we can see the message if it kind of, if we get that notification. But I do love my swimming because you can't even have access to your phone or any technology whatsoever. And I will quite often go swimming on my own and swim 1,500 meters, and I come out of it, and it's not just about being healthy and swimming. I just feel as if I've completely cleansed my mind, even if it's just for a little bit. And you actually get to think straight because you don't I don't have the notifications on on my phone, but you get that odd vibrate every now and again, and it's distracting. That is absolutely— there has to be some escape. There has to be, you know, you need to get those endorphins flowing. So whether it's walking or swimming or the gym or whatever it might be, whatever works for you, you know, do it. So I do normally ask our guests here on Get Butch, women's and men's radio station, for 3 top tips on well-being. So I, I'm pretty that, and I've just heard your first. Absolutely, yeah, and yeah, I think that's really important. And the other thing, which actually is probably a surprising one but springs to mind, I think your circle of friends— certainly, I'm lucky, maybe— my circle of friends, business contacts, and in particular my kids, they keep me grounded. So if ever I was wanted to do as you suggested, said, 'An author lives here, aren't I grand?' You know, it wouldn't wash. No, no, kids have got a great, you know, their job description is to keep Mum and Dad grounded and stop them from getting too old too prematurely. Definitely, hopefully my kids are hiding in their room at the moment, so hopefully they're not listening because otherwise they're like, expect some sort of congratulations or thank you for keeping me supposedly grounded. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm sure they need no tips, that's for sure. And what else would be your favourite tip on achieving good wellbeing? I think, you know, walking, walking is— I've already mentioned that, that really works for me, but whatever your bag is, that's fine, do it. I think the other thing we've always tried to do is get a bit of balance. So I think to some extent you are what you eat and what you drink. And, you know, I enjoy a glass of wine and a whiskey and all that, but I try not to overindulge but to enjoy myself liberally on the right occasions. But it's balance, isn't it? It's balance, whichever— yeah, wherever you look whatever walk of life, try and secure a balance. But of course, that's easier to say than do, you know, because events happen and we all go through personal and business and other crises. And, you know, we've all got our go-tos, but we have to then pull ourselves back out of those, would be my thought. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Now A question I like to ask as well, and I think you're— I'm so interested in hearing your response on this one. As we've talked about the media and how it can be interesting at best, skewed, riddled with inaccurate information and whatnot, and there's some fantastic people out there that have incredible things to say, and there's some, if we put it politely, idiots out there as well. Who would you say you admired in the public eye? Oh, in the public eye, what, current? No, just anyone, because you know what, even some incredible people that are no longer with us, you can still search out what they've done, their books, their quotes. Yeah, I think so. A brief comment on— I think Western political leaders at the moment are hugely, hugely disappointing, um, you know, whether you look to UK, any of the European countries, to America,, and one can't help but wonder if this is part of the reason why Putin has decided now is the time to do what he's doing. So there's a, a, a brief observation for you. As to who— to answer your question, uh, the characters that I admire— I admire people who effect change, you know, whether that be in the business world or in the political world. So that would play to the very early part of Tony Blair. Because he made an unelectable, uh, rump of left-wing extremists into a mainstream political party that people wanted to vote for. And to do that, he had to change how— what they were, what they stood for, their belief systems. Unfortunately, he then believed his own propaganda, and we all know about Iraq and everything else that happened. And the other one to name, uh, in the Tory Party, which is always controversial, was Margaret Thatcher, right? Um, you know, I, I, I like people who've got a belief system who are presenting to you not because they perceive that's what you wish to hear, but because it's well grounded, it has some intellectual basis, and, you know, they, they're passionate about it. It does help if there's passion there and they stick to their guns rather than— they're not swayed by other people's agendas. Yeah, I mean, you see it in Trump and then Boris as well. As much as I've admired about Boris, by the way, but, you know, he's a populist. He loves to be loved and he's forever pursuing that, you know, that the next opinion poll You know, the one thing he believed in and was elected to do, he got done against all of the odds. Whether you were for it or against it, it's what the British public voted for. But populists, you know, they just lean, sway with the wind, and I don't think that's what we need. I think we're in desperate need of leadership. Maybe they should be calling you up. I mean, you are very well versed in fiduciary elements, this is what gave the novel such credibility, as kind of mentioned in my intro, giving that real air of reality. So this is a huge passion of yours, or did you have to do a huge amount of research for Urban Scarecrows? I did do some research, but I mean, I write about what I'm passionate about, what interests me, and By the way, there's a dimension of the book that we've not really— we've fixated a bit on the political aspect, which is fine, but I see it also as basically a story of human emotions and frailties, you know, love and hate, lust and betrayal, cowardice and bravery, cruelty but kindness, death and renewal, you know, it's finding your cojones. Exactly, yes, absolutely. I've got— I know a few, um, I have a few Spanish friends, um, or I've met a few Spanish people in my travels. I love, love them, love their family ethic, by the way, Spaniards, uh, they're great, but they're such, you know, vibrant, enthusiastic, loud, aggressive people, fiery. Yeah, yeah, that's why I like Rosa so much, but she's also hugely intelligent and as a professional woman in her own right, which I think is also important to give that balance. Well, even though their marriage is on the rocks in the book, you kind of feel like she knows he's capable of so much more, and yet there's always a fantastic woman behind many men's success, isn't there? Absolutely, I mean, I would totally agree with that, yes, yeah, in my case an extremely patient one as well. Yes, and no, and I kind of, I did get that, she's obviously annoyed because he's, there's been a few discrepancies, he's done a few naughty things in his marriage, which is trying to make up to her. But, you know, as well as her being annoyed, you just kind of get that feeling that she just— she's banging her head against a brick wall and just wants him to be better. I mean, you can get caught up in the celebrity world anyway. But I mean, is there a particular celebrity chef that you had in mind for this one? No, I mean, I think there are so many on our screens these days, aren't there? And it's Actually, it's where, where my wife and I started. We actually started not at university, we met each other in the same group at a college of food. So we were catering management students, and so there's always been interest in food and catering industry, and I bring bits of that into it as well. But I think Rosa, going back on stream, It worried me, by the way, when you were talking about affairs and him going astray. I worried for a moment where you were going with that one, Hazel, but I was ready to plead innocence. No, no, it's quite all right. Rosa almost provokes him into becoming the man that she knew he could be, but she took it to the wire, didn't she? Well, she did, but we do get exasperated in our relationships. And I must say, congratulations before I forget on— did you say Emerald's coming up? Yeah, it's scary, isn't it? It's sort of— yeah, yeah, you know, and you discover as you reach an age at which, you know, certainly in my youth I would regard that as an old person, and you don't regard yourself as an old person. You view yourself as you've always you know, but, you know, occasionally you look at the mirror and it doesn't tell too many lies, which is a bit of a shock. Don't look in mirrors, in the same way that don't look at the news, don't look in mirrors. Um, sound advice. So following on from reading Urban Scarecrows and absolutely loving it, I think the next step for me is to read The Paradigm Shift, which I am told Foretold the Brexit Outcome. Can you tell us a little bit about this book? Yeah, this was the first time I scratched the itch, which was a desire to write a novel, and it was self-published, and it was the start of my writing journey really. But it basically saw the crumbling of the European Union and effectively Brexit, but it wasn't the UK that broke away at first. So that, I suppose, is in a nutshell. And again, there's a Spanish family involved. And yeah, goodness, I'm having to dredge that up. It's some time since I wrote those, back in what, 2013? That's when it got published, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, so I didn't realize you'd ask about that. I should have brushed up on it, shouldn't I? Oh, I'm just trying to catch you off guard. Yeah, absolutely. I know, I remember discussing the characters around the dinner table with Barbara and my wife, and also whichever one of our offspring, one or two of our offspring, were around at the time. And it was as if the characters, you know, José becomes a tragic character in The Paradigm Shift as part of the uprising in an uprising in Spain. And, you know, they just felt like part of the family. And, you know, it's— that's how it becomes a thing. You live with your characters for a while, and you grow to love and be endeared to some of them, and the opposite for others. But yeah, they become vibrant people, you know, as you as you develop the story. And how do you think you came about— so what I gather is that it's essentially about Brexit. Are you slightly psychic? No, I mean, I followed European projects. I'm not a lover of the European community, which I know is almost sacrilegious to say, but I'm not. I like, I like where it started. I dislike where it's, where it's at at the moment. I just see it as a massive bureaucracy that, you know, with the dead hand of bureaucracy all over everything. And, but, and, you know, we used to spend quite a bit of time in northern Spain, um, the time of one of the, or one of the crises, and I saw sort of queues of young people outside the equivalent to our Job Center Plus. And Spanish youth unemployment was over 50%, as was Greece, as was Italy. And that's all because of what France and Germany did— self-serving policies in introducing the euro. And I'm just astonished that that was allowed to happen. Definitely one that I need to read then. Yeah, and so I mean, with your passion and knowledge and the success of Urban Scarecrows, what's next for you? What is going to be the next topic that you're going to tackle? Because I think I need to read that just in case. I actually did, I've got something that's been cooking. I put it to one side, I sort of went I think it's quite important— well, for me it's quite important to get to a stage where you've got a first draft, if you like, and then leave it alone for a few months and then go back to it and try and see it with slightly fresh eyes. So it was convenient that, you know, this was the period I was needing to spend more time learning social media and, and, um, you know, doing some of the things to support the launch of the book. The Scarecrows. So I've recently, very recently, gone back to that, and it's essentially, it's primarily business. It's a family business, and it's one of the offspring who is at odds with his other, but he's a can-do businessman, and it's about his family turmoil. And yeah, so It's a family drama set in a business context rather than a political context this time. Oh, okay. Well, I'm excited to hear more about that when it starts coming into fruition. And just to quickly remind people, they can pop on to jimchambersauthor.com or follow you on Twitter @JimChamberlain. No, Jim Chamber author, which obviously you're on Twitter all the time because your children have told you you've got to be on it. Well, I'm doing my best, which they still tell me is not, not good enough, so, but one tries. Well, do you know what, sometimes my children say the same to me and I'm like, yeah, not a problem, you do it for me, you're so good at it, you could do, you could come up with 10 posts in the time it takes me to come up with one, and they're like, oh no, no, no, we don't want to do that. I'll tell you just one quick little tale, family tale. My— as a— when my kids were going through their teenage years, they would often ask me to have a look at, you know, an essay or whatever written. And they used to loathe the fact that it came back with red pen marks all over it. So once I went to a coach, they were absolutely— and they're now got their own kids and that sort of, that sort of age, and they, they absolutely loved the fact that she was effectively doing the same to me, and it came back with all sorts of, you know, 'need to think about this' and 'that grammar's incorrect' and, you know, etc. So they just took glee, great glee, from that. Yeah, I'm sure they did. I, I, and there is that odd occasion I do like to correct my children's grammar, but wow, if I'm ever not concentrating and I make a mistake, they really make sure this is brought to my attention prolifically. Yeah, yeah, I don't think you're the only parent who experiences that, by the way. What? Really? Yeah, it really isn't unique. So I assume you're quite a reading fan yourself. Sorry, say that again? I assume you're quite a reading fan yourself. Do you, do you have any favorite books to tell us about? Yeah, I mean, I like anything that John le Carré wrote, unfortunately now passed on. You know, I think some of his very early, early period novels, you know, Smiley's People and those sorts of books were quite heavy going, but there was always a rich reward for, uh, hanging in there. His later period, you know, last 10, 15 years, were lighter or a bit more digestible. So I read anything with him. Robert Harris is another who is just one of the best storytellers, you know, um, absolutely brilliant, quite a simple style but you try, try to do similar, it's a real skill. And anything espionage or thriller, I also enjoy some, some, you know, historical fiction, so Andrew Taylor, Andrew Taylor, he's one, written a number of books that I've are on my ebook. So anything like that really. Yeah, oh brilliant. I do like to get suggestions because I do, with GetBooked, I get to read such a variety and I like to make sure that I'm kind of levelling out my psyche by, you know, if there's something that's really focusing on mental health and then might need to go on comedy next, and I do like my domestic noir, and kind of thrillers as well. Like, I kind of, I do them in rotation just to keep me on an even keel. I think it's good to have that variety, isn't it? So if I've read, you know, historical fiction, I want to then go to, go to an espionage or a thriller or maybe a political biography or something. You know, and then I'll go back to historical fiction. She needs to mix it up a bit, I think. Well, I think it's really good to have that escapism as well, and yeah, you can sometimes learn something new in fiction, but escaping and just going on an adventure is just— I mean, that would be one of my tips for good mental well-being. Just, you know, absorb yourself in a book and not so much with what is constantly going on around you. It's nice— my perfect idea: I'm very lucky that my children go to their dad's every other weekend, and I'm often found with a glass of fizz in hand and a book in a bar somewhere, people like "Oh! You should go out with your friends!" I'm like no, no, no, what I want to do is sit quietly somewhere in a bar where I don't have to worry about getting the washing out, and reading a book, and that is my idea of heaven. That's brilliant. Well, you sound a very outgoing sort of person, so I can understand some of the surprise from some of your friends. I think it's nice— well, again, we were saying before, it's nice to have a balance. I mean, I don't completely hide away from socializing, but I do like— for example, I might have 6 till 8 in the bar on my own, and then my friends can come and join me from 8 PM. But yeah, yeah, it does, doesn't it? Um, thank you so much for joining us here on Get Booked. I've really enjoyed chatting to you, and I must say, congratulations again on Urban Scarecrows. I really do think it's fantastic, and I'd recommend it to all of our listeners. Just a quick reminder to everybody to go and check out Jim Chambers at jimchambersauthor.com. Get on Amazon, buy the book, and post-review. It's very important, isn't it? Well, thank you for that plug. You saved me, you saved me the embarrassment of having to do that. You're very welcome, and thank you so much. And so when the next book comes out, please do give us a shout. I'd love to read it and get you back on the show. I certainly will. It's been a pleasure to talk to you, and thanks very much. Thank you so much, Jim, and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you, we'll try. Right, now we have Helen from Literally PR, an award-winning company that over the last 10 years has worked on over 400 campaigns, helping hundreds of authors over the past decade to just achieve their long-term goals through PR, marketing, and branding. You can find out more at literallypr.com, and I'm not going to delay any further. Helen, hi. Hello. Thanks for joining us on Get Booked. You've put so many fantastic authors my way who have been featured on Get Booked here at Women's and Men's Radio Station, and now we have you. Well, aren't I lucky to be here? I feel like I'm sort of, um, there's a little bit of imposter syndrome really going on here because usually I'm sort of putting authors to you and now I'm here chatting. I feel a bit, uh, like the tables have turned a little bit, Hazel. Hasn't it just? But if we want to talk to people about a love of writing and publishing and all the incredible books out there, who better than the person that's getting the books out there? Well, thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, basically every part of my job involves books, so I spend a lot of time reading, but as well as Literally PR, I'm the co-founder of Hashtag Press, which is a publishing house, and we have an imprint for underrepresented writers called Hashtag Black, and then I'm also the co-founder of The Author School, which helps to educate and empower authors so they make the right decisions about how to get published, and once they are published, what they should next Doux, and then I'm also the co-founder of the Diverse Book Awards, which is in its third year now, and I'm doing those side of the business with a prize-winning author called Abiola Bello. So I have— all roads basically lead to books, so I kind of have all things covered when it comes to publishing now. Oh, you definitely have a fantastic client list. I must say, I've kept up quite a few friendships with some of the authors that you've put my way. And it is, it is. And do you know what, some of the authors are following my dog and they have an ongoing relationship with my dog too. Amazing. I've got to say, I am so lucky because every time we take on a new client, literally where we're, you know, we're building a relationship with them to help them do what they want to do, and because they're so passionate about their book and we are passionate about our books, then it sort of becomes this really nice— it sounds a bit cheesy, but like a family, like a big extended family of people who just love talking about books. And so many people, we are the same, we still stay in touch with them long after the campaigns ended. And then there was a lady the other day called Abi Oliver who we did a campaign for her back in, I want to say like 2017, maybe even '16, and she's come back with her latest book saying, "Oh, can you help?" And that makes my heart go, "Oh." fizzy because it's like, that's so nice that she's come back to us all these years later, that she's still writing, that she's, you know, she's still doing exactly what she wanted to do and she wants us to be part of it again. It's really lovely actually. Well, it's confirmation, isn't it? It doesn't matter how many campaigns you do, it's that confirmation that somebody is happy with what you do and they want to work with you. Yeah, as well. Yeah, yeah, it's really lovely. I mean, the whole point of us doing this. The whole reason why I set this up in the first place is because I could— I used to be a journalist and then I moved into food and drink PR, and I could see there was this big kind of growing, really exciting market around books that was so fast-changing, you know, with self-publishing was coming in much more and there was lots more indie publishing and stuff. And I was like, wow, I want to be a part of that. Like, that's like the cool cat, cool kids in the playground. Like, I want to be in that gang. And I kind of just threw myself into it really and learned about publishing. I'd never worked in a publishing house, I didn't really know how it really worked. And one of the things that I've learned really quickly was that people do need other people in when they're a writer. And even though actually writing is such a— can be such an isolating thing to do, you know, you spend a lot of time on your own when you're a writer. When you then start taking the book out into the world, if you don't have a team of people around you, it's really quite scary because you've spent all this time on this book and then you just kind of are left and you don't really know what to do with it. And so I realised that people needed that kind of community feeling as much as they needed the PR and the marketing, social media. And, you know, so we try and make people feel welcome and warmly welcomed when they join. And I think that's probably what makes people come back because, you know, we are a friendly bunch, which is nice to have. I have noticed that the writing community is incredibly supportive. I spend quite a bit of time on Twitter. I like Twitter, especially for the aforementioned writing community, and a lot of my friends say, "Yeah, you're on Twitter, don't you hate it? It's just people constantly bitching at each other and really dodgy opinions." I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm more involved in the kind of publishing side and the writing community where everybody just kind of is nice to each other, they share each other's books, they write reviews for each other and make recommendations," and it's actually really Sweet. It is. I totally agree. And one of the first things I say to our authors when they join is you should get on Twitter because it is basically the publishing social media, isn't it? It's like the platform where people, if you like books, then you will get book recommendations. Like you say, you'll get to connect with authors. I mean, I still get really geeky and fangirly if like a really big named author who I've read sort of all of their books responds to one of my tweets. I'm like, oh my God, yeah, you know, it's such a good feeling. And I work with authors all the time, so like I can't imagine how even more exciting that must be just as like a reader who's not quite as in the world, in the publishing world, to get a response. I'm like, you know, it is such a cool place to be. But yeah, I mean, Twitter's got its bad side, don't get me wrong. I've seen plenty of like dodgy stuff on there, but as a whole, the writing community in particular does seem to be, and the book blogging community does seem to be really friendly and very inclusive, which is really lovely, isn't it? That was the exact word that I was going to use. And I must, I must say that I just, I love it that you send all these incredibly fantastic and very personable authors my way. And as I'm reading the book, I love my job because I get to actually write questions that I'm going to be able to ask the author for Get Booked, which is just, it is brilliant. Yeah, that's very cool, that's very cool. We actually do something similar, so when we So when we first take on a book and an author, we will read the book, obviously, and then we actually come up with a list of questions. And then there's a few sort of standard ones, you know, like, you know, why did you write the book and what's the inspiration? You know, sort of standard ones. But that's our chance to kind of really get a bit of a sneak peek into why they wrote the book or the themes behind it, or kind of dig around a bit more or get that question answered, like, why did that character do that? Or, you know, it's really great to be able to get that before anyone else. It's quite fun, isn't it? Oh yeah, completely. However, now this is a bit like asking you which is your favourite child. Is there a particular book that's on your books at the moment that you're just loving? I'm sure you're excited about every single campaign, but is there one that just, you're going, if you had one book to recommend right now? Are you allowed to do that? I don't know, I feel like if I said, then it's, you know, and I didn't say that a certain person or certain people, they'd be like, "Oh, I didn't say that." I do, I have to say, I do read every book that comes through, and we get about 40 to 50 submissions a month, and we only do about 40 to 50 books a year, so I do have to read a lot of books. And so if a book comes through and we're doing a sort of a full campaign on it, I have read that book, and I have liked it enough, stroke loved it, you know, to support it and get behind it. So I kind of love all of the books, but I am a massive foodie. So when we worked on the Curry Compendium, I loved that because that was just— that is basically ticking all the boxes for me. It's like the food and the books. And the guy was— Richard says the guy who wrote it was lovely. And so that was really good because I, you know, in the interests of obviously, you know, making sure that it was all decent, decent book, I had to cook like lots of lovely food. Of course you would, it's your job. Exactly, that was a hard position. But what, but also what I would say is when I get a book that my kids can enjoy, I love that. So, um, so my eldest, who is now 13, when she first read Abiola Bello's Emily Knight series, she was just like, oh my God, this is amazing. And so she's now done the 3 books, and Ellie has read all 3 books, and I love I love the Emily Knight series, it's like fantasy fiction for young kids, well, young teenagers. And then we've just done a book called A Head Full of Magic over at Hashtag Best by Sarah Morell, and my youngest daughter, who is not a big reader at all, have to force her to read, like literally bribe her to read, she read this book in 2 days off her own back and absolutely loved it. And I was like, oh my God, that makes me feel so good that she's actually getting on with a book that I've worked on, you know, it's— that's a really good feeling. So I think when the kids like the books, that makes me even prouder, um, and makes me like the books even more, basically, because it's kind of like somebody else who's really important to me also likes books. My husband doesn't read any book, any of the books I work on, ever. He's absolutely not a reader, and, um, I hate him very much for that. But that's good, so you have to do a lot of reading, which means if he doesn't like reading, he can just get on with the housework. That's how it should be, right? Next time I'm sitting in the garden reading for work with my wine in one hand and the book in the other, I'll be like, you do know you need to be doing the cleaning, right?