fundraising – Debbie Young's Writing Life

Cover of my new book, "Coming To Terms with Type 1 Diabetes" — This beautiful book cover design has been generously donated by the assisted publishing service SilverWood Books. Blue is the international colour for diabetes, and the circle is the symbol of World Diabetes Day.

A week today, on World Diabetes Day 2013, I’ll be launching my latest book, a short e-book about how Type 1 Diabetes has affected my family. Its prime purpose is to raise funds for the search for a cure, via Type 1 Diabetes charity JDRF.

As close friends, family and regular readers of this blog will know, my husband and our ten-year-old daughter Laura both have Type 1 Diabetes, a serious incurable condition that requires careful management every day to guard against unacceptable short-term and long-term health risks.

The book started out as a series of occasional blog posts here, addressing different aspects of living with Type 1 Diabetes. It brings together all of these posts in one place, plus extra material written especially for the book.

One of the new additions is an excellent Foreword, kindly provided by the broadcaster Justin Webb, who co-presents BBC Radio 4’s influential Today programme, and who also has a child with Type 1 Diabetes.

English: BBC Television presenter Justin Webb — BBC Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb has written the Foreword (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here is an extract:

“For families around Britain and around the world – today and tomorrow and for every day until a cure is found – a diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes is a life-altering, life-worsening piece of news…

“For parents, for the children themselves, all is changed. Some cope badly and suffer the awful consequences of complications and added misery. But some people have within them … the strength to fight back…

“This book has been written by someone who is ready and willing and able to fight back, and I commend her for it.

“Debbie Young has written a moving and personal testimony. I hope it inspires people to support the work of JDRF. And to salute the pioneers who first helped Type 1 Diabetics to stay alive, and nowadays helps them to live increasingly normal lives. This is a story that begins with harsh reality but encompasses success as well. It is a story of hope and progress, and one day it must end, in triumph.”

The funds raised by this short e-book will help bring that triumph closer.

Publication Details

SilverWood Books logo

The e-book will be available exclusively from Amazon from 14th November. The retail price will be £1.99 in the UK, and the equivalent in all Amazon territories around the world. All profits from every copy sold will go to JDRF, the international charity for Type 1 Diabetes.

The profit will be around 70% of the retail price. because the book has cost nothing but time to produce. Justin Webb and my author and publisher friends have given their services free of charge. Special thanks to SilverWood Books for their beautiful cover design, to novelist Joanne Phillips and poet Shirley Wright for proofreading, and to many other friends for reading the draft copy in advance of publication.

I will also be very grateful to anyone who is willing to post a book review on Amazon, because the more reviews a book has, the more visible it becomes on Amazon, thus increasing sales opportunities.

As the book is relatively short – around 8,000 words – there are currently no plans for a print version, but next year I’m hoping to publish an anthology of essays by other writers whose lives have been affected by Type 1 Diabetes, and I may incorporate this first book as a part of that project. Anyone who would be interested in contributing a piece to the 2014 book is warmly invited to register their interest via the contact form on this website.

Hearing that there will be cocktails on sale at this year’s PTA Auction, I wondered why no-one’s ever named a cocktail after our lovely village of Hawkesbury Upton. Here are my suggestions:

The Hawkesbury Showstopper – created in honour of our annual Horticultural Show, a blend of sloe gin and dandelion wine, garnished with a three foot stick of celery and a sliver of prize marrow.
The Hawkesbury Monumental – combine in a very tall glass one measure of crème de menthe (to represent our green and fragrant fields) and one of blue curacao (for our clear skies). Make sure the glass is full of cracks and frost it in winter. Drink seven at a time, as a tribute to the Monument’s views of the River Severn.
The Hawkesbury Shop Splasher – a little bit of everything in a generous sized glass, served with a big smile and a soupcon of gossip. There’s something in it to meet everyone’s needs.
The Hawkesbury Post Office Parcel – a glass of fragrant southern hemisphere wine garnished with cottage garden flowers, gently warmed over a scented candle, to be sent to your table by Special Delivery (you’ll have to sign for it on receipt or we’ll take it away again and just leave a card saying sorry).
<The Hawkesbury Primary School Pop –warm a small carton of milk on a classroom radiator for two hours and pour into an unbreakable plastic cup. Garnish with the sticky fingerprints of at least three different children, and don’t go out to play until you’ve drunk it.
The Hawkesbury PTA Partypopper – well, it doesn’t matter what you put in that one, you know what the PTA are like – they’ll drink anything!

Hope to see you at the auction!

(The Hawkesbury Primary School PTA Auction is the village school’s biggest annual fundraiser, when we sell dozens of interesting lots donated by our supporters. This year it will take place at the Village Hall on Saturday 9th March from 7.30pm. Everybody welcome! I’ve been on the PTA committee for the past six years, by the way, which gives me licence to make jokes at its expense. I was also on the Horticultural Show Committee for 13 years, and the Youth Club Committee, and the Village Hall Management Committee. Not bad for a person who hates being on committees.)

This post was originally written for the February 2013 issue of Hawkesbury Parish News.