Sarfraz Manzoor

a fascinating meeting with my publishers yesterday about the publication of the paperback editiion of my book. we looked through possible covers, all of which were interesting but i didnt feel they were quite right. the question we are wrestling with is whether the way to push the book is by stressing the Springsteen angle or my making it more a classic father/son/family memoir. each direction implies a different cover. so by making it explicitly about Springsteen one could give it a bold subtitle like ‘how bruce springsteen changed my life’ and that might make some people pick it up but it might also put loads of people off. make it all about the family story and then the danger is the book just melts into all the other memoirs out there. you wouldnt think that these questions were all that important but it turns out they are hugely important because it determines whether the big chain stores decide to stock the book. last time round places like WHSmith didnt even sell the book and so this time I am really hoping that supermarkets like tescos and sainsburys will want to sell the book, i totally think its a mainstream book but its just about persuading other people. and there isnt really much more i can do to help that along as the book is written so now its all about the marketing. no decisions were made and everyone is going to have another think as to whether we should be stressing the family side or the music side. any thoughts?