In this quick “coffee break” chat, book coach Ameesha Green and author Mark Lanyon discuss Who Stole Grandma?, his memoir reflecting on the deteriorating health of his mother, Moosh, and the adversity to appreciate every moment you can.
Join book coach Ameesha Green and author Mark Lanyon as they discuss Who Stole Grandma?, his bestselling memoir that follows the most challenging and enriching period in Mark's life, as his mother lost her strength, independence, and role as hands-on grandmother.
His book was launched in dedication to Parkinson’s UK, raising over £4,500 and gaining support for his sister’s recent diagnosis as well as giving back to the community. There are moments of physical turmoil, emotional tribulations, and mini-triumphs, heartbreak, unanticipated hilarity, and love.
In this chapter, they discuss the process of writing, Mark’s incredible charity campaign, and making a difference through writing books.
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Who Stole Grandma? By Mark Lanyon
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TIME STAMPS:
00:38 – What inspired you to write your book?
07:08 – What do you think your biggest challenges were?
12:14 – What would you say was your happiest moment in the whole process?
15:34 – What made you come up with using a charity campaign to market and how did it go?
18:20 – Fundraising and marketing the book
20:53 – What skill do you think is most important in becoming an author?
21:28 – If you could do anything differently, what would it be?
22:40 – Do you have any more books planned?
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE:
Self-publishing
Parkinsons UK
Grief
Community
Independent bookshops
Book launch
Proofreading
Reading community
Editing
Book editors
Typesetting
Book design
Charity campaign
Books for charity
Bestselling books
Ameesha
Welcome to Better Shelves, the podcast from The Book Shelf Ltd. We help aspiring authors to create life-changing nonfiction books. We’re based in Birmingham, but we work with authors across the globe, and our mission is to make the world a better place through books.
Hi Mark! Thanks for joining us on the Better Shelves podcast today. Firstly, congratulations on publishing your book Who Stole Grandma? Can you, briefly, tell our listeners what it’s about and what inspired you to write it?
Mark
Yeah, I’d love to! You know, it always sounds terrible when I first start off talking about the book because, essentially, it’s a memoir that captures the years from when my sister said that she felt she could no longer look after my mum to my mum passing away so it sounds grim. But, actually, it’s my attempt to capture the love, the laughter, the silliness, all the antics that me and my mum got up to in those years. And I wrote it because I felt really lucky to have that time with my mum and even though it was really hard, she and I got to know each other a lot better. We’ve refound the love that we had when I was younger, and you know, we had a lot of good times together and I wanted to share that because lots of people go through similar experiences and I hoped to be able to encourage people to live that… potentially sad part of life and it is sad, but to live it well and to get the joy out of it.
Ameesh
Yeah and I think you’ve had some amazing feedback, haven’t you? From people who’ve read the book and even from people you don’t know. I remember us talking about people on the other side of the world messaging you because they had read the book and it, obviously, has had a really big impact on people.
Mark
Yes.
Ameesha
And also you’ve released it so… Before you actually published it you put it online.
Mark
Yeah because I have a tiny little blog on Facebook. I had a moment where I was rushed into hospital and I had been working on the book for… slowly thinking that one day I’d do something with it. And then, when I was rushed into hospital, I thought I’ve got to find a way of sharing it with people. And so, when I shared it… three chapters a day for about twenty or something days. And the response was just gorgeous. I mean, really gorgeous. Yeah, I mean, people were sending messages just saying, “Oh, it’s the first thing I do in the morning.” Or the lady in New Zealand was like, “Oh, it’s not morning it’s my night-time. It’s the last thing I do before I go to bed.” So, yeah, gorgeous. And people were really generous.
Ameesha
Yeah! And it’s, actually, where I ended up hearing about you because we had our joint friend Theresa was reading it on Facebook. And she was like, “Oh, you need to speak to this guy who’s writing this book!” So, yeah, I wouldn’t have ever heard about you if you hadn’t have been really brave in putting that content out there. And I think it’s actually a really good lesson for people that I think there’s this fear of, “I can’t put anything out there because what if it gets stolen or plagiarised.” When, actually, you doing that, putting the content out online for free on Facebook has, actually, drummed up an audience from you and got peopled interested and helped you form connections with people.
Mark
Absolutely. I think for a long time my job as a headteacher meant that I was the person who was supporting other people. I was the person who people came to. So I guess one of the things that I learned to do or develop in myself was the ability to reach out and ask for support so putting the book on Facebook allowed me, very quickly, to ask for people’s opinions so if somebody was reading and commenting who I didn’t know, I’d message them and say, “Hi, thanks ever so much for reading, really matters. Can you tell me A.) What you think of the book and B.) Do you think it’s good enough to publish it and C.) Anything else you want to tell me like: How did you come to find my blog?” So, people getting in touch was how I got in touch with Theresa, but people very quickly started saying, “Do you mind if I say there should be a comma or there should be a this or what do you mean by that?” Or, “I’ve got a question.” And I started responding to those queries and the advice which is how Theresa said, “My bit of advice to you is: Get a good proofreader.” And six months later, you and I were talking so, yeah.
Ameesh
Yeah! So, you almost kind-of go that free beta reading process rather than seeking it directly by going to a group like some people do. You kind-of created your own community around it.
Mark
Well, yeah, and that’s a really good way of putting it because I thought since I got this concept in my head of the community of Who Stole Grandma? Or I call it Mush’s community because it’s called Mush. But yeah there’s a community around the book. And I suppose it did start on the blog and since become other people but after conversations that you and I had and because there was that community there, I felt able to say to people, “Look. Help. I need somebody to proofread this book. I need somebody to help me because I’m too close to it.” And within an hour 33 people had volunteered and they did it and I quickly learned that some of them were harsher than others and it… they were the ones I kept going back to. People said, “Oh, yeah, this chapter is perfect.” I sent it to Tony in France or my bother up in the North-East and they go, “Oh, yeah, we could find something here.” So, yeah, it was great. And that was down to you.
Ameesha
Ah, thank you. Well, it really shows the power, I think of getting people to help you and one of the challenges of being an author who’s self-publishing is that a lot of time. You might feel like you’re diong it on your own, but actually, I always say it’s called self-publishing but that doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself because there is this whole community of professionals who you can pay and you can hire, but you also people who are just willing to help and give you their opinion and people love giving their opinion. You know, the amount of times an author’s been like, “I’m not sure about the title. Should I pick this, this, this, or this?” And I’m like, “Go on Facebook or whatever platform you’re active on, put three options and believe me, people will have an opinion because people want to tell you their thoughts. But I think that you really showed that in action the benefit of doing that and getting people involved and interested and that it helps to basically prepare an audience because a lot of the time people will publish a book and they won’t have told anyone up to that point. So, then it’s like they’re starting from the very beginning of nobody knows this book and actually I’ve got to market it from day one and that’s really difficult, you know? Their earlier you start that, the better.
Mark
Yeah. We’ll come onto marketing later.
Ameesha
Yes, but aside from that, I guess you still encountered challenges during the writing process or self-publishing process. What do you think your biggest challenges were?
Mark
There is a list. One was the proofreading because always through my career, I’ve found that I would get very, very close to the whatever it was that I was writing and if it was something important, I would go to people and say, “Look, I am too close. Please tell me what you think.” and I think I became a good listener in my job and that really helped me with this. But the other challenges I suppose in terms of writing process was time because when I started writing the thing I had was time. But I also had a family. I had a wife who had the same time as me and we had all these plans to do things together. And writing a book wasn’t part of her plan. So, I had to be really disciplined and getting up early in the morning she’s not awake and I’d write then. And she called it, “You’re working.” And I’d go, “I’m doing this for fun.” But that’s how she thought of it. So that was one challenges. Then, when it came to actually the book being finished in my head, I knew that I knew nothing about actually publishing–getting it onto a platform which is, again, why I was really grateful to talk to you because you gave me a checklist of thing to navigate, things to consider, even platforms to work on and then, I was able to be more confident and learn things… steps that I needed to take. I used a platform called ‘Reedsy Editor’ and their people were really, really helpful. Being able to talk to you was, again, really helpful. And then there were things I had no interest in. I’ve got no interest in how to get the book onto Amazon. None. Still, no interest. So, having you and your team help me to do that was wonderful. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. That’s the truth. There were things like… I knew what I wanted the book to look like and I’m not being funny but you knew better. You knew that memoirs tend to look like this… And told me how the cover would work best. And I loved the cover. Just as an aside, for my birthday the other day, my friends gave me a jigsaw puzzle that is the cover of the book!
Ameesha
Ah, that’s amazing! That’s really cool.
Mark
So, yes. I guess later on, once the book was out, to this day the thing I found the hardest and, not discouraging but just the thing I don’t really feel like I’ve cracked, is promotion. How… I think I did a good job up to a point but how you get passed or beyond the x-hundred people that you know to the thousands and thousands that you don’t know… I find really hard because it, my nature, I’m sort-of quite self-contained. So, then, reaching out to the world and being forceful enough, I suppose, I still haven’t quite navigated that fully. So, I’ve still got no idea what a good amount of books to sell is when you’re a self-publishing author. I know I’m approaching 1000 books. I know I’d like more people to be able to read it, but how you reach those is a bit beyond me. So, you know, I’m very happy I wrote it. I’d like to know more about how to share it more widely.
Ameesha
Yeah, I think that’s a challenge for a lot of on-going authors and it’s almost like the ‘How to go viral’ thing where sometimes things catch on and sometimes things… they don’t. Yeah, a lot of it comes down to how much you can push it yourself and getting those reviews on Amazon, for example. You’ve got lots of very positive reviews and that’s always helpful but it’s that challenge of who finds it and that makes the biggest difference. I remember one of the things you tried to do was get the book to Graham Norton. I remember the book launch there was the, “Who can get the book to Graham Norton?” And things like that can make a big difference. It only takes the right person to read it and pass it onto someone influential and that’s the thing where things like TikTok come in where it allows people to go viral with things that would otherwise be very difficult but it is an ongoing challenge and I think you do have to be realistic as an author these days that marketing is a huge part of being an author and one that a lot of authors aren’t very comfortable with or maybe aren’t used to doing or maybe aren’t very comfortable with especially if they’re not used to being in front of a camera or talking in front of people and obviously you are as a headteacher so that’s handy. But still it is a challenge and there are so many things you can try within marketing there are countless different things and it’s just all about trial and error, basically, and investing a bit of time and maybe a bit of money into something to see whether it works. If it doesn’t, trying something else. But, yeah, aside from that I’m glad you’re happy with what you’ve done. And seeling 1000 copies as just a self-published author is above average so, yeah. Well done on that. What would you say was your happiest moment in the whole process?
Mark
There’s a list a mile long. So, I’ll go backwards. This morning I was rooting through my manbag like you do and I found a slip of paper and on the slip of paper was the phone number of somebody who’s in the book… who my wife had met years ago while I was writing the book so I found the number, rang her and she’s actually one of the most important people who looked after my mum so later on today I’m going to go see her and give her a copy of the book because she’s in it. I changed her name but she’s in it and she’ll know she in it and she’ll know how important she was because she spoke to me about mum and the way she spoke about mum made me know that I’d reflected her really well in the book. So, that’s really lovely. But knowing that my sister is a massive part of the book had a very different relationship with my mum to me… knowing that she was proud of the book was massive and knowing people, like you said, from around the world… from New Zealand, Australia, America, Malaysia, France, Holland… who’ve got copies of the book freaked my mind. I love that. Knowing that there are signed copies in some of those countries… that really freaked my mind. You said about the reviews… a lot of the reviews are really lovely so lots of the 5-star reviews all go, “Oh, that’s lovely.” And then there was one 4-star, and I went, “Oh, 4-stars.” And it was just the most beautiful review. So, it was by a lady who said, “I was never going to read this book. I only bought it for Parkinsons UK, but then I did. I’ve got Parkinsons and it filled me with hope. It filled me with the belief that I won’t just fade away. I can still twinkle.” And then, I’m emotional. A friend, saying, reading Who Stole Grandma? allowed me to give my dad a hug and I knew her dad passed away. So, yes, I’ll take that.
Ameesha
Oh, yes, they are really beautiful examples. I think the book has a special way of getting it to people, you know? That emotional aspect. But, as you said, the humour as well. It’s hopeful. And with this kind-of subject it canbe just sad. But I think you’ve got a balance of things in there and that’s why it really resonates with people.
Mark
Yeah, the last one I would say because it sort-of has, I suppose, it’s the reason I wrote the book. It… there are people I’ve know quite a long time who I’ve totally lost touch with but found the book and they got in touch at really critical moments in my life saying, “I’m losing mum.” Or “I’m losing dad and reading Who Stole Grandma? has really helped me think about how I’m going to do this and that’s the most precious thing.
Ameeha
See? You should be very proud of yourself. You’ve definitely had an impact on people and it’s suh an important subject as well. And you’ve just mentioned Parkinsons as well and, obviously, you had very different types of marketing as well with doing a charity campaign. What made you come up with that and how did it go?
Mark
Okay. So, I don’t know if you remember but when we talked about pricing and we talked about, “And this is what you’ll get.” I think at the time I thought, “Oh, that’s not a lot,” and then we walked about marketing and the three days on Amazon. I thought that’s great. That’s a way of getting the book to people, but I really struggled with the idea that nothing would come of it in terms of money. Not for me, but just I found it hard just giving it away so what I thought I would do was to say, “I’m giving it away to anybody who wants it but if you take it for free, might you consider making a donation to Parkinsons UK because that’s a charity that’s really precious to me because mum had Parkinsons. And a friend made a ridiculously gorgeous donation which seemed to set the tone. I remember within about 2 days the figure had gone to £1000 when I had thought maybe I’d get £200 for Parkinsons UK and then it just kept going and now I think we’re on about £4500 and that just fills me with joy because the minute you start making donations or do a fundraiser for Parkinsons UK somebody gets in touch with you and wants to have a chat. And the first thing they say is, “Who are you doing this in memory of and this there anybody we can help?” So I said my mum, and then I said my sister has just been diagnosed with Parkinsons and so instantly, they started supporting my sister which is just phenomenal. But when we did the book launch day at a local bookshop, Parkinsons UK and partners came to that and they were wonderful. They spoke brilliantly. But then came to talk to me privately and said, “Can we talk to your sister? Would she be okay with that?” And they’re still talking to her and they’re still supporting her so it’s great that I’ve raised that money for Parkinsons UK but my family benefitted from that so it’s a win-win.
Ameesha
It is. Definitely. I think what you’ve done in terms of charity is incredible and I think it really shows the power of what you can do with books because it’s really easy to just say, “Oh this is how much profit I’ll end up with.” When you’ve used that to give back and I think it’s a very holistic thing and I’ve actually suggested it to so many authors since you’ve did that. I know so many authors who’ve done a similar thing… a charity campaign and I think it’s amazing.
Mark
The thing that helped me was I completely stopped thinking about money. Then if it was about more money for me… it became more about Parkinsons UK fundraising.
Ameesha
Yeah and you also did some fundraising things, didn’t you? At the book launch and online. We did the teacake challenge.
Mark
That’s still going, you know! Not the way I thought it might, but… where was it? At Christmas, I got this random video message and it was people at a party going, “Mark! Mark! Mark! Again! Remind us how you play it!” So, it was literally Christmas day and I had to find some teacakes… luckily I had some and I had to show them… and they were playing this game in their house and donating at the same time! So, yeah, the book launch was one of the best things ever. It was just gorgeous.
Ameesha
Yeah. The book launch was amazing, actually. I think having it in a local, independent bookstore makes a big difference. But just the whole vibe makes it… having food that people bought in, you know? You had samosas and cake and I think all the things you did at the book launch made it really fun!
Mark
Yeah. For me, I had a dream that Who Stole Grandma? would be on a bookshelf in a bookshop. Even if no one bought it, I just wanted to be able to look through the window and see it on a bookshelf so I went and it was my granddaughter’s favourite shop, it was beautiful. Everyone should go to Bear Bookshop, Bearwood in Birmingham. Beautiful place. And the woman, Jenny, was just so welcoming and we went straight from, “Yes, it would be lovely. Love to support local authors.” To, “How about an event?” And it was just like… Boom. Boom. Boom. And we did the whole thing of… and it was a tiny shop. Do you remember? We squeezed 60 or 70 people in? I was just past it so yeah. Lots of tears. Lots of laughter. Good fun.
Ameesha
Yeah. I highly recommend everyone to have a physical book launch if they can because they can be so much fun and I think it’s such a good way to celebrate your achievement as an author and if you can get it in a loca bookshop, obviously even better.
Mark
The other thing that we’ve done since was much, much smaller than small. But I got in touch with our local library and said, “Would you like a copy?” And they said, “Shall we do something.” So I did an even more scaled down, covid-affected thing but where there was much more talking about the book and the process and people asking questions and a proper Q&A and oh, my lord, it was just gorgeous.
Ameesha
Yeah and again that all comes down to marketing and all these are tools to market and there are so many things you can try but a book launch is definitely one. Now for some quick-fire questions. What skill do you think is most important in becoming an author?
Mark
First of all, I had to find more words. I’ve always had lots of words but because of the content of the book, the word beaming… my mum beamed a lot. She had this lovely smile. I had to find loads more words for beaming. I had to be careful to try and express the emotions I was trying to express so that was one. Yeah the other I had to get better at was asking for support.
Ameesha
Yeah. And I can say that’s the case for most authors. So, yes, if you could do anything differently, what would it be?
Mark
I would be brave enough to hold out and try and get a deal with a publishing house because now I think the book is good enough, do you know what I mean? At the time, I wasn’t sure. Now, I do this it’s good enough. I really appreciated the knowledge and that and everything that goes with a publishing house. Yeah, I think I would’ve held out longer. When we had our first conversation, I said, “I’ve just got to get it out of my head because I want to start writing something else.”
Ameesha
And the benefit of self-publishing is you can get a book out in a couple of month as opposed to a couple of years, but if the book does well when it’s self-published then publishers may be willing to take it on if they can see the evidence of what you’ve done on your own. So, it’s definitely something we could talk about now. You could submit a proposal to publishers and start querying some agents. So, we could still do that. I think you have the evidence as you’ve sold 1000 copies on your own and you never know so it’s always worth trying. It’s never too late to try and get a publisher onboard.
Mark
Oh, wow. I didn’t even know that.
Ameesha
Yeah, we can look into that. Definitely. Aside from that, do you have any more books planned?
Mark
I do. It’s difficult. I do. One… I don’t even know if I’ll write it now. I want to want a fictional account of a couple breaking the arranged marriage rules and necessarily it has to be fictional because if it’s autobiographical, which it actually is, it could hurt too many people. So, there’s that. And then… people have asked me to write my mum’s early life story because it’s referenced so much in the book and I’d like to do that. So, that would be, you know, the story of a girl who was put into an orphanage at the age of 3 even though both her parents were alive and then… survived the Japanese invasion of Malaysia and researching all of that… I’d love to research it and write that. Those are the 2 plans.
Ameesha
That sounds fascinating. You definitely should and the good thing is with a second book you have all the knowledge from the first book, so it’s easier second time around, and even easier third time around.
Mark
Yeah. Hopefully!
Ameesha
Yeah and if you had 1 top tip for aspiring authors, what would it be?
Mark
Believe in yourself and ask for support and know that don’t know it all.
Ameesha
Yeah. Is there anything you’d like to add?
Mark
I’d like to add thanks because you know, without The Book Shelf, Who Stole Grandma? would still be on my laptop which is now broken. So, yeah, without your support I never would’ve got this far and I’m just very grateful for where we are now.
Ameesha
Ah, yes. Thank you ever so much for letting me work on the book and seeing where you are. I mean, it’s always lovely working with authors and seeing that community that’s following along and pushing them to actually get the book out there. And it’s as you said, it’s that challenge to write it and it could just stay on your laptop or stay in a drawer somewhere and there’s just a common thing that authors never feel ready and they’re just like, “Oh, I could improve this a little bit” or “let me just go back and do another round of edits” or “let me just go and get a third opinion or a fourth opinion or a fiftieth proofreader.” And it can really drag on in the sense that they just want to feel like it’s 100% perfect and no book is 100% perfect. There will always be a typo that someone didn’t spot and because we’re only human we’ll always think, “Oh maybe I should’ve added this or maybe I should’ve included that.” And the good thing about Amazon is you can always upload a revised version.
Mark
I know that!
Ameesha
Yeah, you can always upload a revised verison. It’s much easier than in the past when you used to have to reorder bulk copies and you know, nobody ever feels ready and at some point you have to go, “I have to get this book out there.” And accept that it might not be 100% perfect and tweak it later down the line. I’m glad you did it. And you were like, “Oh, I’m still not sure!”
Mark
The day we did the first go, Ranjit hadn’t read the acknowledgements of the book. It didn’t get proofread. She read the acknowledgements and the bit about her was wrong!
Ameesha
Yeah, you can’t do that about your own wife!
Mark
Yeah. No, it was good. A good process.
Ameesha
Ah, good. I’m so glad. I think definitely write some more books and we can definitely talk about how to get a publisher.
Mark
Yeah. No and through working with you, there are other people that you’ve worked with who… when I’m brave enough I’m going to reach out to them because one of them… I think a couple of them actually have a perspective that I’m not able to have as a man. So, yeah, I’d like to have their perspective on how to write that bit there. You know…
Ameesha
Yes, of course! We always have people who can help with every part of the process. Ah, thank you, Mark. It’s been lovely speaking with you.
Mark
It’s always lovely speaking to you. Alright. Thank you. Take care. Cheers.
Ameesha
We can’t wait for you to join us as we talk more about writing, publishing, and self-improvement on this podcast. And we’d love to hear from you! What tips would you find useful? What questions do you need answered? You can find us on our website, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter @thebookshelf.ltd. Send us your questions via social media! We’d love to hear from you.
In the final chapter of this series, we’ll be speaking to our very own podcast producer, Shakira, we’ll be reflecting back on the series and the incredible insights we’ve gained from our authors so stay tuned to hear our wrap-up.
The music featured in today’s episode is ‘Set Free’ by Katie Gray which you can find on Apple Music and Spotify.
Thanks for listening to the Better Shelves podcast, we’ll see you in the next chapter!