A Mumsnet thread about a book about a Mumsnet thread “Under the Duvet of Darkness” written by the women of Mumsnet

[Boiledbeetle]

For once we can do a thread about a new book where all the writers are actually on this very board!

Some of you know what I have been up to recently, when I can tear myself away from posting twaddle, gifs and sweary words in bigly letters on here, but for the rest of you…

Over Christmas and New Year after the passing of the GRR (Scotland) Bill a thread was started by TerfranosaurusVagina on the Mumsnet FWR board with a poem about Nicola Sturgeon. Eventually on that thread (and a couple of other threads) over 80 poems were written.

Ramblingnamechanger suggested we do something with them to raise funds to help the women of Scotland and whilst Dodecaheidyin was tempted to write to Poetry Please on Radio 4, and ask them to do an extended special for Hogmanay about our poems, in the end it was decided to make the thread into a book.

After much procrastination by me “Under the Duvet of Darkness: Poems written by angry women for angry women because WOMEN WON’T WHEESHT” went live on Amazon on 31st March

https://amzn.eu/d/98aEnJy

If searching on the site you need to:

Select BOOKS as the department and UNDER THE DUVET OF DARKNESS in the search box.

Currently it doesn’t show up in the main all departments search (I don’t know why or if it will, it takes a while for everything to work properly according to Amazon).

Theres also a QR code below which should take you right there (hopefully the attached works)

MONEY FROM SALES:

In honour of Magdalen Berns, who co-founded the Scottish campaign group For Women Scotland, 100% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to For Women Scotland.*

*Please note that whilst the profit will be donated to For Women Scotland they are not involved, nor are they responsible in any way for the themes, contents or publication of this book.

“It’s not hate to defend your rights, and it’s not hate to speak the truth.”

Magdalen Berns (1983 – 2019)

Great work , Boiled! 👏👏👏

Any news on when the Kindle version will be available yet?

I'm not sure, but it Is ongoing!

Our Fairy Kindle Mother is doing it around real work/life and is rather busy at the moment with other deadlines/commitments etc

The issue has been I set the layout of the pages for a certain sized paper copy book. Had I done a novel it would have been a straight forward change to make it an e-book. But because I'd relied on different font sizes and there's more headings than there would be in a story book, and I messed around with formatting and stuff to get it to look right as a book of poems those same things meant that originally it looked awful as an e-book.

So the lovely Fairy Kindle Mother literally had to start again with the layout to get it to work on a kindle. (Such fun)

It doesn't help that she has had to deal with an idiot (me) not understanding how the hell Kindle works and so every, what should be simple, question from her resulted in me having a little sob in a corner for a few days.

So I've not exactly been much help in the process.

But I'd say it's about 75% done. The original stuff is all in the new correct Kindle format and the new bonus stuff needs to have the same treatment done to it.

I will of course let you all know as soon as it's available.

Thanks!

Extra screen shot for those who like those bits.

We sold at least 1 book every day in April. The highlight being 3rd April when it sold 99 copies in one day!

And have sold copies in 5 countries

@TheBiologyStupid and @RhannionKPSS sorry just let me put this pile of 200 copies of the same book somewhere out of my way.....

😁

I can't help taking 'units ordered' somewhat personally. I only ordered 1, some other nits ordered all the others.

Doesn't the....British Library thing try to keep a copy of all books in print? Beetle you've made history! Again!

Quite a lot of nits😁

I'm not sure how they deal with self published books!

I've got to go back to the start of the thread at some point to work my way through all the suggestions of places that I need to send a copy to.

Luckily I have a few spares!

@Boiledbeetle I have just said on the Times book club thread on Facebook that I am reading Under the Duvet of Darkness. So if you get a sudden influx of people buying the book it's my fault

If you don't it's not my fault

@minsmum

Excellent news 😁! Leaves handy link lying around, just in case

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C129WKDD

So where did the top up of funds come from? You had £793 in donations, but transferred £1000. (Sorry you can never remove the accountant in me even after a book of poetry!)

Me

❤Beetle you are amazing.

💯this

Well I may as well add then that there is also 100 copies of the book (thankfully at the author price so not counted in the numbers) currently on a Royal Mail van winging their way up to Scotland so FWS can sell them directly at conferences, gatherings etc.

I will also add to the chorus of Beetle appreciation - you are fantastic

ID BE VERY CAREFUL WI VANS

Well i had intended borrowing the campervan to transport them but...

Up the Beetle 🍻 🌟 🤩

special delivery service - pat's on the case

ALSO HORSEBOXES.

You are a superstar! And you were going to keep that quiet? Hopefully FWS sell out!

Yes. But I realised after I'd done the payment that I still had to prove I'd made the payment so I couldn't black out the amount sent.

Oh my days, I hope this just gets better and better. When you get to doing volume 2 we will need a new thread. And well done so far.