A story about a rejected mermaid with Tony Flowers

Tony Flowers is our guest this week. To find out more about Tony you can visit...

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To find out more about R.A. Spratt visit raspratt.com
To find out more about Jacqueline Harvey visit jacquelineharvey.com.au
To find out more about Tim Harris visit timharrisbooks.com

Transcript

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Rachel Spratt: Hello, and welcome to real stories with random writers. I'm Ra. Spratt, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey and Tim Harris, and today's special guest is Tony Flowers.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Tony.

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Rachel Spratt: I'll run that in again. Hello! I'm Ray Sprat, and I'm here with Jacqueline Harvey and Tim Harris. And today's special guest is tiny flowers. Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Tony is the illustrator of the Saura Streets series, Ginny and Cooper, samurai versus ninja. Billy is a dragon, grandma's 1st tattoo, and many many more, and his most recent book is Scout and The Rescue Dogs. Welcome to the show, Tony.

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tonyflowers: Oh, thanks for having me! I mean, it's an honor to be invited to much such luminaries of the publishing world.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, sorry!

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Jacqueline Harvey: Mind, yes.

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Rachel Spratt: Well, we're all book creators. Which means we're storytellers. Normally, we write our stories down. But for this, podcast we're going to tell them out loud instead. And today we're going to be telling tales about rejection.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I.

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Rachel Spratt: A subject we all know too well. So let's get into it.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Well, I've I've been thinking, Hi, I'm you know.

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Rachel Spratt: He's going 1st down.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Rejection, you know. I could probably talk about being rejected by the boy that I was in, you know, madly in love with from the age of, you know, about 9 and a half right through my teenage years. But I think I'll I'll give that a rest cause I don't.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, that's so hard to believe, Jackie.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, no, no, it was. It was very true, very true.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So I'm gonna talk about rejection in the context of what we do for a job, because most people in our industry most, I say, have had the the the distress of being rejected at some point in their careers. And you know anybody who gets book contract for the 1st book they ever send out. Well, I mean, that's incredible. Go you? That's amazing. But that's not real life for most people. So

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Rachel Spratt: That was my experience.

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Rachel Spratt: but I've had lots of rejections since. Don't you worry. And I had like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I've caught up with you afterwards. So.

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Rachel Spratt: But I would. Yeah, my, my I when people say, Oh, how did you get a book published? It's like, you don't want to hear, cause. It's not the story. It's not the Jk rowling story. It's just like I sent in a book they published it.

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Jacqueline Harvey: They published it. Actually, I think our our good friend Belinda Morrell, was in the same situation that she she got published 1st off the bat, too. But it is not. I mean, if I was to, if I was to, you know, do a survey of a hundred writers, I reckon you'd probably find that 95% of them were not accepted on the 1st go. So I decided when I was in my probably my twenties, that I really would like to be a writer, but it took me a long time to work out how to do it. I was. I was a teacher at the time, and so I remember.

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Rachel Spratt: To learn, to read and write.

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Tim Harris: Like to read and write.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, so that I could actually write something coherent. And yeah. So I suppose I was writing lots of bit spaces throughout my twenties, but not really seriously. And it wasn't until I was in my early thirties that I decided that I was going to give this a proper go, because I really wanted to be a writer, and I had no clue. I bought this great big doorstop of a book called Publishers Marketplace, I think it was called, and that gave you a few clues of where to send things.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But that was back in the day when you used to have to send, like the full manuscript, with a.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Physical copy with a stamp self addressed envelope. And so I remember the 1st thing I ever wrote.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I think sending it out to some publishers, and getting all excited because I go to the postbox, I'll be like, Oh, I've got a package I'd be like. Oh, it's my manuscript. Come back to me. It's a boomerang. So, anyway, this happened a few times, and then I entered a competition with the Children's Book Council of New South Wales for an unpublished writer, you know, from manuscript, from an unpublished writer, and it was called the Frustrated Writers Mentoring Competition, and I thought it was no more apt title than the frustrated writers mentoring.

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Rachel Spratt: It's like, sounds like they're trying to get you a date.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yep, I was very frustrated by this time, so anyway I am. Lo and behold! I ended up winning this competition, which.

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Rachel Spratt: You were there.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Amazing. And and that kind of got my little toe just in the door, you know, to a few publishers, because what I had to do was call. I had actually sent that manuscript out to a few different publishers, and I had to call them to ask for it back, because.

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Jacqueline Harvey: ironically, Random House was the ones that had 1st right of refusal to publish it. And Lindsey Knight was one of the like. She must have been on the judging panel or something, and she was part of the whole scheme.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So, anyway, I called a couple of publishers that had the manuscript, and then I remember calling this little publisher well, I used to publish a lot of books, but they were by this sort of industry standards. Lothian at the time was a small publisher. They were owned by a family in Melbourne before they became bought out by hashtag. Anyway, I remember calling and saying to the receptionist, oh, I just want a competition with the Children's Book Council.

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Jacqueline Harvey: You know, for an unpublished manuscript. You actually haven't at the moment would there be any chance, you know. I just need to get it back. And she suddenly said, Would you like to speak to the publisher? And I was like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: what would you like to speak to like a real person like a publisher? So, anyway, I spoke to a lovely lady called Helen Chamberlain, and basically, after that I was very fortunate. I got 3 books published, plus that. Well, I'll get to the pitch book in a minute quite quickly, like in succession. 2,003, 2,004, 2,005, anyway. Penguin. Oh, sorry! Random House had the manuscript for the sound of the sea, which was the one that had won the competition

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Jacqueline Harvey: and unbeknownst to me. Lindsay and I had packed up and moved to London by this stage.

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Rachel Spratt: Gosh!

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Jacqueline Harvey: She'd never even seen this book. And so I thought, oh, I'm just going to show it to Helen Chamberlain, anyway. So I showed it to her. She said she loved it. I went to Melbourne actually to give it to her in person, and anyway, she loved it. She published it. It ended up becoming an honor book in the 2,006 Children's Book of the Year Awards. So at this point, I'm thinking I am on my way I am going to be like this is my career. I'm on a roll here, baby.

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Jacqueline Harvey: So, anyway, then for the next what 3 years

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Jacqueline Harvey: nobody wanted to know me, and so I would send stuff out, not rejection. I'll send it out rejection. And it was at that point that I decided to write the book that I would have wanted to read if I was a 10 year old kid, and I wrote Alice Miranda.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Interestingly, though Alice Miranda went to

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Jacqueline Harvey: Penguin hash it?

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Jacqueline Harvey: I don't know. Oh, Uqp. Scholastic Walker, rejected by all of those people, and it got to a point where I was like, what am I going to do with this? And a friend of mine knew Lindsay Knight, who had come back to Australia and was at Random House.

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Jacqueline Harvey: and she said, I I've read this. I love it. I'm gonna send it to Lindsey Knight. And ironically. Lindsey Knight, who could have had my picture book? What, 5 years beforehand, she ended up being the publisher of Alice Miranda and.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Then the rest is history.

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Rachel Spratt: Fantastic.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But yeah, it was I mean, and it's awful when you get rejected. When you see, you know, when you think I've written this fabulous book, and no one wants to know about it, and it's really hard.

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Rachel Spratt: How much it comes down to one individual's whim.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yep.

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Rachel Spratt: Which you know can be affected by what they ate for lunch that day before they read it. You know it's it's it's so

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Rachel Spratt: trend. I don't know the right word, like ephemeral, almost. Yeah. But anyway.

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Jacqueline Harvey: It's all about, you know. It's all about not giving up, though. Too rich, isn't it?

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, yeah. Well, I, my personal opinion is like, cause I've got very low self confidence about just about every aspect of my life. My physical appearance the way I speak, the way I present, like everything's low confidence. But for some reason I have been blessed with a raging ego, where my work is concerned.

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Rachel Spratt: So when I get rejected, I don't get upset about it. See? Most people get upset when they're rejected. I always just think oh, no, that poor person! They've got no idea what they're doing, and they work in publishing that must make it really difficult. Oh, never mind, I'll find someone else. I always just assume they're wrong, like my mind is just, oh, they're wrong, and I am really good. They just don't know that yet.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, that's that's a good way to look at it, really. But I I.

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Rachel Spratt: Very delusional.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Probably cry sometimes, and you know, but I was also one of those people that I I was very determined to be published. By, you know a a trade publisher. So I was traditional publisher. I was not ever gonna go the route of being self published because

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Jacqueline Harvey: I like you, Rachel. I I did think. Well, my stuff deserves so I was a bit egical about that, I suppose, but it's it's you know what I was aiming for, and you know I read stories of people like Kate D. Camilla got rejected 300 times before she got a, you know, got a book up, and I think, wow! And she's now won what? The Newbury medal. How many times and this sort of thing in in the States so.

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Rachel Spratt: Think of all those poor publishers who rejected Harry Potter, you know, that got rejected like 30 times, too. But I was just gonna say, like Lindsay Knight at Penguin, she would have picked up Alice Miranda. At about the same time she picked up Nanny Piggins, so she made a couple of like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Role.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, they were like big financial winners, both those decisions for penguin so well, Random House as it was then. So.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, yes, absolutely so, Tony, you're gonna tell us the story now, too.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, surely you've never been rejected. Such a handsome man as yourself.

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tonyflowers: It's a problem in the illustrators because everyone approaches you for work. So you know, we don't get rejected as illustrators. Did you know that.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, yes, that's true, because you get us to do it. Yes, rather than you know you do it, and then they go. No, we don't love you.

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tonyflowers: Actual fact. Rejection is my default setting.

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tonyflowers: I expect to be rejected by most of the publishers I deal with.

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tonyflowers: because I've pitched them so many times, so many different ideas.

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tonyflowers: that I'm always getting rejected. And it's been quite fun, because if you play it as a game like when when I was writing with Nick. We had

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tonyflowers: We could come up with a story idea and a storyline and knock out a proposal within 24 h easily.

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tonyflowers: I remember we were up at the a festival in in Queensland. I think it was.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, Somerset! Yep.

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tonyflowers: We are in the.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I was there with you. I was with you, too, Nick, and and and yourself.

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tonyflowers: Yeah, that's it. And we're we're we're in the bus on the way to the

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tonyflowers: the 1st day, and we hadn't seen each other for a while, so we were just catching up, and we just done Billy as a dragon. And we said, You know what we need to think about our next book series. Because, you know this, we're gonna get another 2 books in the series to do so, always trying to think of the next project.

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tonyflowers: and I'm

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tonyflowers: in that bus ride between the hotel and the venue. We came up with samurai versus ninja.

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Rachel Spratt: I remember being on tour with you and you coming up with like an underwater thing, and there was like some account.

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tonyflowers: It, to.

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Rachel Spratt: Around with a goldfish bowl on their head, with goldfish in it. It was so cool.

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tonyflowers: That's the rejection I want to get to.

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Rachel Spratt: I got it.

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tonyflowers: Summarize versus ninja, really fast and basically, he had typed up the 1st chapter that night, and I draw the character drawings, and we had the pitch ready to go.

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tonyflowers: But then, because we're at an event like Somerset, where we're selling

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tonyflowers: tens and tens of books versus ninja, only because we're sitting next to Miss Harvey and all these hundreds of girls lined up in front of her. And then, you know, Nanny Pickens, famous

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tonyflowers: author, turns up, and hundreds of girls turn up in front of her, and we've got like the 10 boys that are at the event in front of us.

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tonyflowers: And we were sort of pigeon holding to this reluctant, really young young boy fiction, even though characters

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tonyflowers: quite often heavily female driven stories.

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tonyflowers: And I'm

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tonyflowers: we didn't mind because we're having fun, and we're selling lots of books. But at the same time we thought we should write a book about

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tonyflowers: that's just unashamedly targeted at at the Girls Bookmarket.

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tonyflowers: So we came up with nearer the Mermaid, which is about a character who was a mermaid, and again we we met up in a bar in Melbourne, some festival we're at, and.

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Rachel Spratt: On tour with me and Zoe.

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Rachel Spratt: and who else was there? Cause? I remember Nick got us all sick. We all ended up with the flu afterwards.

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tonyflowers: Tom Brig.

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Rachel Spratt: The air.

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tonyflowers: Yeah, but we we we

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tonyflowers: brainstormed this idea for mirror. The Mermaid Mirror. The Mermaid was a mermaid that was like a fractured fairy tale. She lived down to the sea. There was a you know.

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Rachel Spratt: Used to hate it because you'd go to a restaurant with him, and you'd be coming up with ideas, and the waitresses would be all over you because you were doing all these beautiful drawings. Nick was such like. He loved to be loud and to be admired, and he couldn't bear the fact that they were all these young girls just were giving you all their, and you'd be giving them drawings and drawing on their arms with sharpie like tattoos, and he was just so jealous.

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tonyflowers: I think Nick lent into me after we're actually working on that book. And he leanted to me and he goes.

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tonyflowers: Tony, I've never felt so invisible in all my life.

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Jacqueline Harvey: That's.

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tonyflowers: Because we would be moved and given preferential treatment. I will move you to this booth so you can keep working. And it was the girl. She moved around so I could draw more and spread the drawings around. She kept coming back and wanted to talk about the drawings.

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tonyflowers: completely blanking and stonewalling Nick out, so Nick didn't know what to do.

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Tim Harris: But we have the right.

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tonyflowers: And I did for the mermaid story, and we brought this beautiful pitch together, and we even

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tonyflowers: dude.

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tonyflowers: you know, competitive books that it's in the market, and where it would sit, and how it complement other publishings. You know things like the humor of Nanny pickings and the appeal of Alice Miranda.

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Rachel Spratt: That. But I'm glad you tried. Yeah.

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tonyflowers: We tried. We tried we didn't have, because we made up with what.

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Rachel Spratt: I was inspiring you with my presence. Yeah.

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tonyflowers: Let's just say with with a talent Nick lacked in words I made up for with the pitches, so we really tried.

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tonyflowers: and we send it off to the publisher. And we thought, This is going to be a winner. This is no problem. It's a great story and lots of fun images. And the response came back, this is not quite where we see you guys in the market.

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tonyflowers: So we were. We were pigeon hold into reluctant readers for boys, and they didn't have pivot us into a another series, I think, or

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tonyflowers: the fact that they had 2 highly successful 3, actually because they

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tonyflowers: belinda, was writing in at that time as well, and had massive

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tonyflowers: success with her series in in that sort of space. So maybe they just saw too much competition.

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tonyflowers: But unfortunately, that's where Mira died. But.

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Rachel Spratt: Because then Tony and I did a concept. Tony had this fantastic idea

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Rachel Spratt: about.

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tonyflowers: Well Records.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, these kids that want to set world records cause their grandmother sends them a copy of the Guinness World records and their grandmothers is crazy world traveler. And the kids are like these feral kids. And they decide, okay, we're gonna set it. But then they realize it's really hard to set world records because everyone else is trying to do it. So then they think we'll travel to Mars and set Mars records.

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Rachel Spratt: They travel to Mars, to set Mars records, and they're going crazy like on pogo sticks and unicycles. But then all these Martians turn up and figure out what they're doing, and they're like. And the Martians have like 8 legs and a 50 feet tall. And they're like, we're going to get the Mars records, and they're even better at it. So then they have to travel back to Earth, and then the Martians invade because they want the world records, and it was such a great idea.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Do you know, Tim, this is coming out with a rival publisher in about 3 weeks time.

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Tim Harris: I'll read all this into me.

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Jacqueline Harvey: God!

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Tim Harris: I I'm really interested to hear the end, because I've already thought of an ending for that one. They come back to earth

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Tim Harris: and they win the world record for attempting the most world records.

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tonyflowers: Yeah.

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Rachel Spratt: Good evening.

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tonyflowers: Finding an end.

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Tim Harris: And it was like.

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Rachel Spratt: The Martians follow them back to Earth, and then they have to get rid of the Martians because they're ruining the go. The world records.

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tonyflowers: We? We know what happened, Rachel, every time we were on tour together, and we were talking about books like this I kept getting Elba, and saying, Stop, stop! Distracting right, which is good.

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Jacqueline Harvey: But other things to do.

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tonyflowers: i i i get into that for the trouble all the time with people. The the upshot, though, of me or the Mermaid was Nick and I were happened to be sitting

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tonyflowers: at home when the email pinged through

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tonyflowers: and I saw it. I just opened it up, and by the time I'd finished reading it, my phone rang and it was Nick. Did you see the email? I said, Yes, because let's hit them back hard and fast. I said, okay. And within 5 min we'd brainstormed another story idea.

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Tim Harris: 10 min.

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tonyflowers: Later I finished the initial sketches. He typed up

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tonyflowers: the premise and the 1st 10 pages.

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tonyflowers: So within half an hour we'd had and enough put together

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tonyflowers: that we shot it back with a name out, and very casually said, Oh, we understand, but he was another concept we've had in the back better that we've been working on. What do you think.

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Tim Harris: Really.

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tonyflowers: And how to beat Shakespeare in an arm wrestle, and how to stop in a how to stop an army, and only an invasion

395
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tonyflowers: with Shakespeare. How to beat Genghis Khan, and arm wrestle

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tonyflowers: was contracted with all of 60 min from a rejection letter.

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Tim Harris: Whoa!

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Jacqueline Harvey: So that was.

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tonyflowers: That was the fastest turnaround I've ever had.

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Rachel Spratt: That's really.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Great.

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Rachel Spratt: But it did lead to. I pitched an idea about

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Rachel Spratt: time travel like I had this whole vision of like a time traveling toilet like a dunny like no, not not a sort of like a portal, but an old fashioned one, and that if you spun the toilet paper the more you spun it the further back in history you'd go.

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tonyflowers: Love it.

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00:32:29.130 --> 00:32:31.129
Rachel Spratt: Travelling in the toilet would be

406
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Rachel Spratt: Queen Elizabeth the first.st

407
00:32:33.822 --> 00:32:37.040
Rachel Spratt: Who else was in that? Leonardo da Vinci

408
00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:39.029
Rachel Spratt: and Genghis Khan?

409
00:32:39.130 --> 00:32:41.119
Rachel Spratt: But as 11 year olds.

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Jacqueline Harvey: And.

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00:32:42.820 --> 00:32:52.309
Rachel Spratt: And then there'd be this ordinary kid, and you wouldn't realize it at the time. But he was going to be the kid that invented blood doning because I wanted like to have an African-american kid

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Rachel Spratt: who was just an ordinary kid that you didn't realize was actually going to become a really pivotal person in history. So he's going to be an ordinary kid from like the thirties or forties whenever he was a kid, and and he would be traveling with these other 3 amazing people, thinking he was ordinary. But it would actually end up that you'd find out at the end that he was extraordinary as well, and they'd be going back through time meeting like Cleopatra as an 11 year old and helping her solve her problems. So I pitched this whole concept. And they said.

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Rachel Spratt: Oh, no, you can't do that. Flowers has just had a book about Genghis Khan, and it's coming out next year, and I'm like. So just because you had a book with Genghis Khan as a character, I couldn't have my book.

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tonyflowers: I think it's amazing that publishers do this because I hear it all the time. I can't do that because we've got this coming out, and all I can think is, it sounds like that book would be perfect. All it needs is a really good illustrator.

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00:33:39.850 --> 00:33:45.149
tonyflowers: Been a while since Genghis Khan was out, and whilst I'm incredibly booked up, I've always wanted to work with you, Sprat, so let's.

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00:33:45.370 --> 00:33:46.460
Rachel Spratt: It's been.

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tonyflowers: Together.

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00:33:47.230 --> 00:34:15.819
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. Well, don't ask. Don't ask Paul Belinda Morrell about how many times she's had to change her character's names, because she had. I know when Lula was coming out. She had her a different name, and Clementine Rose was coming out the same time, and I nabbed the name, and then willow and wolf. She had a 1 of the series she was working on. She had willow, and they said, Nope, I was like, Oh, no, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, I had to change the pesky kids because of Kenzie and Max.

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00:34:21.429 --> 00:34:31.619
Rachel Spratt: They they wanted me when I started doing Friday barns. They were worried. It was going to be like Alice Miranda, they said, oh, you should read it. Make sure it's not like Alice, Miranda, and I said, I have a better plan. How about? I don't read it to make sure that I don't.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, like, so.

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Rachel Spratt: Ideal anything from us, Miranda. But yeah, cause.

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00:34:35.389 --> 00:34:36.419
Jacqueline Harvey: It's odd, isn't it?

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Rachel Spratt: Yeah, cause the pesky kids was meant to be all about spies and everything. And I ended up just leaning more into it, being about a country town, and then sort of by the end, you realize it is actually all about spies. You just. It's just been undercover the whole time. You haven't realized.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yep.

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Rachel Spratt: So it is really funny. The mechanisations of the publishing industry, isn't it?

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00:34:53.730 --> 00:35:05.029
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, and especially, I mean for Tim and Rachel and I, who only we only work with the one publisher at the moment. So I mean I well, since

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Jacqueline Harvey: yes, in South Miranda I've only worked with with Penguin Random House. And you guys have 2. So it's interesting how you know how that works in our industry, too, because some publishers, so some authors end up going with 10 different publishers. And there's some of us who are and there's some of us who are just you know, with the one so.

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Rachel Spratt: Well, they lock you down like they lock you down to these contracts, and you just have this constant workload.

430
00:35:30.350 --> 00:35:32.489
Jacqueline Harvey: But I love that I love that.

431
00:35:32.490 --> 00:35:35.550
Rachel Spratt: I do, too, but it's like I do not have time like they.

432
00:35:35.550 --> 00:35:35.815
Jacqueline Harvey: But

433
00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:38.240
Rachel Spratt: I do not have time to to to

434
00:35:38.510 --> 00:35:39.330
Jacqueline Harvey: Branch out.

435
00:35:39.330 --> 00:35:40.149
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, yeah.

436
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tonyflowers: I got my fingers crossed for that, because I've got my 1st gig coming up as author illustrator.

437
00:35:45.250 --> 00:35:55.052
Rachel Spratt: Oh, very cool. I'm I'm constantly trying to have my 1st gig as an illustrator, but everyone just looks at me with sort of sad look of pity in their eyes, like.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, no, I know that is never happening for me, because that is not a strength. That is not what I do. Well.

439
00:36:00.900 --> 00:36:01.385
Tim Harris: Ditto.

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tonyflowers: And we're doing a graphic novel series which.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, that's exciting!

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00:36:05.700 --> 00:36:11.519
Rachel Spratt: Oh, that's so cool! I love graphic novels. Oh, anyway, Tim, do you have a story for us? Were you next up? You are.

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00:36:11.520 --> 00:36:29.549
Tim Harris: I do. Yeah, I've got a rejection story. So for for the listeners, there's 2 ways you can be rejected in the publishing world. The 1st way is the way, Tony explained, you might get an email from a publisher and no straight away. Okay, that they don't want this the second way you can get rejected is through blanking.

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00:36:29.550 --> 00:36:44.149
Tim Harris: It's when you just don't hear anything, and that can take a long, long time. In fact, Jacky. It was interesting when you talked about sending Alice Miranda to to Penguin and Scholastic and Hashet, and all those publishers. Did you do that at the same time. Did you send them all at the same time.

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Jacqueline Harvey: I did, because I decided that I could be dead by the time I had a publishing contact. If I if I played by the rules and wait.

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tonyflowers: Okay. Yeah.

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00:36:50.270 --> 00:37:14.820
Jacqueline Harvey: One to get back to me. Sometimes they get back to you in 3 months, sometimes it could be 6 months, sometimes it's like a year. Sometimes, as you say, it's just a blank. So no, I just went the whole. And you know what my theory was. If somebody offered me a contract for it. Then I'd let the rest of them know that someone was interested. And that was how I was going to get around that part of it, because, yeah, it was otherwise, like I said, you could be dead.

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00:37:14.820 --> 00:37:39.789
Tim Harris: That's right. And and for aspiring authors who might be listening as well it. That is a decision that you have to make. You have to work out. Do I send it to one publisher, and just wait, and sort of, you know, play by these unspoken rules, or do I so send it out in mass, and then hope that hopefully I get a buy so for me with with exploding endings. The 1st series, it was self published. To begin with. And I would just I would just read stories at school and sell to the school kids. And it did.

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Tim Harris: They did alright. It sold almost 2,000 copies just by, just just through some, you know, from school visits and that sort of thing. And I thought, okay, well, I think those numbers are pretty good, based on what I can find on the Internet.

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Tim Harris: And so I thought, who do I? Who do? I think, might publish this, and so I did really a quite extensive homework, and I was a very good boy. I remember it was probably quite a few weeks where each night I'll just look at. I publish this website. You know. What are they accepting who they publish? And and I found Penguin Random House. I think it must have just been, maybe just after the merger, when random, when was the merger.

451
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Jacqueline Harvey: 2014.

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00:38:16.820 --> 00:38:18.249
Tim Harris: So yeah, would it? Would it be.

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Rachel Spratt: That's exact. Thanks.

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00:38:19.570 --> 00:38:20.740
Tim Harris: Yeah, whatever.

455
00:38:21.040 --> 00:38:23.800
Jacqueline Harvey: Probably tell you the date. Actually, I could probably.

456
00:38:23.800 --> 00:38:25.754
Rachel Spratt: Did you make it happen, Jackie?

457
00:38:26.080 --> 00:38:29.034
Jacqueline Harvey: No, no, I can't take credit for that. But yeah.

458
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Tim Harris: And so, yeah, so, and I thought, this looks like a good publisher. And so then, actually, Rachel and Jackie, you would have been stooled a little bit on on Twitter by myself. And I I thought, these authors, I look really cool. They're doing all these funky stuff. I think this is the space I'd like to be in. And I also saw Felicia Arena present at the Sydney writers Festival, and he's a Penguin random house offer, and and I thought, That's it. This is who I, this my dream publisher.

459
00:38:53.750 --> 00:39:03.607
Tim Harris: And so I sent exploding endings with a with a letter, and here's how many copies I've sold on my own and and was blanked.

460
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Tim Harris: I was like I didn't hear anything, and so but then I did. He got lucky, with my second submission, that was to have a publishing house, a small family owned publisher in the south coast of New South Wales

461
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Tim Harris: and I picked it up, and it did quite well. But in the meantime I was lucky enough to to meet Jackie when she came and spoke at the school I was teaching at, and she was very kind and sort of encouraged me. And also Paul Mcdonald of the children's bookshop and having 2, I guess literary superpowers

462
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Tim Harris: in in your corner is very helpful when it comes to to being picked up. And so my initial blanking turned into the absolute whole or opposite I was approached by penguin. Would you like.

463
00:39:49.470 --> 00:39:49.930
Rachel Spratt: To come.

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Tim Harris: Conrad. So and so. I'm always very grateful for that. And the initial contract was for a series called Canned Ci Double Nad, which is going to be short stories like exploding endings

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Tim Harris: but then, through discussion, it just slowly morphed into Mr. Van Buckle's remarkables, which sort of set me often happily racing away. And the irony of this is that many years later Penguin Random House did end up buying the rights to exploding endings from harbor publishing house. So now all of my books are under one. Yeah.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

467
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Tim Harris: Yeah.

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00:40:21.030 --> 00:40:21.550
Rachel Spratt: And tasks.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Fantastic. I forgot that I'd had such a pivotal role in your career, Tim.

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Tim Harris: I will often tell people that you've been a mentor.

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Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

472
00:40:30.900 --> 00:40:36.160
Rachel Spratt: Got to be careful with Jackie. It's just like the godfather, though, you know you get a favor, and you know sometimes.

473
00:40:36.160 --> 00:40:38.370
Jacqueline Harvey: I'll be calling it in.

474
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Rachel Spratt: You'll get the phone call at Twin Tim. Bring a spade.

475
00:40:43.186 --> 00:40:44.253
Jacqueline Harvey: I think it's funny.

476
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tonyflowers: Oh, dear!

477
00:40:47.180 --> 00:40:48.830
tonyflowers: Knows where all the books are buried.

478
00:40:48.830 --> 00:40:51.314
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, I know where all the books are buried. That's right.

479
00:40:52.990 --> 00:40:53.480
Rachel Spratt: Winston.

480
00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:54.040
Jacqueline Harvey: Off.

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00:40:54.040 --> 00:41:14.669
Rachel Spratt: Well, as we've been saying, it's like rejection is a constant, and I always think of it, particularly when I was in television. I've been rejected many times in publishing, but in television, so many more times and so much more brutally in television. So I always used to. Because and you have to like. I've been doing this 26 years.

482
00:41:14.810 --> 00:41:19.020
Rachel Spratt: You have to just not let it upset you and not give up

483
00:41:19.424 --> 00:41:22.349
Rachel Spratt: because you can go years and years of rejection.

484
00:41:22.470 --> 00:41:36.629
Rachel Spratt: and I always think, you know, like they say, 2 steps forward, one step back. It's more like 11 steps forward, 10 steps back. You know this. The ratio of rejection to acceptance is so high, and if any field of creative art you have to

485
00:41:36.640 --> 00:41:52.119
Rachel Spratt: love what you're doing so much that you persevere. And yeah, for me, it's always would. I do this if I wasn't being paid, and probably I would like I just even if it wasn't, I would might not be writing stories down. But I would just be telling random stories to children in supermarkets when we're waiting at the checkout, because that's just what I'm like.

486
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Rachel Spratt: But

487
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Rachel Spratt: So I'm going to tell you a couple of stories of my recent rejections. So I may have said this story before on that podcast but I'll tell you the story of my Hamlet book.

488
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Rachel Spratt: so like as Tim, as as Tony was saying, they penguin would really like me to be a factory that annually, if not Biannually, produces a Friday barn's book because they are just so popular, and they just mint money, and they make everyone happy, and I love writing them. I love the characters, but they are mentally exhausting to write because they're, you know, so intricate, and the plot and everything.

489
00:42:27.330 --> 00:42:48.849
Rachel Spratt: And also I feel this huge weight of pressure from the fans because they love them so much. It's really the pressure is like upsetting like viscerally upsetting whatever I do. They want something different and just trying to make sure they're happy. It's exhausting. So I'm always trying to do something different, and, you know, try something different. So, and I love Shakespeare.

490
00:42:49.250 --> 00:42:56.360
Rachel Spratt: which I know is super nerdy, and I forget, because I love Shakespeare so much that very few other people hold this position.

491
00:42:56.360 --> 00:43:21.100
Rachel Spratt: So anyway, in covid times I had finally, for the 1st time in years, had spare time because I didn't have to take all my kids to after school activities. So I think I'm going to do what I used to do in the day, like when I wrote my 1st book. It was just I had some spare time. What am I going to do? I had a list of projects I wanted to pursue, and that was the next thing on the list. So I wrote Nanny Piggins and it paid off. And I became an author. So I basically, I had some spare time, and I still have a list. And I thought, What's the next thing I want to do?

492
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Rachel Spratt: I've always wanted to write a book about Shakespeare. So I write a book about Hamlet, I decided. I want to do a novelized version of Hamlet where a modern character is sucked back into it. So I do this, and I'm writing all my other books. I'm not missing any of my deadlines because I've got extra time. So I write the book and I sent it into my publisher.

493
00:43:39.030 --> 00:43:57.329
Rachel Spratt: and I can't remember what I was thinking. I must have thought. It's you know, she might not want to do it because it's about Shakespeare, but I kind of thought that it would appeal to them because they could sell it into like the education market, and there would never be a big print run, but it was already written, and you know it wouldn't kill them, and if they'd only published like 3 or 4,000 books. That wouldn't be a bad thing.

494
00:43:57.390 --> 00:43:58.740
Rachel Spratt: so I send it in.

495
00:43:59.060 --> 00:44:02.720
Rachel Spratt: and I knew it was going to be rejected when my

496
00:44:02.740 --> 00:44:10.980
Rachel Spratt: wonderful publisher, who I love dearly. But when she said on the phone side, Oh, Rachel, I'm glad I got your phone. Hang on a second. I'm just going to go into a meeting room.

497
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Rachel Spratt: It's code, for I don't want the other people in the office to hear you crying through the phone.

498
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:48.240
Rachel Spratt: So she goes into the office, and she's like, you know, I'm not sure about this, you know. I'm not sure the journey of the character. I'm not sure the market right now, and you know, kids don't like reading anymore. We're just going to make the pages out of chocolate. Let them suck on the books instead. And I'm listening to all this like, and I'm basically getting it, because, like Holly is wonderful. But she does have like she's the super executive for picking up the books that are like sell a lot like so.

499
00:44:48.240 --> 00:44:49.000
Jacqueline Harvey: Louie.

500
00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:50.620
Rachel Spratt: Bluey, and but also like.

501
00:44:50.620 --> 00:44:51.040
Jacqueline Harvey: I.

502
00:44:51.040 --> 00:45:09.279
Rachel Spratt: All the soccer players, all the Matildas that write books that would all be like her brain chop. That's the type of book that is her speciality. So I'm thinking, I'm sitting on the phone listening to this thinking. Of course, it's a book about Shakespeare. I forget that I'm a huge Nerd, and I love Shakespeare more than everyone else, and this is not Holly's wheelhouse.

503
00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:15.159
Rachel Spratt: But then I also know that Holly is pregnant, and I know Holly is about to go on maternity leave.

504
00:45:15.160 --> 00:45:17.070
Jacqueline Harvey: Oh, you! You!

505
00:45:17.570 --> 00:45:18.970
Jacqueline Harvey: I also.

506
00:45:18.970 --> 00:45:26.129
Rachel Spratt: Know that who's replacing her on maternity leave? And it's Zoe, and I know that Zoe is a huge theater snob.

507
00:45:26.130 --> 00:45:27.070
tonyflowers: She is. Speak up.

508
00:45:27.070 --> 00:45:29.930
Rachel Spratt: She is, because, like Zoe would get so.

509
00:45:29.930 --> 00:45:30.743
Jacqueline Harvey: So Zoe

510
00:45:31.150 --> 00:45:47.739
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, Zoe would get so sick of us children's authors on tour because she used to be our publicist. And it's fair enough because we are like overgrown children, we have 0 social skills. We'd be talking, talking, talking. And then we just like fail on basic human things like remembering to wash, and how to get the bag tags on at the end.

511
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Jacqueline Harvey: Not not. Everybody is like that. I'm going to.

512
00:45:49.710 --> 00:45:50.899
Tim Harris: I love it.

513
00:45:50.900 --> 00:45:51.540
Jacqueline Harvey: One.

514
00:45:51.540 --> 00:46:16.489
Rachel Spratt: But anyway, so she just had a gutful of all our children's, and she just longed for, you know, this publicist to get to travel with the proper adult authors and listen to intellectual discussions, and I remember once sitting in the car with her, we drove past the sign with Kate Blanch. We had a poster of Kate Blanchette and her saying something about Kate Blanchette and me like mentally rolling my eyes. Because I I you know Kate Blanchette. She's a great actress, but I don't understand why people ask her opinions about so many things.

515
00:46:16.620 --> 00:46:23.719
Rachel Spratt: And then I said to her one day something about how my husband was a playwright, and she was like, oh, he's a playwright, and I'm like.

516
00:46:24.279 --> 00:46:24.840
Tim Harris: Dee.

517
00:46:24.840 --> 00:46:48.239
Rachel Spratt: I'm an author, and so I thought, Zoe's into plays, is she? So I just thought that away my one. So when so when Holly's going on maternity leave, and Zoe's going to be replacing her, I'm like so I waited till Holly was safely off in the Maternity ward with her newborn baby. And I, said, Zoe, I've got this book I've been working on, and to be fair.

518
00:46:48.530 --> 00:47:03.809
Rachel Spratt: holly had given me a bunch of notes, and I had gone away and incorporated them, and totally rewritten the manuscript. I said, holly gave me all these notes is so good, and I'm such a good author. I I followed all the notes. Would you like to take another look at it? And Zoe fell in love with the manuscript.

519
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:09.810
Rachel Spratt: It got published, and it has sold lots of copies, and now they want me to do another one.

520
00:47:09.810 --> 00:47:11.320
Tim Harris: Hey? Nice. Yeah.

521
00:47:11.320 --> 00:47:12.979
Jacqueline Harvey: Hectic paid off. It's a.

522
00:47:12.980 --> 00:47:24.089
Rachel Spratt: But it's I think it's the only time I've been clever and Machiavellian in executing something with my career. But but I just want people to know listening. It's like I said, that my 1st book

523
00:47:25.155 --> 00:47:45.520
Rachel Spratt: it good just got public. It's actually my agent sent it out to 5 people. Nanny Piggins and 2 of the publishers were interested. And then Penguin, which was then Random House picked it up. But that was my 3rd book. It's like, I basically reject. No, I was rejected by Mills and Boone. I wrote a romance novel. They rejected that, and then I rejected the 1st book I ever wrote, because it was so bad I didn't send it to anyone.

524
00:47:45.520 --> 00:47:47.319
Tim Harris: So so I.

525
00:47:47.320 --> 00:48:11.590
Rachel Spratt: Self rejected that, and thought, There's no way you can send this to anyone. It was called seduce him, Brad Pitt, and it was all about this woman who works in an ugg boot factory Ugg boot shop, and she wins $50,000 on a scratch lottery, and she uses it to go to La and Seduce Brad Pitt, and like to pretend. You know she buys all these fancy clothes and pretend she's a film producer and hires him in her movie. And it's all just an elaborate plot to date Brad Pitt.

526
00:48:11.889 --> 00:48:24.149
Rachel Spratt: It was dreadful. So I never sent it to anyone. So yeah, I had self rejection, and I do still constantly get rejection. I'm I'm currently developing an idea of an illustrated guide to parenthood. And I've done all these cartoons

527
00:48:26.070 --> 00:48:34.890
Rachel Spratt: And everyone who looks and says, Oh, these are really good, but they all say, but no adults ever heard of you, and there isn't. You haven't got a platform in the parenting

528
00:48:35.010 --> 00:48:50.570
Rachel Spratt: sphere. And I just think, oh, that's rubbish because, like on my podcast. Heaps of parents. Listen to me all the time, but it's like, but but, as as I say, it's the classic thing with me which is like they reject me, and I think, oh, you poor executive! You don't know what you're talking about. Never mind, I shall have to just go away. And because

529
00:48:50.960 --> 00:48:56.829
Rachel Spratt: in that sphere, so I'm going to have to like, become Instagram, famous as a parenting advisor.

530
00:48:57.173 --> 00:48:57.859
Jacqueline Harvey: Guru, yeah.

531
00:48:57.860 --> 00:48:58.840
Rachel Spratt: Yeah. Good. Comic.

532
00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:00.640
Jacqueline Harvey: And then you'll.

533
00:49:00.640 --> 00:49:04.469
Rachel Spratt: Which will I will do at some stage in the next couple of years. I'm just a bit busy right now.

534
00:49:04.980 --> 00:49:12.750
Rachel Spratt: So yeah, that that's that's my stories of rejection. And then overcoming, just through relentless perseverance. I think that's.

535
00:49:12.950 --> 00:49:14.960
Jacqueline Harvey: Yes. Sorry. How are you doing? Yeah.

536
00:49:14.960 --> 00:49:17.640
tonyflowers: It's it's not so much the rejection. It's what you do after.

537
00:49:17.640 --> 00:49:34.519
Jacqueline Harvey: Yes, it's how you respond to the rejection that will define. You know whether or not you're you're successful as a writer or not because if you're someone who just cries and decides that, you know that's nobody loves you and you're never gonna get it done. Then that's you're never gonna get done. So.

538
00:49:34.520 --> 00:49:40.790
Rachel Spratt: Also like, if you write a book and it gets rejected by lots and lots of people repeatedly over several years.

539
00:49:40.840 --> 00:49:56.109
Rachel Spratt: Write another book like, I'm not saying it's not that that 1st book will never get published, but just like that's the best thing is to get a book published, and then it's easier to go back and say, Hey, I've got this other thing I wrote like I wrote all these fractured fairy tales about 12 years ago.

540
00:49:56.340 --> 00:50:04.279
Rachel Spratt: and they were rejected. I pitched them as this book idea. I pitched them as a pitcher book idea. They rejected repeatedly.

541
00:50:04.370 --> 00:50:10.470
Rachel Spratt: and then, I decided, oh, I'll do a podcast, and I use them all in the podcast, and then I got a book

542
00:50:10.590 --> 00:50:25.660
Rachel Spratt: deal from the podcast, and now they are all published bestselling books. So they sat around for 10 years before they found their platform and then published. So just because something's rejected doesn't mean it will always be so.

543
00:50:25.660 --> 00:50:38.989
Jacqueline Harvey: No. And I mean, I think about I've got a bunch of things in my computer that I've forgotten about over the years that you know that every now and then, I think oh, I I could maybe revive that, and, you know, give that a go now, but I don't know. It's always nice to

544
00:50:39.010 --> 00:50:46.029
Jacqueline Harvey: nice to be thinking about new and and different ideas constantly. So I think that's part of our modus operandi as riders.

545
00:50:46.350 --> 00:50:57.229
Rachel Spratt: Well, I always think, there's this podcast. Called Adam corolla. And he always says, diversify your income streams. So I'm always thinking, like, particularly with AI. You never know what's gonna come along and knock off

546
00:50:57.622 --> 00:51:14.090
Rachel Spratt: part of your your business. Yeah, like, like Covid knocked out like for us a lot of what we earn our money from is school visits, and Covid knocked it out that year. So that was the year that I wrote the Hamlet book because you think, well, I can't do this. So what am I gonna do to try and maintain my income stream? So yeah, it's.

547
00:51:14.090 --> 00:51:14.600
Jacqueline Harvey: Very short.

548
00:51:14.600 --> 00:51:19.180
Rachel Spratt: We're basically like small business people who are just constantly hustling to keep our small businesses.

549
00:51:19.180 --> 00:51:24.247
Jacqueline Harvey: We're constantly pivoting. Wasn't that the word of Covid? We're always pivoting.

550
00:51:24.670 --> 00:51:26.430
Rachel Spratt: Pirouetting until we're sick.

551
00:51:26.430 --> 00:51:30.225
Jacqueline Harvey: Absolutely, and on that note we probably should wrap up.

552
00:51:30.774 --> 00:51:33.019
Rachel Spratt: Tony, did you? You were just going to add something there.

553
00:51:33.020 --> 00:51:41.309
tonyflowers: Well, I was. Gonna I was gonna say, you know, when I was rejected when I was younger and didn't have the experience, I was naive enough to think that what I was doing was brilliant.

554
00:51:41.830 --> 00:51:44.750
tonyflowers: And then, as time came came along.

555
00:51:45.200 --> 00:51:52.729
tonyflowers: I I start taking right, was point of view that maybe the publishers don't know what they're talking about all the time, and

556
00:51:52.780 --> 00:52:00.369
tonyflowers: I went to every publisher because Philip Gwyn and I done a book. Together we went to every publisher with grandma's 1st tattoo.

557
00:52:00.900 --> 00:52:03.789
tonyflowers: and all of the publishers said the exact same thing in Australia.

558
00:52:04.180 --> 00:52:06.959
tonyflowers: We can't do a book about tattoos for children.

559
00:52:07.460 --> 00:52:10.589
tonyflowers: and because of that we ended up

560
00:52:10.810 --> 00:52:18.380
tonyflowers: self-publishing. But we'd like to call it boutique publishing because we had to set up a publishing house to do it so like independent publishing. But

561
00:52:19.230 --> 00:52:20.909
tonyflowers: if I try to do that

562
00:52:21.100 --> 00:52:24.530
tonyflowers: 20 years ago, when I started, it would have failed. It would have been a bad book.

563
00:52:25.080 --> 00:52:28.120
tonyflowers: but I had enough nous after 20 years, and

564
00:52:28.210 --> 00:52:30.729
tonyflowers: Philip been in the industry as long as I had been

565
00:52:30.890 --> 00:52:32.850
tonyflowers: to go. You know what we need

566
00:52:33.020 --> 00:52:39.109
tonyflowers: professional designers on this rather than just me design it. We need professional editors on this, and it's understanding

567
00:52:39.790 --> 00:52:42.630
tonyflowers: to know when to back yourself and when to actually

568
00:52:42.750 --> 00:52:45.970
tonyflowers: pivot appropriately with what you're doing.

569
00:52:46.200 --> 00:52:51.489
tonyflowers: Is it something I should listen to the outside advice on that right, or can I have I got enough experience now to go.

570
00:52:52.030 --> 00:52:54.440
tonyflowers: You know what I think. I this has actually got

571
00:52:54.500 --> 00:53:00.030
tonyflowers: legs, and I should really keep going with my fractured fairy tails and turn them into a podcast that turns it into a book.

572
00:53:00.190 --> 00:53:03.470
tonyflowers: But a lot of people, I think, get rejection and just go. That's it.

573
00:53:04.330 --> 00:53:06.499
tonyflowers: I'll never write again, or they go.

574
00:53:06.930 --> 00:53:14.970
tonyflowers: That's it. Those people are all dumb that I'm not talking about, and they keep going with the flawed project. So, understanding where that balance point comes is really hard.

575
00:53:15.260 --> 00:53:16.180
Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, yeah.

576
00:53:16.180 --> 00:53:20.489
Rachel Spratt: And also, I mean, like, we're sort of having a go at publishers here, but

577
00:53:20.950 --> 00:53:38.249
Rachel Spratt: but also taking on board what they do have to offer like like Holly was right in a lot of ways, and she did give me a lot of good notes. So before I went back to Zoe. I did incorporate her suggestions, and sometimes yes, so so it's knowing what to pick and what not to pick

578
00:53:38.658 --> 00:53:57.179
Rachel Spratt: and taking on what's like. I was really influenced by Alice Miranda when I wrote Friday Barnes, not by any of the things in the book, but by the fact that I wanted to write, sell more books. Alice Miranda was selling bigger than Nanny Piggins, and I wanted to write. I had been writing Nanny Piggins as a gender neutral book.

579
00:53:57.330 --> 00:54:10.730
Rachel Spratt: and I realized, gender specific books sell better. So I thought. And I also, you know, like I was doing market research. And I realized the people who buy. The most books are not boy reluctant readers. It's the opposite. It's girl enthusiast.

580
00:54:10.730 --> 00:54:12.730
Jacqueline Harvey: Still enthusiastic. Really, I thought.

581
00:54:12.930 --> 00:54:28.860
Rachel Spratt: I'm gonna write a book for for re girls who really like reading books. And so Friday bonds was born. So it's taking on board these lessons that other people have learned. The hard way is also in, you know, as as I say, it's just an important part of learning, of being a small business in any.

582
00:54:28.860 --> 00:54:35.569
Jacqueline Harvey: That is very true, and and I take that even like a step further. Rachel, too, as far as like I

583
00:54:35.570 --> 00:55:04.790
Jacqueline Harvey: I craved having really good editorial. So you know, having really good editors, and that's 1 thing I'm so grateful for. With, you know, working with Penguin, I've been absolutely blessed to have fabulous editors over the years, who will challenge me, and and I say, challenge me, make make me think about stuff, and and that will make me a better writer. And I really appreciate that, because I know my very 1st experience of writing a a like a junior fiction book which wasn't with them.

584
00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:33.909
Jacqueline Harvey: The editing that came back was it basically corrected the spelling mistakes which there were none, and the grammar, which there were very few. And I thought at the time, is this what happens when you get edited? And I remember thinking I want someone to tell me why this doesn't work, or why this could be better. And I think that's you know, that's really important to take that on board and to learn the lessons as well. So, you know, being rejection is all about learning from being rejected and taking on board. How are you going to change it next time?

585
00:55:34.080 --> 00:55:53.450
Rachel Spratt: Yeah, how are you going to play the system? And on that note let's wrap it up. So. Thank you so much for joining us, Tony. So you've been listening to real stories with random writers. I'm Rasprat, and if you want to find out any more about me and my books. You can go to rasprat.com dot jackie. Where can we go to find out about you?

586
00:55:53.450 --> 00:55:55.300
Jacqueline Harvey: Jacqueline harvey.com.au.

587
00:55:55.470 --> 00:55:56.300
Rachel Spratt: And Tim.

588
00:55:56.500 --> 00:55:58.280
Tim Harris: Tim Harris books.com.

589
00:55:58.560 --> 00:56:03.060
Rachel Spratt: And if you want to go to Tony's enigmatic website, where can we find you? Tony?

590
00:56:03.490 --> 00:56:07.359
tonyflowers: Well, I'm@flowsinc.com, but I I reckon you should just hit me up on social.

591
00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:08.210
Rachel Spratt: Yeah. Hidden.

592
00:56:08.210 --> 00:56:09.980
tonyflowers: Follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

593
00:56:09.980 --> 00:56:12.889
Rachel Spratt: Are you at Tony? Flowers on both those platforms?

594
00:56:13.340 --> 00:56:18.319
tonyflowers: 24 h underscore 99 on most of those. And yeah, I've been off.

595
00:56:18.320 --> 00:56:18.939
Jacqueline Harvey: Day up with.

596
00:56:18.940 --> 00:56:19.710
tonyflowers: A lot of them, but.

597
00:56:19.710 --> 00:56:23.319
Jacqueline Harvey: 9 other sorry were there. 98 98. Other Tony flowers.

598
00:56:23.320 --> 00:56:30.740
tonyflowers: No, I got. I got sick, but sick of it by the time I got to that 10, and then I've been 99.

599
00:56:31.050 --> 00:56:32.349
Rachel Spratt: Oh, nice!

600
00:56:32.350 --> 00:56:35.939
Jacqueline Harvey: Always be his girlfriend, wasn't she? 9? No. What was he at 99.

601
00:56:35.940 --> 00:56:37.049
tonyflowers: 86 and 99.

602
00:56:37.050 --> 00:56:38.129
Jacqueline Harvey: Yep, that's right.

603
00:56:38.490 --> 00:56:40.319
Rachel Spratt: Yes, what'd you argue?

604
00:56:41.030 --> 00:56:45.530
Rachel Spratt: Alright? That's it. So thank you for listening until next time. Goodbye.

605
00:56:45.750 --> 00:56:46.610
Jacqueline Harvey: Aye.

606
00:56:46.610 --> 00:56:47.390
tonyflowers: Aye.

607
00:56:48.040 --> 00:56:49.450
Rachel Spratt: Oh, thank you so much, Tony. That was.

608
00:56:49.450 --> 00:56:50.749
Jacqueline Harvey: Awesome. That was fun.

601:20:05.810 --> 01:20:06.305
Jacqueline Harvey: Bye.