Below is a story that I wrote to best explain Sharing-books.com. It is an analogy of the publishing industry and the plight of young writers. In the story, I am the young aspiring cook, the publishing industry is the mayor and Sharing-Books.com is the second town in the story. Now it is not fair to assume that all creators (authors and illustrators) who come to the Sharing-Books “town” will have the same happy ending, nor is the depiction of the publishing industry as a heartless monster with no genuine care for creators.
But some of the realities of the publishing business are as cruel as what is depicted. Young unknown writers face similar odds to have their work distributed to mass audiences simply because of the number of opportunities available. Many send manuscript after manuscript to different publishers hoping their work might get at least a taste instead of just the “sniff” that most receive. And even then some of the most tenacious eventually fall victim and interpret the lack of opportunities as failures in their own abilities.
I am much like the young cook in the story. Not in the way that I have a famous book that I get praised for regularly, but in the fact that I love nothing more than to spend an afternoon working on a story. With Sharing-books.com I have been given the opportunity to share my work with anyone who is willing to read it. Like the cook in the story I will continue to write whether or not that illusive publishing contract ever comes. But like all artists, or cooks, or anyone who has a passion, you want to share the products of your work with the world and hope it brightens their lives in some small way. Sharing-books.com provides creators with this opportunity at no cost.
The secondary bonus of being involved with Sharing-Books.com is that you are also supporting Room-to-Read which is a charity that has probably one of the biggest impacts in improving literacy around the world. Doing something you love and getting books to third world countries? That’s like curing AIDS by riding a roller coaster!
Sharing-Books.com has given me the opportunity to continue to pursue my dream. I want to share my stories with the world. I especially want to have my stories inspire and entertain the children in this world who have serious illnesses. It is a lofty goal that is easier dreamed than accomplished. But I have the will and determination to make it happen, and Sharing-Books.com has given me the “kitchen” to get started.
I strongly encourage you to visit www.sharing-books.com to not only support my dream, but the dreams of hundreds of other creators.
Cooks
Picture a small town. In this town there is a mayor who is a stocky man with only the thin remains of what was once a greasy mess of black hair. One day the mayor called all the cooks in the town together and challenged them with this proclamation:
“I will select one cook out of the hundreds of you to have all the restaurants in my city! Bring forth your samples and the cook who satisfies my taste buds the best, will win!”
The cooks were shocked and they scrambled off in every direction. What to make? What ingredients to use? What techniques to use?
Some scoured the markets for the finest spices. Others ran to sea to get the catch of the day. Still others visited the farms for the freshest vegetables and juiciest fruits. While others ran home and called their mothers asking for their advice on creating the perfect dish.
Sadly, some of the cooks found the pressure of the challenge too much to bear. They saw the other experienced cooks that they would be competing against and thought it was pointless to even submit a meal to be reviewed. Some of these cooks went to the movies or straight to bed instead of preparing something to be submitted.
Still others took the news even harder and decided to give up on cooking all together. Some sold their pots and pans to the local mills to melt them down into flat reusable sheets of metal. Some of them went into the kitchen supplies sale business and some decided to travel abroad. Some of them even went and applied to study accounting.
There was one young cook though who returned home to his kitchen, his favourite place in the world, and began cooking. There was nothing he enjoyed more than spending hours on end mixing and chopping and sautéing and basting as he searched to create his next delicious meal. The sounds of “mmmm” and “ooooo” from pleased eaters was music to his ears.
He had never owned a restaurant and would still cook to his last days even if he never did own one, however, he would so truly love the opportunity to share his creations with a wider audience. What did he have to lose by joining the competition?
The next day, hundreds of cooks lined up in front of the Mayoral Palace. Each of the cooks was holding out plates of food that they had spent the entire night preparing. They looked on nervously as the mayor emerged to begin the judging. He started at the end of the line with a teaspoon and without saying a word he began to pick at the meals before him.
The first chef presented a potato salad that had been passed down over five generations. It was such a delicacy to his family that at all family gatherings be they birthdays, holidays or weddings, it was insisted that rustic potato be served.
The mayor scooped a pea size portion of the creamy salad on to his spoon. The first chef looked on with wide eyes.
“Needs salt!” the mayor barked and immediately walked to the next dish. He cleaned off any of the potato salad that was on his spoon as if it were foul. This sent a hush into the air. The other cooks began sweating, hoping that their submission would be treated so harshly.
Not many were.
“Too spicy!”
“Too bland!”
“Too much pepper!”
“Too fishy!”
“Too cold!”
One by one the mayor tore through the line of cooks barely staying long enough to swallow. Some cooks were lucky enough to hear that their dish was presentable, but just not something the mayor would like to see regularly. Others, the mayor thought, were decent and even tasty, but he didn’t think that they would appeal to enough people in the city to be in every restaurant.
Then he came to the young cook who I mentioned before. This cook had happily spent the night making his favourite tomato spaghetti. It was a simple dish with nothing too exotic in terms of ingredients, but for those who had had the pleasure to try it they always smiled. The mayor leaned in suspiciously and eyed the dish.
“Does it have onions?” he asked the young cook.
“Oh, yes!” the young chef said excitedly. “Three whole ones, diced to perfection!”
The mayor was unmoved by the young cook’s enthusiasm. He leaned in again and gave a quick sniff of the steaming sauce. He immediately recoiled with a look on his face of someone who has discovered a dead rat in their pillow.
He moved on to the next cook, not needing to clean his spoon.
The young cook was hurt and had never felt such a sting of rejection. But after a few moments of sadness he thought about the joy he had had in making the dish and how much pleasure he had brought to others before with the same wonderful tomato sauce.
The mayor finally selected a cook who specialized in 52 varieties of hot wings to cook for all the restaurants in town. The other cooks left town or gave up the trade.
The young cook remained content in the town and only cooked for family and friends. Until one day he was given word of another town that was hosting a different cooking challenge except this town had no mayor. It had no single person to judge the food, it had thousands.
The young cook was confused, but suddenly more interested. It was explained to him that this other town believed that there were great cooks everywhere and if they had the desire to share their cuisine, then they should be given the opportunity. They should be given a small kitchen and space for guests to sample their creations at no charge. If the guests enjoyed the meal, they were encouraged to leave a tip. If not they were free to go on their merry way to eat at the other restaurants in the town.
Every person who lived in the town was the judge of their cooking competition.
The young cook was aghast. His dream had always been to open a restaurant so that more people, other than just his friends and family, could try his dishes. Going to the competition would mean leaving his home, but to be a given an opportunity like this is one that he could not pass up.
Two years later, the young cook was the head of one of the most popular restaurants in the new town. Reservations had to be made weeks in advance for diners to get a chance to sample the fabulous tomato sauce that was the talk of the town.
One Tuesday night the restaurant was packed to the roof as usual. And as usual, the crowd inside was loud and boisterous as everyone was enjoying their scrumptious dinners. Except for one lone guest sitting in the back corner huddled silently over his meal for most of the night. The only words he said to the waiter at the end of the evening were:
“Send me the cook.”
The waiter rushed back to the kitchen and grabbed the young cook to tell him that there was a guest who wanted to see him. The young cook smiled, as this had become a regular portion of his job – visiting diners who were so pleased with the meal he had cooked that they insisted on praising him in person. But there was a different look on the face of the waiter. This silent guest who had called for him had not looked pleased when he made the request.
The young cook left the kitchen and spotted the man dining alone in the corner. He swallowed hard as he instantly recognized the individual. It was the mayor from his home town. He remembered the “sniff” that mayor had given his food. Even though he now received thousands of compliments for his cooking, it was the mayor’s sniff and expression afterwards that had stayed burned in his memory.
The young cook took a deep breath and stepped to the table. He was ready to lash out at the old mayor and tell him how his feelings had been hurt that day, but he was stopped before he could say a word. The mayor raised a finger and looked the young cook in the eye.
“Would you consider coming back to your home town and cooking for us?”
The young cook smiled. He agreed to return, but under one condition:
He would not be the only restaurant in town.
