Happy Thursday and welcome to this special Substack edition, introducing Taboo (and on the one year anniversary of Bite Back).
Taboo is available for pre-order now at a few places, but Readings has provided a 20% off discount code: TABOO20 (you’ll be supporting an independent seller, getting a signed copy and giving me a lil extra 5% as an author’s commission which is lovely!).
You can grab it HERE.
It never feels particularly comfortable to push and market my own work, especially to you - the most dedicated audience I have, but I know it is something I need to do for the future success of Cheek. My books are what I put my soul into. It’s also a cost of living crisis and I expect no one to fork out money for this - it’s just an if you can and if you’re interested. I appreciate it.
The reason I encourage pre-ordering where possible is because it REALLY helps authors. The number of copies you sell during this part of the campaign makes up the sales number for your first week on shelves. What can happen is booksellers may order in only a couple of copies of your book, but when they see that first week of sales it might kick them into gear to STOCK UP. That number may encourage them to pop copies at the front and centre of the store or in the window. All of those small moments add up. I want to reach a larger audience of non-Cheek followers this time around; that means I need to get better at promotion.
The obvious question is what is Taboo about? And how is it different to Bite Back?
This sounds slightly strange, but I would describe Bite Back as Cheek and Taboo as Hannah. Bite Back looked at the core pillars of what I’m trying to achieve in the media landscape: political conversations, legal understanding, Murdoch regulation/elimination, etc. Taboo is far more personal, the key themes exploring questions around cosmetic procedures, women’s health gaps, marriage, parenthood, sex, friendship and work.
Taboo is a frank look at parts of my life I am quite nervous to share. It is exposing and has been written to interrogate the why behind the social rules, customs and norms we abide by. I make the argument that a taboo is not an offensive topic, it’s anything patriarchy does not want uttered. It is anything which does not reflect or benefit the cis, het, white man perspective. From female pleasure and masturbation to my personal experiences of domestic and sexual violence, it really covers ground on my current context of womanhood and how millennials and generation Z have the capacity to shift the narrative.
I’ve included a few pages from the introduction below for subscribers…
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