Tim Darvell's Blog: Beating Bowel Cancer Photography Book

My new fundraising book The Record is now available to pre order from my rivers2cross.com website in both hardback and paperback editions. The book has been written in memory of my mum who died of bowel cancer in 2016. It has taken two and half years to complete, and it contains 65 chapters and 80,000 words. Since the start of 2019 my aim has been to finish and launch the book during bowel cancer awareness month, so I'm really happy to have achieved that.

All proceeds raised from sales will be donated to Bowel Cancer UK. The book will be published on 21 June, but I will aim to send out pre orders well before that date. Please consider pre ordering, as it will help me bulk buy the book from the printers to keep costs down and raise a little extra for the charity.

The book features chapters on Kevin Sheedy, Eddie Gray, Christine Ohuruogu MBE, Carl Hester MBE, Anne Usher MBE, Jeanette Chippington MBE, Zac Purchase-Hill MBE, Rupert Moon, Kelly Smith, Deborah Alsina MBE, Gina and Esmée Shergold, Deborah Louise James, Steve Clark, Dilek Ercos, Deborah James, Dafydd Wyn Farr-Jones, Olivia Rowlands, Greg Gilbert and Stacey Heale, Richard and Sarah Haugh, Nicole Cooper, Gillian Wood, Susan George, Gaby Roslin, Nicola Bryant, Victoria Derbyshire, Jim Rosenthal, Nick Robinson, Bill Turnbull, Siân Lloyd, Matt Allwright, Gail Porter, Sean Fletcher, Jacquie Beltrao, David Baddiel, Lucy Porter, Basil Brush, Janet Ellis, Gregg Wallace, Colin Murray, Laura Boyd, Gareth Jones, Daniel Norcross, Natalie Germanos, Mike Selvey, Andrew White, Ian McMillan, Billy Ocean, Kim Wilde, Frank Turner, John Coghlan, Steve Norman and Sabrina Winter, Hazel O’Connor, Steve Hackett, Jules Peters, Steve “Smiley” Barnard, James Stevenson, Amy Macdonald, Jeremy Cunningham, Skinny Lister, Justin Sullivan, Rick Witter, Biff Byford, The Tearaways, and Ryan Hamilton.

Each person taking part has told me about the first record that they bought, and all have been willing to help raise awareness about Britain’s second-biggest cancer killer.

Orders on my rivers2cross.com website raise the most amount for Bowel Cancer UK, and it is also the cheapest place that you can buy the book.

The Lives & Times can be bought in three different formats. Here is the breakdown on how you can order your copy.

Hardback Edition
www.bowelcancerfundraising.co.uk website. This is the website I have set up. The book costs £26.50 + P&P of which the £8-£9 I receive will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer. Only available to UK customers.
Amazon. The book costs £35.00 of which the approx £4.80 I receive will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer.
Paperback Edition
www.bowelcancerfundraising.co.uk website. My website. The book costs £10.25 + P&P of which the £5 I receive will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer. Only available to UK customers.
Amazon. The book costs £10.75 of which the approx £2.50 I receive will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer.
Ebook Edition
Amazon. The digital edition for the kindle is only available on Amazon at the moment. There are free kindle apps that can run on your iPad and laptop. The book costs £5 of which the approx £2.50 I receive will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer.
Worldwide (outside the UK)
Amazon. Search "Lives & Times Tim Darvell" and you won't go too far wrong.
Book Depository. Offers free shipping to anywhere in the world so is a brilliant way for buyers living outside the UK to buy the book.
Finally I am quite happy to sell physical copies of the hardback and paperback editions directly bypassing the websites. Please contact me on email me at timdarv@googlemail.com and we can arrange it on there.

I have been supporting Beating Bowel Cancer since 2012, as it was then that my mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer. In September 2012 she had a section of her bowel removed and then at the start of 2013 she underwent two further operations on her lungs where she had a cancerous nodule ,which was a secondary bowel cancer. Mum remained in remission for about 18 months, but unfortunately in November 2014 another cancerous nodule appeared on one of her lungs. She underwent surgery in February which was successful, and made a fantastic recovery. Unfortunately her October CT scan revealed that the cancer had come back on her left lung and more bad news followed in November followng a seizure she found out that the cancer had spread to her brain. Mum had "CyberKnife" treatment in January for the brain cancer, and it will be a while before she has more scans and the results are known. In March she had more lung surgery, this time to remove the lower lob of her left lung where the cancer keeps returning to. The treatment and care she has received throughout has been wonderful. Information about the Beating Bowel Cancer charity and the work that is does can be found by clicking here.

I would like to thank everyone for the encouragement and support given so far. I am hoping people will decide to buy the hardback and paperback editions through me or my website to maximize the profits, but every purchase makes a difference. Please support me on this venture. It's taken over 18 months to put this book together and it's fantastic to finally see it come to fruition.

This is an opportunity for everyone in the UK to get the Kindle edition of the book for £0.99 for the next week ending at midnight on February 25th. This is an Amazon promotion tool I can use once on the Amazon.co.uk Website and it seems a good way of giving the book an extra push, and it hopefully might induce some people to buy it who otherwise might not. Short of giving the book away it's not going to get much cheaper than this! When the promotion ends the price of the book will go back to £2.05, and I am probably going to set the price higher soon to concentrate on maximising funds raised for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity.

When you consider what you can buy for £0.99 these days it seems great value. People think nothing of spending a few £s in a coffee shop. A couple of drinks in a pub is close to £10 now, and although I am non smoker I presume a price a packet of cigarettes is extortionate...

From the £0.99 of each sale, I get 70% royalties so if a decent number of people buy the book this week, it will still be a significant amount for the charity. There will probably be similar promotion on the Amazon.com in the future, but I am only allowed to run one of these promotions at a time.

Please support this fundraising book supporting a charity doing marvellous work with patients and their families fighting bowel cancer.

The support over the last 15 months for the book has been amazing. There have been times when I have wondered whether it has run its course and is best left behind, whilst I look at other fundraising projects such as climbing Mount Snowdon for Beating Bowel Cancer later this year. I always come back to the feeling that there is still so much more potential for the book still untapped. Take a look at the picture of the spiders web, and we all know how insects get trapped in the web and find it impossible to get out. Its an analogy I can apply to the book as in many ways the book has got a little stuck where it is and I don't quite know how to get it out and away into so many other different routes it could take.

To date the book has sold about 280 copies with family, friends, friends of friends and the cancer community being the main supporters who I can't thank enough. Getting through to another level has always been a huge challenge, one that I still haven't managed to find an answer to. The aim is to sell 1000 copies and if it could just break out and reach the wider domain I am sure this figure is still achievable. I use social networking to publicise the book, I am on Goodreads, the local media have all covered and featured the book and I even gave it away for free last year for 24 hours. All these routes have helped, but there must been other ways that I haven't thought of yet? I am always open to suggestions and know that if I could harness the online community out there who have supported me so fantastically so far the potential is huge...

So please feel free to contact me with suggestions, and let's see where it can go moving forwards.

My mum continues to do really well with a recent colonoscopy and blood tests showing her still in remission. Unfortunately there are still too many people who lose their fight against this awful disease, and I can only reiterate that as well as trying to sell as many copies of the book as I can, that if the book can help raise awareness it has to be a good thing...

Mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer almost exactly a year ago. During the last year she underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy at Mount Vernon hospital followed by an operation to remove the tumour at Wexham Park hospital in September 2012. The biopsy of the tumour that was removed showed that the treatment prior to surgery had made the tumour benign, which was good news.

All through the treatment for the bowel we had been made aware that there was a nodule on her left lung, which had shrunk with the chemo and radiotherapy. As soon as the bowel surgery was over attention was switched to this nodule and in January mum went into Harefield hospital to have the tumour removed. The bad news was that the scans prior to the operation showed up more nodules on both lungs, which meant she would have to under go another operation on the other lung six week after the left lung was operated on.

So at Easter 2013 mum has had both operations making it a total of 3 major operations in 6 months. The biopsy results from the left lung were good. The original tumour was cancerous, but all the other nodes they removed were non cancerous. In just over 2 weeks we will find out the biopsy results on the other lung and hopefully they will also come out as non cancerous. After that we hope that mum will be given an all clear and be able to pick up her life again.

It has been an incredibly tough year for mum, with her whole life being put on hold. She has missed her part time job hugely and the people she works with. She hasn't been able to do as much with her horse as she would like, and holiday plans have been put on hold. But most of all she has had to endure the side effects of the chemo and radiotherapy, the post op trauma associated with removal of part of the bowel and the post op discomfort of the 2 lung operations. She has rarely complained and seems more worried about being a burden on others during this time. She has been truly inspirational.

As for me a year ago I had no intention of writing a book, in fact I knew precious little about bowel cancer. I am still not quite sure why I decided to do the book, but it has been one of the most positive and rewarding experiences of my life. I was very lucky to have Jo editing the book as with her help it became something a bit more than just one man's ramblings! The support for the book so far has been amazing from family, friends and an extraordinary number of people who I have not met. I cannot thank the cancer community enough, not just the Beating Bowel Cancer charity for its support, but the numerous individuals many of whom are going through their own cancer battles. Yet they still make time to support me and this venture at every stage. The whole experience has at times made me feel very humble, and no matter how hard life gets I have to remind myself that there are many people facing up to and fighting much bigger battles than me. Where the book goes from here I do not know. I am determined to keep pushing it, although the marketing and sales side has proved a massive challenge. How to find and engage the mass wider audience? If I can solve that then I am sure I will reach my target of 1000 sales :)

Please please please buy the book. You will not only be contributing to a worthy charity, but helping to raise bowel cancer awareness which is vitally important...

On March 1st I am asking everyone who has brought the book for a little extra help, and to attempt to boost sales raising funds and awareness for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity by please trying to get a friend to buy the book. With such fantastic support so far I have decided to cash in on that and ask this favour :) Apart from the obvious sales / fundraising benefits this could help breaking into a new layer of people and potential new sales leads. As mum faces her 2nd operation in six weeks on March 7th this would give a timely positive boost.

The fact that all the proceeds are being donated to the Beating Bowel Cancer Charity means that the book was always going to sell more copies than if it had just been done for my own benefit to raise some extra pocket money. Aside from the importance of raising money for the charity and raising awareness about bowel cancer, the best thing to come out of the book has been the unwavering generosity and kindness of people. The fact that in a world where there is a global recession, there are still many people out there willing to part with some cash is heart warming.

I have to say that my friend Joanne who edited the book and made sure the text was readable did all her work on it out of sheer kindness, and also while fighting her own cancer battle. It was a wonderfully kind spirited thing she did, and I am eternally grateful as the book would not have been what it is without her help.

The first port of call when the book was released were friends and family. My brother didn't even wait for the UK Amazon release and ordered a copy from CreateSpace in the USA, which unfortunately meant he had to wait quite some time for his copy to arrive in the UK. The pattern was familiar amongst those who know me in that they bought the book out of support for me and what I am doing without worrying too much about what they would be getting in return for their purchase. Fortunately everyone so far seems to like the book and it has had some lovely reviews :) It has also brought my extended family back together with my cousin from my dad's side ordering 3 copies of the book and pretty much renewing acquaintance again. This has been an especially nice and unexpected bonus as sometimes in life family relationships can drift. I am more determined than ever now that this is not allowed to happen again.

The bowel cancer community has without doubt been the most supportive and warmest supporters of the book. The charity has not only done whatever it can to help publicise it especially helping with contacting the local media, but also offered personal support to me during mum's battle with bowel cancer. Most importantly though it has been those people suffering and connected to cancer who have been truly amazing. In most cases they will have received a message on Twitter from me and they immediately come back with messages of support, buy the book and their kindness and unconditional friendship has been quite moving, especially considering the battles they going through. I can't thank them enough.

There are also pretty much complete strangers to me who will buy the book. This week a friend of a friend on Facebook just bought the book without thinking twice about what she was getting. This kind of support for the book has been a feature from its release back in November.

I set up a justgiving page after a couple of friends asked how they could donate. I actually felt a bit uneasy about doing it as I didn't really feel I was doing anything. However once again I have received some astonishing donations which have been especially kind and generous and boosted the fund considerably, so I thank everyone who has donated so far. Anyone wishing to donate click here.

I still have a long way to go with the book to reach the 1000 copies I set as its target, but I can't thank everyone enough who has bought the book so far. It makes the effort of publishing it and the extremely difficult task of marketing it worth while. It means I haven't ruled out edition 2 just yet :)

Self publishing a charity book brings with pros and cons. The most important pro is that people are actually prepared to buy the book knowing that the proceeds are being donated to a great cause. I am the first to admit that the majority of people have bought it on this basis rather than of my creative talent! :) Another pro is that if there was to be another book hopefully the uptake would be pretty similar.

One of the down sides is that because every penny I receive is being donated to the charity, I am unable to invest any of the profits in marketing as there are no profits of course. A popular marketing tip is to send out free copies for review, but by using Amazon 's print to order scheme free copies even for me the author do not exist, and I have to buy it like everyone else. Another marketing suggestion is to do free promotional periods where the book is give away for free. Obviously in this instance this defeats the whole object of raising money for the charity. I wonder whether I have got the pricing right, and in all honesty I think trying to raise about £1 from both the paperback and kindle versions is fair.

The book was released about 3 months ago, and the sales total is currently 144, which along with the justgiving donations means about £250 has been raised so far, which I am delighted with. However sales of the book have slowed right down now and I am wondering what else I can do boost sales. There has been great local media coverage and I have worked hard at pushing it on social media sites. So I am open to suggestions and am waiting for something to happen to give it fresh impetus.

Last week BBC Radio Berkshire breakfast program hosted by Andrew Peach covered bowel cancer test kits following a local man being diagnosed with bowel cancer after using a kit. I emailed in with details of mum and of course the book, and they called me back asking for me to go on air. I was asked about using these kits, which I had used a few weeks ago and whether I had felt embarrassed about using one? Absolutely not was my response, and fortunately when I used the kit my result came up negative. I was able to briefly describe how mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer and how she is currently doing, and very importantly I did point out that the illness could affect people under 65 as well as the overs. Unfortunately I was not asked about the book, but I suppose the BBC might not be able to promote such things on air? However the program has done a great job this morning of raising awareness and hopefully I have contributed a little bit to that.

This week my mother and the inspiration for the fundraising book goes into hospital for a second operation. The initial operation last September was successful in removing the cancer from her bowel but she now is having surgery to remove a cancerous nodule from her lung. If the cancer is related to the bowel cancer the they just remove the nodule, but if it is a new cancer she will lose half the lung. Although the book selling may take a back seat for a while during this period the book and the coverage it has had recently all helps with raising awareness about bowel cancer.