I had one of these the other day while watching a TV programme. It was a dramatised version of how Tony Warren, the Manchester lad who first thought up the idea of 'Coronation Street' overcame enormous obstacles to get his series shown on Granada TV. The Granada bosses shook their heads, 'No one,' they said, 'would want to watch a programme about Northern working class people. There's that accent, for a start.' Tony and his supporters (and there were a few) proved them wrong by showing the pilot show to the ordinary employees of Granada who, for the most part, enjoyed it.
I have been told, too, that no-one wants to read about ordinary people's lives, which is mostly what my novel Save The Last Dance For Me is about. I do believe, like Tony Warren did, that they do, I think because they can relate to the story. Is this why 'Coronation Street' has been so successful for the past 52 years?
Incidentally, I learned that the series had originally been called 'Florizel Street'. That had to be changed when the Granada tea lady said that Florizel sounded like a disinfectant!
So, I've decided that I'm going to concentrate on small independent publishers, preferably in Lancashire, where my novel is set.
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