When I wrote my India book I wanted to experiment with telling the story in lots of different ways. The book was different to normal travel books and I wanted the way the story unfolded to be different too.
Journeys are linear, chronological things. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Books are exactly the same. It’s a perfect fit. Start at the start. Keep going till you get to the end.
And this is one of the reasons why so many travel books are very boring.
I wanted to try to find a way to tell this story differently. I decided to write the entire book as though it was one day, one cycle of 24 hours. But I really wanted to find a non-linear way to tell the tale. And I found it.
So I was very excited at the chance to turn my ordinary book into a ‘mappazine’ – laying text and photographs from the journey on the classic ‘fold out’ Ordnance Survey map that’s so well-known to anyone who loves the outdoors.
The result was fabulous. It looked great and was such a novel, exciting way to tell a story.
So I ordered 5000 of them! I was going to be RICH!
A huge lorry arrived and filled my home with box after box after box.
Fabulous though a mappazine may be, nobody has ever heard of them. So nobody bought them!
Three years after taking that vast shipment I still have almost all of them, unsold and bulky, in my home. (I would make a terrible business man).
Whenever people get their hands on one, they love them. They are tactile, unusual and beautiful. But selling them online has been a disaster! So I am now just trying to cut my losses.
I’mm selling 5 mappazines for £5 (RRP £5 each) which is losing me money but helping to reclaim some space in my house! I hope you might like them as unusual gifts or stocking-fillers.
(And let me know if you fancy buying 100 or even 1000 of the bloody things!)
Go on then, I’mll take five off your hands…
The prices below include postage and packing.
I have a copy of the mapazine, and the book too, and can strongly recommend both. For anyone that has already read the book the mapazine compliments it perfectly and it is good to open it up and pick out different points of reference. With Christmas just around the corner 5 for a fiver sounds like a bargain
Amazing idea! Very original! We’re builting up a project of bicycle trip book and documentaries (more info at: cycloscope.weebly.com) and this is very inspiring. Which shipping service do you use? Looks very cheap.
I just use Royal Mail.
Soory to hear they didn’t sell. I love my copy which I bought as soon as I found about it. It was great fun reading it on the train 🙂
I already have one, but have ordered 5 others! They will make excellent wrap ups!
Hi Alastair, I loved the idea of these mappazines so bought some on the 28th of November when I saw this post but have yet to have been sent anything through? Please could I have an idea of when they might be delivered as I’m really looking forward to seeing them! Thank you very much!
Hi Hannah,
They should have arrived by now?
Please let me know if they haven’t…
Al