James Patterson

Earlier this year, James Patterson announced that he was going to be donating £250,000 to independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland. James Patterson is a bestselling author whose books have now sold more than 300 million (well played James). The money was going to be given to shops who would use it on encouraging children to read and we had to pitch ideas. Grants between £250 and £5k we're being given out.

Obviously, Tim and I didn't want to miss out on the chance of free money, so we sent a proposal saying we wanted the money to allow us to invest more energy and time in our school visits over the next 6-12 months, with a plan to set up systems so that this could be sustained after the funding had been spent. There was a bit more detail than that, but that's essentially what we want to do.

Well, blow me down if we didn't get an email from Team Patterson yesterday telling us that our proposal had been accepted!

Simon & Tim celebrate.  (stock photo)

We asked for £5K (I mean, it would have been rude not to), and although we didn't get the full amount, we are pretty thrilled with what's been allocated to us.

As I wrote in the proposal.

  "These visits are some of the most rewarding events we put on, and I know that for many of the children, meeting an actual author is an experience that they don’t forget. These events bring reading to life for some of the kids and in many cases give them the encouragement they so desperately need to start reading books."
 

I really hope that we can get a few more children excited about reading and I want to thank James Patterson for giving us the opportunity to do so.