“I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one,” said Blaise Pascal back in the 17th century. And he didn’t have to limit himself to 140 characters.

I’ve finally taken up my courage and decided to pitch the concept of SPT to agents and to Unbound, a crowdfunding publisher.

Being nominally represented by a literary agent who has been allegedly trying to sell one of my novels for some 5,  7, 9 years now, I thought I’d guilt-trip her into representing STP to my chosen publisher, but no. As luck would have it, and in contradiction to her entry in the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2016, she doesn’t do non-fiction. She has given me the name of a non-fiction agent with whom she has worked, but I’m not convinced that they’ve actually met.

So I’ve decided to start with Unbound. And the first thing I’m faced with is:

You see that? “How would you describe your book in a sentence (0/140)”

Well, um, let’s see…

“SPT harnesses attention-seeking to help teachers to be alert to positive behaviour and achievement and praise them loudly, while dealing with poor behaviour silently.”

Damn. 167 characters.

“SPT aims to transform classrooms everywhere by focusing relentlessly on positives and working with the natural rhythm of children’s behaviour.”

143 chars. Mmm. Better.

SPT flips the conventional model where good behaviour and work go unmentioned and negatives are given attention. No good deed goes unrewarded and negatives are dealt with silently.

What? 3 lines? How did that happen…?

I’ll get back to you later…