One of the most useful books I’ve ever read about writing is The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman. Chapter 5, titled Relationship Building and Literary Citizenship, makes a case for you as a writer to engage with the wider writing community, through contributing to writing groups, volunteering to contribute to events or lead groups, teaching, and all the other ways of being a good ‘literary citizen’. I love this idea, focusing on looking for ways of giving something back, and having tried to do this over the time of writing Wild Pavements, I’ve met some lovely people with an interest in nature writing

One of the toughest things to do in marketing a book is getting weighty and pithy endorsements which could be quoted on the cover, inside the book and/or on author pages. But it really helps if you’ve built relationships in your genre through that good literary citizenship.

I was just thinking about approaching possible endorsers when a well-known nature writer posted a rant on their social media feed about the large number of endorsements they were asked for, which made them decide they weren’t going to be doing anymore.

I entirely understood the perspective that it’s unpaid, and you have to read a reasonable amount of a book and then write something about it, but for me as a first-book author, it was mortifying. The thought of writers rolling their eyes when they received my entreaties was cringe-worthy. But it had to be done.

At the start of July 2025, 8 months before P-day, I had a digital copy of the book and so I had something I could share with writers who might enjoy it. Despite the knock to my confidence from the social media posting, I gritted my teeth and wrote what I hoped were irresistible emails to both writers I had a previous connection with or writers

It’s official, most writers, and in this case nature writers in particular, are lovely people and incredibly generous with their time. Some of them apologised very nicely for not having the time to read the book but wished me good luck, but a significant number very kindly agreed to read it.

By way of a shout out to the writers who read the book and sent an endorsement, I’m eternally grateful to Peter Marren, Esther Woolfson, Nicola Chester, Miriam Darlington, Nick Baker, Leif Bersweden, Michael J. Warren and Stephen Moss.

We settled on Stephen’s endorsement, a glorious and timely celebration of our often undervalued urban nature, and the people who care for it, to take pride of place on the front cover.