I met a great publishing buddy for coffee today in Winchester. She’s just left her job to go freelance, hence the swanning around Winchester in the sun on a Wednesday. Winchester’s lovely at any time, but today, basking in spring sunshine, it was hard to imagine a nicer place to be.
We’d last met at London Book Fair last month, and just after that she’d listened to Episode 53 of The Extraordinary Business Club podcast, in which I’d talked about the surge of joy that had overcome me as I walked to the Fair. It was more than the simple annual pleasure of heading to see old friends and discover new ideas: I realised that three years ago I went to the London Book Fair on my first day as an independent publisher, and from now on entering the Fair will (I hope) always conjure for me that giddy sensation of freedom and possibility and excitement.
‘I know exactly what you mean now,’ she said. And we planned plans and compared notes and walked out of the coffee shop into sunny Winchester relishing every minute of being our own bosses.