Apparently something like 85% of the books sold in the UK are bought by women aged between 45 and 70. So a few months ago, when we published Criminal Tendencies, our anthology of crime short stories in support of a breast cancer charity, I began to offer myself as a speaker to the various groups of women who get together on a regular basis for chat, self-improvement and charity fundraising. Sometimes also known as ladies who lunch.
Except that the ladies I’m encountering do a whole lot more than sit around for three hours picking at fancy salads and exchanging juicy gossip.
I’ve spent time at meetings of the Women’s Institute, Soroptimists and a slew of others with no formal name, and boy have I learned a lot.
I learned that they’re well-travelled and have had (sometimes still have) challenging careers – and are still interested in why, and how, another woman decided to sink her life’s savings and her autumn years into an insane enterprise like a publishing company.
And a lot of them also like reading crime fiction – often the gorier the better. They appreciate good writing and storytelling, and they like working out a puzzle. “It keeps my brain active,” I was assured last night by a lady who wasn’t admitting her age but was in charge of allocating a trainload of evacuees to their temporary homes during the Second World War.
And most important – these ladies work their collective socks off to raise money for a whole string of charities: everything from sinking wells in African villages, through research into Alzheimer’s, to buying a scanner for the local hospital. Breast cancer research is usually in there somewhere; women aged 45 to 70 is a significant demographic (hey, listen at me – I can speak marketing!) for breast cancer too, so it’s one of those things that strikes just a little too close to home for comfort; they’re only too glad to help out when someone sets out to raise money for a cause so close to their hearts.
Me, I’ve never been a joiner. Clubs, teams, secret societies: not my scene. I lasted less than six months in the Girl Guides. But in the last week I’ve been made welcome by two groups of these wonderful people, and they’ve bought more copies of Criminal Tendencies than we achieved at the crime fiction convention where we celebrated its publication.
So let’s hear it for the ladies who not only lunch, but raise extraordinary amounts of cash for good causes by collecting old bits of jewellery and coins left over from holidays abroad, baking cakes and making jam, organising barbecues, garden parties and village fetes. Marketing experts could learn a lot from them: give people a fun day out and something worthwhile to buy, and you’ll be amazed how generous they become.
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