Several times on this blog I’ve referred to Barry Meat’s travelogue, a guide to a small but oft-ignored portion of Yorkshire.
Although I conceived the character about 20 years ago, I really didn’t have a home for him until about 5 years ago (thanks, COVID lockdowns). That’s when I considered the idea of a Lonely Planet-style travel guide to the Yorkshire Triangle and its main settlements of Banjostring, Fannyride, and Crabladder.
After writing the book, I was left with a problem: layout. The guide had to in some way resemble a Lonely Planet publication, and while I’ve worked with the “Only Planet” moniker (with the possibility of follow ups), I’m not sure if that will be retained when publishing. Either way, a travel guide full of big text and intriguing photos (from my own collection) was the look I needed, so after I scrunched up a few bits of paper in frustration, I opted for Canva.
As you can see from the screenshot above, Canva affords a number of different page layouts for exactly the sort of publication this aims to pastiche. You’ll also get a taste of some of the silliness I’ve squeezed into this volume, which is already three times longer than I expected.
At the time of writing, the layout is almost 50% done. This is in terms of bringing in all the text, but none of the images above are mine – they’re all stock images in the Canva layout. I need to replace all of them, which is going to be quite a task and will probably require some additional trips for extra photos.
(The guide is more or less built around photos already in my collection, but I’ve already spotted a few gaps.)
I’m aiming to release this as a free PDF, but there will also be a physical print-on-demand version. I’m also thinking a calendar version might be fun, and there will almost certainly be an audio book and/or podcast.
And yes, it is a terribly silly, and rude book. I just wanted to make something I would pick up and laugh at.
