What do you do when aged 26, already suffering with depression, you’re diagnosed with breast cancer? That’s a question that Alice-May Purkiss found herself facing on July 7, 2015.
Fortunately, she found the power to express her thoughts and emotions through her own blog. These words, which have already helped many, are now the basis for a book – Life, Lemons and Melons – that seeks to help many more.
If it wasn’t for Purkiss’s persistence and chance discovery of Kickstarter, however, this book might never have been.
“When I finished my treatment I started thinking, ‘what happens next?’” she says. “The blog had escalated and become a support network and resource for people. I thought that it would make a really good topic for a book.”
And so did many others.
Having developed a book proposal, Purkiss was quickly picked up by an agent and received lots of interest from publishers. There was just one thing stopping her securing that seemingly crucial book deal.
When I finished my treatment I started thinking, ‘What happens next?’Alice-May Purkiss
“My agent sent me all the rejection emails and they all said there wasn’t enough of a social media following,” she explains. “I walked away from it feeling a bit dejected and disappointed, and my agent was furious. He couldn’t believe that we live in a world where a social media following is more important than having a good story to tell.”
“I realised this was something I really wanted to get out there. I started researching ways to make it happen and stumbled on the idea of a Kickstarter.”
“When I had the idea to use Kickstarter it felt like a real epiphany moment for me,” she says. “I felt like I had to get this book into the world.”
With her project set, there was nothing left for Purkiss to do but wait. “I was fervently checking the app all the time,” she explains. “Every time I got a pledge the app sent me a notification, and I’d keep checking in to see if I’d missed anything.”
Fortunately, she had nothing to worry about. Having smashed through her target with time to spare, her book, Life, Lemons and Melons, is now, finally, a reality.
And there’s good reason why Purkiss felt so strongly that her book should see the light of day – her writing has already helped save at least one life.
A woman got in touch with me and said, ‘Do you want to be friends because you saved my life?’Alice-May Purkiss
“Just three or four weeks after I’d been diagnosed, a friend of mine shared my blog on Facebook. One of her friends then read it, checked herself, found a lump and found out that she’d got cancer.”
“She got in touch with me just after she was diagnosed and said, ‘Do you want to be friends because you saved my life?’”
“We went through treatment together and are still really good friends. It’s overwhelming that it had that effect on that one person and possibly others that I don’t know about. If she hadn’t checked, she might be in a very different position now.”
While there have been Kickstarter campaigns that have raised millions in funding, it’s not all about the numbers. Smaller campaigns are having a huge impact, not just on the lives of those who started them, but potentially many others, too.
“I just hope that the book makes a difference to one person,” Purkiss says. “I hope that it makes one person feel less alone or scared. I hope it helps them laugh and shows them that even with all the hard stuff that happens in life, there are still great things that can come out of it.”