The Accidental Pornographer

Confession time; my name is Gavin Griffiths and for over a year I was a pornographer.  It’s a simple story of boy meets girl, girl edits erotic magazine, boy quits job to join girl, girl and boy buy erotic magazine for a pound.  But this is not a success story.  At least not success in the way that most people define success.  Business success is usually defined in terms of starting with nothing, preferably with a wretched backdrop of grinding poverty where your family of 12 shared a room in a tumbledown tenement, and through guile, ruthlessness and limitless hard work reaching a point where you suddenly find yourself swimming in cash.  The result of all this wealth is that everyone pats you on the back, your friends get jealous, you buy a country estate and for the rest of your life everyone agrees with what you say.  Even when you are wrong.

We’re used to worshipping our national entrepreneurial heroes such as Richard Branson or the late Anita Roddick who fought the odds that were stacked against them, broke through the barriers and turned themselves and their businesses into household names whilst , of course, making a significant fortune along the way.  Well this isn’t one of those success stories – we didn’t make it work, I’m not a household name and I certainly didn’t make my fortune. 

But we did leave the pavilion and we took up position to bat and we had a go.  During this time I saw my first child come kicking and screaming into the world and I saw my beloved grandmother slowly lose her grip and then depart from it.  Both of these events took place in similar hospital rooms, with family close at hand, concerning people separated by almost 80 years.  And this is what this book is all about.  It’s about having a go.  It’s about what I did with one of those allotted 80 years and it is a year that I will always remember.  It’s a year that money could not have bought, it’s a year where I learnt more about business and people and myself than I did in all those years preceding it.  It’s a year where I failed but somehow managed to get a result of sorts.  So if you don’t mind stepping up to the crease with me, and being bowled out in the first over, then read on.  If failure’s not your cup of tea then may I suggest you go back to Borders and swap this for Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson.  I understand they have a very liberal returns policy there.  And contrary to what you may have read in other books, not everyone can do it!

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