MEETING THE MONEY MEN

Met up with a number of investors in the Tendulkar Opus this evening. As you can imagine, an Opus costs a fortune to produce, so we’re very grateful for their backing and we try to keep them in the loop on developments.

The meeting took place at the Opus Store in Covent Garden, London, the first dedicated Opus shop. It opened in December, and it’s a great place to view the full range of Opuses already published, as well as some stunning artworks and photography on the walls.

First, myself, Opus Marketing Director Michael Sawyer and the Opus Store’s Corporate Sales Director Nicky Stock, took a small group each and showed them an Opus. I was on the Tottenham Hotspur Opus, which I edited. The two investors with me had never seen an Opus ‘live’ before and they were amazed by the scale of it and quality of the images. I always find that. You simply can’t understand why an Opus is so special without seeing it, experiencing it.

As Sir Bobby Charlton once said, “It takes an hour-and-half just to turn through all the pages of an Opus”, so we could only show our investors a fraction of the content in the time available, but it’s fair to say they were blown away.

Then it was time for my presentation of where we are with the Tendulkar Opus and our future editorial plans. Pretty nerve-wracking stuff, standing in front of a dozen hard-nosed businessmen. I felt a bit like someone pitching on Dragon’s Den, but as time went on, the nods of the head and smiles told me they liked what they were hearing. Indeed, by the time we opened up to questions from the floor, they were buzzing with their own ideas on things we could do. It was great to discover that the majority of the investors were passionate about cricket and admirers of Tendulkar. This isn’t just a financial investment for them, they are genuinely interested in the project.

At the end of the meeting, one chap gave me his business card and offered to put me in touch with a famous veteran cricket photographer who he happens to play golf with. Apparently, he has an archive of excellent photographs of Sachin which have never been published for. Just the sort of exclusive content we’re always looking for…