The Tripe Marketing Board’s aim to make tripe (of the written variety) available in every charity shop in the country while raising as much funding as possible for the We Care food bank & community hub came a few steps closer to meeting its goal with the news that, by 4.30pm today, over £1000 had already been raised through the purchase of books published by the TMB.
The fundraising is being spearheaded by the TMB’s own ‘Little Miracle Worker‘ – a plucky, five year old book that spends its life lurking in the lower reaches of the Amazon charts, but which is periodically woken up whenever Amazon reduces its price to 99p. After a gentle start with the launch of the campaign on 15 November, sales were soon high enough to propel it into the Top Ten of Comedy Parody Books on Amazon – alongside such notables as the Viz annual and the Giles Cartoon Collection. It has reached as high as the No 3 slot, spending over a week in the Top 10.
TMB chairman Sir Norman Wrassle said he was delighted by the interest in the book. “Every time someone buys a TMB book before the end of November 2022, we’re donating £2 to our chosen cause, the We Care food bank at Kath’s Place in Deptford. We’re particularly keen to see as many copies of Eric Shipley’s Forgotten Yorkshire being sold as possible, as this is just 99p a copy,” he said.
Sir Norman said he was particularly pleased with reports that supporters are buying 3 copies for £2.97 and getting them delivered straight to their local charity shops. “It’s the ecologically soundest thing to do, as it doesn’t involve an additional trip there by the buyer,” Sir Norman said.
He asked tripe lovers to consider this strategy as a relatively easy way to ensure the book was widely distributed, at minimal cost to the donor, the TMB or the charity, whilst raising £2 a copy for Kath’s Place in the process. “There are literally millions of books on Amazon and it’s a delight to know that our supporters have ensured this book has been in the top 800 – 1500 for the last week,” he said.