Kwabena came back to London from Africa and immediately started writing his novel Deadmeat. When he was finished, he printed and published it himself, picked up the wooden glasses Simon Foxton had given him a few years back at a photo shoot, put them on and the character Q was born.
Q put his books into the back of his fluorescent Qmobile and drove off into the night and started selling them inside and outside nightclubs,raves,festivals at markets and by mail order. When clubbers saw the Qmobile parked outside a club, they would ask a bouncer to go inside and get Q and he would come out and they would buy their books.
Q created his own marketing strategy and sold over 4,000 copies and gained a wide following and lots of column inches in the London press. He modelled himself on the hip-hop music scene, he would sell books the same way rappers like the American rappers did in their cities. Soon, he found himself thrust in front of numerous TV and radio shows.
Fab 5 Freddy the host of the popular show YO! MTV Raps, met Q in a night club and bought a copy of his book, then put him on his show. Yo! MTV Raps was a global hit, a number one show around the world. Q became an inspiration to other writers and a whole generation of indie writers were born, who like Q were quickly picked up by major publishing houses, just like the rap stars. Q's strategy paid off.
