If the book is printed in a European country, it will come to Britain by lorry. The journey by road will take a few days.

If the book is printed in China, which is where many non-fiction books are printed, then it will come to Britain by sea. It will travel on a container ship, and will take between four and six weeks to arrive, depending on how many stops it makes on the way. The ship will sail from a Chinese port, usually Shanghai, in eastern China, and arrive at a British port, probably Felixstowe, in eastern England, which is Britain's largest container port.

At Felixstowe, the containers will by unloaded from the ship, and their contents will be checked by customs. The unloading and checking can take two or three days, but once that's done then the book will be taken by lorry to the publisher's warehouse.

From start to finish the journey of a non-fiction book usually takes about a year - from the day I was asked to write the book, to the day when you'll find it in bookshops and libraries.

I know the journey has come to an end when a parcel arrives at my house. Inside is a letter from my editor, and some brand new copies of the book for me to keep (it used to be as many as six, but most publishers now only send one or two copies). Very soon bookshops will have their own copies to sell, libraries will have copies to lend out, and schools will have copies for teachers and pupils to use.

Is my work finished? Well, it might be over for this book, but there's always another one to be worked on!
 

Container ship the Ever Conquest, which brought
copies of You Wouldn't Want To Be A Victorian
Schoolchild from China to Britain. The ship was
built in 2006 and is 339.9 metres (1,115 feet)
long. Fully loaded, it carries 8,073 containers.
On its journey from Shanghai, it stopped at the
ports of Ningbo and Yantian, China, to collect
more containers, and unloaded them at three ports
in Europe - Hamburg (Germany), Rotterdam (Holland),
and finally Felixstowe (England).

With thanks to Markus Reiche for this photograph
of the Ever Conquest. Copyright © Markus Reiche

This photograph was taken in the Victorian
schoolroom at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum,
Shropshire, for the launch of You Wouldn't
Want To Be A Victorian Schoolchild. Children
and their teachers wear replica Victorian
clothes and have a day's reading, 'riting and
'rithmetic lessons, giving them a taste of a
school day in the late 1800s. Why aren't we
smiling? It's not because the teacher has been
using his cane, or because I've been given the
dunce's hat to wear. It's because children
(and adults) hardly ever smiled when they
had their photographs taken in Victorian times.