Apprentice candidates Sam Curry and Elle Stevenson launch new children’s book Gobble Gruff after Snottydink sells out – exclusive images

How To Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell helped the pair move ahead on a new story
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Ben Travis14 December 2015

With such a quick turnaround time, there’s no wonder that many of the products created on The Apprentice are, well, a bit rubbish.

However, one candidate in this year’s process took particular pride in his work – Sam Curry, who along with his team created children’s book Snottydink about a dragon / elephant hybrid creature,.

Their team may have lost the task, but Snottydink proved a hit - copies sold out in bookshops and appeared on eBay for £70. Since filming on the series finished in May, Curry and his fellow candidate Elle Stevenson have spent their time writing a new book together.

Titled Gobble Gruff, the story follows an over-sized beast in a magical winter forest.

“[Gobble Gruff] is a slightly different project to Snottydink because the themes and the characters are slightly different,” Curry says, comparing the two. “But the moral message that comes through, through a really clear, structured narrative and the kind of magical side of it that’s exciting for children, that’s very similar in style.”

While writing a second book wasn’t Curry’s first thought after the “incredible stressful” process ended, the 23 year-old businessman said that he was inspired by “signs of the cosmos”.

“I had just so many people coming up to me saying, ‘where can I buy a copy of Snottydink? I really want to buy a copy’,” he explains. “My dad was saying that his work wanted to do a charity auction with it. And then Elle approached me, who was really, really helpful in the task with writing the book, and she said, ‘I’m thinking of packing in my job and writing children’s literature’.”

Fired: Sam survived seven weeks in The Apprentice process
BBC / Boundless

The deciding factor, though, was praise from How To Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell, who appeared on the corresponding episode of sister show The Apprentice: You’re Fired.

“She was really complimentary about the book, and she actually got in touch with me privately to say, ‘well done, this is really great’,” says Curry. “Elle and I thought, maybe there’s room in this - we would love to go and do it again, but over a much slower period and take time to write it."

"I think Lord Sugar would be proud of us. Self-publishing requires an awful lot of business acumen"

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The pair met with Cowell, who gave them advice about the practical aspects of publishing, which Curry says was “phenomenal”.

Curry and Stevenson aren’t the only Apprentice stars to release a book in time for Christmas, with Lord Sugar’s own Unscripted: My Ten Years In Telly currently on shelves. However, Curry says that they’re not outwardly going head-to-head for sales.

“I’m thinking we’re going for very different target markets,” he laughs. “I don’t know if you’d want to read your three year-old Lord Sugar’s biography – someone like Joseph [Valente, another candidate] probably did read that at three years old – but luckily we’re not competing. I would not want to take on that juggernaut in the literary world.”

However, he does think Sugar would be impressed with their entrepreneurial move.

“I think he would be pleased with us, because this one we’ve gone ahead and self-published. To self-publish a book is, I have to say, an incredibly long and laborious process, and it requires an awful lot of business acumen to be able to do,” Curry explains. “One of the things he said when I was fired is, use your creativity and learn how to make it more commercial.”

Curry and Stevenson will be hoping that Gobble Gruff has the same impact as Snottydink – which became a hit before the series even reached the screen.

“I went to Gosh! comic book store, who we sold [Snottydink] to, and amazingly they had sold out of the book before the show even aired,” Sam says excitedly. “I went in at 9.30 the next morning after the episode aired, and they said, ‘Oh yeah, we sold out of them in the summer, months ago’.

“I mean, they were selling them at a ridiculous price – something like £3.50 or £4 – but that was great to hear, to know that your product was popular because of the product.”

With a limited run of Gobble Gruff on offer, get in there quick – it could be another eBay sensation.

Gobble Gruff is released on Wednesday December 16 on Amazon

The Apprentice continues on Wednesday, BBC One 9pm

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