As we continued to post daily tweets on @OnThisDayShe about women in history, two responses were most frequent: Why have I never heard of her? and Are you going to make a book?

We started to think the latter might be possible and—thanks to the expert help of agent Kate Johnson—we were fortunate enough to secure a contract with John Blake, non-fiction imprint of Bonnier Books, for a book with a woman or group of women from history for every day, to include black and white photographs. We fought for the photographs, and rejected other publishing offers because they wanted to use line drawings to illustrate the women instead. When, I ask you, did you ever see a history book with pastel line-drawings of Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan? Quite.

We also rejected an offer that wanted the book to feature ‘an inspiring woman’ for every day. No, we were determined to write a history book, not an inspiring book. It’s not something we require of men from history, that they be inspiring—see, again, Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan—but just that they made an impact. As I said in my TEDx talk —‘that they engaged with the world in such a way as to change it’. So we used the same criterion for our women.

We were thrilled with the end result, published on 18 February 2021, which showed the care that had gone into making it—a great cover, really high quality paper, lots of photographs, a wonderful blue for the titles which referenced our Twitter beginnings. Editor Ellie Carr had even found a typeface designed by a woman.

The book can be purchased here or by ordering from your local independent bookshop.