Time to Trade: 370 Days Inside

On the morning of 23 December 2022, Richard Nicholls was running one of the busiest HMO agencies in the country. By teatime he was in the back of a prison van, sentenced to three years for fraud.

Time to Trade is the diary he kept for the 370 days that followed, written by hand in three prisons: HMP Thameside, HMP Fosse Way and HMP Sudbury. A business lost from a cell. A son fought for down a prison phone. Bins sorted on a work party, and a property course written on lined A4 and taught to other prisoners.

It doesn't ask for sympathy. It's honest about what he did, what prison is really like, and what it takes to come out the other side.

"The bad parts of the journey are still part of the journey."

Paperback, 309 pages. Printed to order and posted to you, usually within 7 to 10 working days in the UK.

Book one of three. Book two, The Honest HMO, launches in November 2026