After more than a year of making collages for Rajasthan, I had the feeling that I was ready. I carefully wrapped my 300+ original pages in a large shoebox and went to New York and Paris in search of a publisher… To make a story short: I found a publisher in Paris, who would later on move to New York and, two months before going to print, a Dutch publisher joined the club.
I plan to write a small book one day about my search and encounters in the world of publishing. I was ill prepared for these surroundings and the road has been as colourful as it has been bumpy. I wish I had found some kind of practical manual on the subject beforehand.
My source of inspiration lies in two little books with gripping, sometimes harsh but always light and poetic vignettes my grandfather wrote after the Second World War under the pen name of Vanel. The first one is Boeven die ik gekend heb (Rogues I have met). In the second book, Dappere vrouwen die ik gekend heb (Brave women I have met), he warns that a third book will follow, Lafaards die ik gekend heb (Cowards I have met) and even gives a table of contents.
The book I have in mind should be something in that spirit, and cartoonish. Most of all, it should be of use for beginning authors. I hope Vanel is now chuckling somewhere along with me.
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About a box…
The box on these pictures was made for my ‘manuscript’ by my son for my following birthday, Copyright © D.I.G. Paul Berndt Everts 2004. He is an architect.
More about publishing later on.