Have I told you about my wonderful publisher?

Have I told you about my wonderful publisher?

I dropped off the manuscript for Australian Eagles about a month ago and Ian Gordon at Barrallier Books was all set to get stuck into the copy edit. But within days, some new information came to light about two of ‘my boys’. I didn’t have to exercise any feminine wiles or throw a tantrum in order to have some extra time to rewrite to take into account the new details. He just let me do it.

The revised manuscript was in Ian’s hot little hands yesterday afternoon. And then that is it. No more tinkering from me. It is now up to him to weave his magic and make it into a book.

The delay has resulted in some bad news and good news. The bad news is that we cannot have the book ready for Christmas. Nor even April which was the fall back position if we missed Christmas. So, those who were looking forward to Santa bringing Australian Eagles down the chimney, sorry. You will have to wait a bit longer.

The good news, apart from the fact that it will have the extra info in it (it is worth the wait, believe me. Would the author lie?) is that Ian has had more time to scout about in printing land and has found a deluxe printer who can do a beautiful, luxury case bound edition for a very reasonable price. $A34.50 for hard cover, with an elegant dust wrapper and prestige paper! All my dreams have come true.

All we have to do is wait until July 2013. And what better time anyway? Apart from the fact that my tribute to five Australian-born and one adopted Australian pilot will be released just in time for the 73rd commemoration of the Battle of Britain, it will be my third book released in July.

But apart from continuing a publication tradition, July is a special—but sad—time for me. My father died in July 2005, a year before my first book was published so he never saw a ‘Kristen Alexander’ in print. Well, down here, anyway.

Dad always read to me as a child and so fostered my great love of reading. I owe a lot to him, and remember well sitting on his knee listening to his stories. Mum bought the books, but Dad read them to me. And so, in July 2006 and July 2009 I felt that I was doing it for him (and my mother). And so, I am quietly pleased that, in July 2013, I will again be doing it for him.

Here is a photo of my benevolent publisher, taken at the launch of an earlier book and one of my favourite books as a five year old.

Poor Dad had to read it over and over again. Even when I was in hospital getting my tonsils removed, I wanted him to read to me. Legend (or family lore) has it that I was asleep when he visited so, when I awoke at some ungodly hour, and despite being near voiceless from the op, I still managed to howl and howl ‘I want my Dad. He has to read me my story’ that the nurses rang him up and told him to come down and read that child her story and shut her up! He crawled out of bed and came to read me my story.

Funny thing is, despite the many times he read it, when I picked up a copy a few years ago (well, David did, knowing how much the story had meant to me as a child) I could not remember one word of it. Of course, 40 years had passed but even so.