A Slightly Anarchic Book of Poems for Reuben.

It’s been a while coming. Ever since the day my daughter nagged asked me if I’d create a book for Reuben full of the type of poems I’d done for her as a girl it’s been beset with problems. When I’d first done them I’d done my own illustrations but nowadays I can’t hold a pencil still enough for that. Then we needed to find the original poems  as she was sure some would be ideal. She was also sure she’d seen them since the attic was done. A mass search ensued which led me to believe they’d gone back up there.

A couple of weeks and a few not so subtle hints later I actually came across the original poems just feet from where I’d looked so head hanging low I said I’d wait until she had chance to re-read them and select some. What a mistake that was. I freely admit that while I was writing them nearly 30 years ago I may have been entertaining myself too and there were more double entendres than you could shake a very long stick at. But, she didn’t understand them at the time and no reason Reuben will when he’s the age she was. It was a big No-No. Yvonne was adamant she wouldn’t be reading some of those to him. She did select some however  which left me with about 24 to write to manage a 32 page book. At a couple a day with time off for good behaviour I managed it  fairly soon and set about finding pictures to suit them. That wasn’t too bad either.

The poems went off to a friend who had offered to edit for me while another friend who’d offered to place the book on Lulu for me got the pictures to look at and decide if the format and size was OK. A third kind friend had helped me with the title, though I made a final adjustment and I was set, or so I thought. Once the editing was done the poems went off to my friend Ilil for input and so came a discussion or two about size. I preferred a bigger size book like a children’s painting book which they could lie on the floor with. It turns out some sizes can be done with a minimum of 32 pages and some with 64. My first choice was scuppered. There was much chopping and changing to address the size of the cover picture and then came the news about cost. Because my pictures are colour inside the book the costs will be high. Maybe high enough to dissuade the people who enquired about buying it from doing so.

Eventually we settled on a 6″x 9″ book which she’d suggested in the first place with a production cost to me of over £7. Lulu suggested a retail price of over £13 but I’ve got it at £9.95 to allow Lulu their share of the royalties while I get 91p which won’t even buy the swimming trunks to swim to America never mind the air fare and unlimited spends. Yah Boo Sucks. Anyway, for those of you who’ve followed my journey, thank you, and here’s the finished product………………………………….

 

Marvin the Monkey

I owe Huge Thanks to the following friends for helping me reach this stage.
Ilil Arbel without whose technical wizardry I’d be lost.
Sherie Sprague for editing out all my errors and making my English look better.
http://roughseasinthemed.wordpress.com for helping with the title, though I got the final tweak. Thanks K.
Huge Hugs to you all and to those who encouraged me to do this!

And finally the link. It will be a short while before it gets onto Amazon and all the other sites so this is direct.   http://www.lulu.com/content/14451623 … … via @Luludotcom