ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

That's just wonderful Heather and exciting I'll bet. Belated congratulations. What a beautiful thing to do.
Wazza

Hey Heather. I feel certain that you would have absolutely no problem in getting a sponsor to help fund reproducing the book. Please think on it love, as it would be able to do soo much good Australia wide, from all of those angles you mentioned. Rural communities especially appreciate having their struggles recognised; bushfires and many other catastrophies. City folk would gain more insight to the reality of those struggles too. All the very best with it Heather. Love created it, & love could see it blossom further. xx

Thanks so much Wazza and Glenny. I'm sure we'll get them out there one way or another Glenny

For Terry.

Not many books left now. Another 130 were recently printed to finish off the grant money. The book getting a great reception. I am laid up at the moment so can't distribute the remainder but will do so once I am mobile again. Some of the more recent comments came from two men who lost homes. One contributed his story to the book, the other didn't. The one who didn't told me he wished he had because it is a very positive book. The other said he read it bit by bit and had a tear or two but that it was healing. He and his partner also said it made them appreciate their neighbour and what he experienced and did, a lot more. One CFA fireman told me it would make him a more compassionate fire fighter because he could see it from the other point of view. I can't ask more than that.

The other good thing that has come out of it was a meeting I organised with Craig Lapsley who is the Emergency Commissioner of Victoria. He is in charge over police, CFA etc if there is any disaster in Victoria and he is a great listener. His department have recently taken over the recover aspect of emergencies such as fire, flood and tornado. I organised about six people who were involved with Black Saturday - some lost homes, others were involved in recovery. We told Craig about some of the things we thought worked and didn't work after Black Saturday and how things could possible be done better. That went really well.

Unfortunately we still can't sell the book Terry as the grant stipulates that we can't. If we can find some extra funding to print more then we can sell them at a price where we can then keep on printing. At the moment they have to go to those that contributed and were affected. It's not ideal unfortunately. We've got a best seller we can't sell!

Heather

I'm sorry I missed your original post Heather.
I was probably having a bit of a break away form the forum at the time.

I'm really pleased it's gone so well for you after all the effort that you have put into it.
Regardless of whether it eventually gets onto the open market or not, you will always be able to be justifiably proud of what you have achieved.
Well done indeed Heather.

Terry

It's one thing I can say I am truly proud of Terry - thank you. But you have your moment of glory and then you move on to the next thing.

Heather

Is there anything stopping you putting this book to another publisher? You've got the runs under your belt as it were to prove it is good ...Just a thought

We self-published Maureen. I did all the type-setting and we sent it off to a printer (in Australia). if I could find a publisher that didn't want to change things i'd consider it. Trouble is, publishers want to change photos, titles etc and it's absolutely not negotiable. We've had so many people that have wanted to buy it but we've had to say "sorry". It costs over $18 to print each book so the initial outlay was over $18,000. I don't have that sort of money lying around. Shall I crowd fund amongst my ABPA buddies?

Mind you, if anyone here knows a (wo)man who knows a (wo)man who's in the publishing business, feel free to let me know.

What about Eliza ?


Wordancer

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