So, just a roundup of some recent events, highlights, products etc:

The launch for Santa’s New Helpers, hosted by Theresa and Mark Hardman, was such a fun evening, and the books are officially a HIT!

Thanks to Louise Liebenburg of the Herald, for your enthusiastic support of the event, and to Karen Vollaire for being official photographer!

On the afternoon of the launch, we also received a VERY LIMITED EDITION print run of 4 book previously only available as PDFs. The Postcards from Abroad series was born out of Travels Abroad (also on PDF) They are collections of black & white photos, of Bulgaria, Turkey, UEA and Jordan, which resulted from our travels to visit family. Somehow, it just feels better holding a physical book in your hand. So we will load these onto the website shortly, and it will be a case of first-come, first served for now. We hope to do a bigger print run in future, but honestly, there are so many new books in the pipeline that we are scrambling to keep up!

The day after the launch, we left for another cross country road trip to get them settled into some of our favourite stockists across the Karoo. (We might have got a little sidetracked when we did a short detour into the Kgalagadi, but hey, we couldn’t be so close and not pop up there! And anyway, you know what they say about all work and no play!) We will feature highlights and new stockists in another post, soon.

The night we returned, we ran around like crazy people, setting up our home for the annual PE ART MEANDER… we opened the house and Sue’s art studio to the public, and set up all the publishing products on the dining room table. It was a great weekend, with a constant stream of visitors. Thanks to those who came, for the enthusiastic response! Theresa also did an open studio, with prints and originals of the book illustrations amongst her other fab artwork, and sold up a storm!

So that’s it for now, look out for all the new stuff in a shop near you, or in the online store.

To a background of music from the song titles in the new Climax Collection book (songs windmills might be singing when they think we aren’t listening) we shared some of the rapid rise, from a simple idea, to the first book, Koos (Max’s eccentric 4×4) joining the family and giving rise to his own series of books, to the new online store and e-books. We also introduced the growing “El Gecko family” in the form of Karen Vollaire, who built the online store, Mignonne van Heerden, who translated Travels troubles with Koos and Max’s new children’s book (Santa’s New Helpers) into Afrikaans, and Theresa Hardman, who is busy with delightful illustrations for that book…. Great news is that, since the launch, Mpumi Buyana has joined ‘the family’, and is translating Santa’s New Helpers into isiXhosa. Watch this space, we go to print in the next week or so!

We will be launching The Climax Collection 2: the Secret Life of Windmills, which takes a tongue-in-cheek look at some songs windmills might be singing, when they think we aren’t listening. Max and Sue Hoppe will be on hand to sign your copies, while we listen to some of the songs mentioned in the book. In addition, we’ll be launching our much-anticipated online store, which has a lot of new stock such as art cards, art prints, posters, postcards and calendars, as well as 10 new E-books. These will be up on the big screen, so you can see all the goodies in store. The cherry on top will be a lucky number draw, in which the winner will receive a flash-disc containing all 10 e-books (a gift worth over R1000!)

And as if all that isn’t enough, it will take place at, and be catered by, the stunning Savages Fine Foods, where the ambiance and food are enough to make you think you might have died and gone to heaven! Hope to see you there!