Another book (or 7) joins our Merry-go-Round!

Sue Hoppe — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:33:44 +0000

Oh my goodness! Loving this merry-go-round of indie-publishing craziness, but wow, someone tell these old fogeys to slow down! In the past 2 months, we have designed and produced so many new products, and it is really exciting to see the awesome positive response! Books and stationery are flying off the shelves.

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.

Meet the Team

Sue Hoppe — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 21:08:32 +0000

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to produce good indie-books!

It all started with Max and Sue Hoppe, and their crazy idea that windmills have a secret life.

But to turn that into a book, they had help and advice from a number of people who had gone the self-publishing route. People like Julienne du Toit and Peter Derichs were so generous with advice and info. Creda Communicatons in Cape Town helped so much with the specs for printing, and then doing a great job in producing the first print run. It is one thing to print 1000 books, but to then let the world know about them, and place them where people will buy them, is a whole other learning curve! This is where Karen Vollaire joined the team, and set up our first website.

Karen Vollaire

(Web and Graphic Design)

Mignonne van Heerden

(Translation)

Theresa Hardman

(Illustration)

Mpumi Buyana

(Translation)

We travelled far and wide, meeting awesome entrepreneurs, who have creative and interesting restaurants and guesthouses, padstalle, bookshops, gift stores etc, and who loved the book. They joined the team as stockists.

When we released Travels troubles with Koos, a friend said we MUST release it in Afrikaans, and promptly offered to do the translation. And that’s how Mignonne van Heerden joined the team.

We had more books than money available to print them, and also realised that many people love the convenience of reading e-books, and giving them as gifts. So we decided to set up an online store, and expand our range with both PDF books, and gifts and stationery. Again Karen Vollaire came up trumps (eeek, sorry, today of all days, that is a terrible phrase to use 🙂 ….erm, she did an AWESOME job, and produced this site, which we are so proud of!

Many years ago, Max wrote several children’s books, including a series called Tales from the Waterhole. We have been looking for just the right illustrator to bring these stories to life, with gorgeous pictures that would appeal to both kids and their parents. We wanted something special that really had an arty flair to it. And in Theresa Hardman, we hit the jackpot! She has the right combination of flair, talent, enthusiasm and vision to turn this project into something magic, and we are DELIGHTED with the results.We can’t WAIT to share this little book with the world!

Since then, Mignonne has also translated our upcoming children’s book Santa’s New Helpers into Afrikaans, and found Mpumi Buyana, who also joined the team, and translated the Santa book into isiXhosa.

Mignonne is also busy translating More Travels troubles with Koos into Afrikaans, while Theresa and Max will be adding many new books to the Tales from the Waterhole Series, while Sue does the design and layout. So the team is keeping busy busy busy, making sure that you have a continuing stream of quirky, quality, fun books and items to add to your wish lists!

theresa hardman | El Gecko Publishing

Another book (or 7) joins our Merry-go-Round!

Meet the Team