So here’s a thing – setting up a publishing company isn’t as simple as I thought. Are you shocked? It’s mostly legal things and working through documents. Yaaaaaaaaaaawn! I’m sure it’ll start to feel more fun and exciting once I get the details sorted.

I feel strange about the whole thing really, as the books I have don’t feel like they belong to the publisher I was expecting. I have these two conflicting stories of my father. One is the vagrant adventurer and the other is this suit and tie business man. The books feel very much in the world of suit and tie, but mixed in with this dark undertone. So not really part of either world. It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing I’d be interested in, but yet there is something intriguing about it all.

So the plan right now is to go find the remaining books. Try and collect all these stories that were published by the company. I have 2 and I know there are at least another 3. No one is printing them and (as I already knew) they aren’t all that easy to locate online. I’ll need to continue going shop to shop on foot. Fortunately, NY still has loads of second hand bookshops I haven’t visited. There must be the odd volume hidden here. I’ve set up Google alerts should any of the titles come up for sale, but who knows if that will work. I’ve even contacted a rare books dealer I found in a newspaper ad. I only have to pay her if she finds something. We’ll see what happens. While I may very well live in a multi-million dollar house I don’t exactly have the disposable income to take on staff! I know I could sell this pile to make a pile, but that feels… wrong. This is pretty much all I have left of my family (except Mon of course!)

It would be great to find the books and sort of have them as the core of the company. Something to build from. I’d love to see what they feel like as a collection. I’d love to find new writers who could take those ideas and build something that means I’m honouring my father’s legacy. Building something. All just a pipe dream right now, but soon…

DGx

UPDATE:
I just pulled The Wolf and The Wild off the shelf to jot down the copyright information and this page fell out.

 

I SWEAR it wasn’t in there before. I definitely would have seen it. I guess it could have been tucked in the back, but it seems highly unlikely.

It has roman numerals just like the page my father left me. It gives me chills everytime I hold it. I’m trying to make sense of it… maybe it was some sort of marketing material or advert for Ackerly Green? Otherwise why would it be in a book I bought from Hong Kong?

Maybe I’m just finally losing the plot. I know that’s how the world feels right now, anyway. (I refuse to say his name.)

This an honest-to-God mystery. Which, I have to admit, I much prefer to file requests and copyright applications. Something real, something concrete. Even if it seems to have fallen out of the non-concrete ether.