Newsletter No. 8 — August 2008

New QUEST News:

Because of the decision to include what started out as a “few” photographs and has now morphed into 24 pages, my original target date for the release of the new Quest has passed. I think you’ll find the addition of photos will be worth the wait. Significant progress has, however, been made.

So far:

ISBN: 978-0-9809890-0-7
Publisher: RockRead Press (my imprint)
Size: 6″ x 9″
Type: Trade paperback, perfect bound
Pages: total 395
Photographs: 24 pages b/w photos pertaining to the period covered by Quest i.e. 1930-1935. The original Quest contained no photos, but since some from that time have become available, I couldn’t not include them!

Also included:

  • Introduction by me
  • The first letter Henry Miller wrote “as a brother” to Dibbern, in April 1945, after reading Quest
  • The English original of the foreword that Miller wrote for the German edition of Quest which appeared in 1965, after Dibbern’s death

Quest by George Dibbern, RockRead Press, Mansons Landing BC, 2008 --reprint edition
Quest REPRINT EDITION

Availability: will be through me. I will be upgrading my web site (or getting a new one with a link to the old) to include PayPal. Personal cheques in Canadian or US dollars will still be welcome.

Price (to be confirmed): $32.95 (Canadian) + postage and handling

Readers interested in purchasing a copy (and I hope there will be many!) are encouraged to get in touch with me so I can plan for the size of the print run.

The delay in my sending this update is due to the extra time taken to do layout of the photo pages—and of the text. While some reprint books are produced by scanning the original as .jpg files, that leaves no opportunity for making any changes at all. I chose to scan the whole book using Optical Character Recognition which allowed flexibility for layout and a reduction in the number of pages—and which has helped a little to keep costs down. Though better than retyping the whole book, OCR is not perfect; for example it often reads an I as a 1, so a good deal of proofreading was required. I have kept alterations to the text to a minimum: changing things like Cillette to the correct spelling Cilette, for instance. I am now completing what I hope will be the final proofing before sending the whole lot to the printer.

I’ve realized that summer isn’t the greatest time to try and publish a book: there are simply too many distractions in the way of gardening, family visits, etc.—and delays due to the professional people one has to deal with being away on vacation. From where it stands today, though I am still aiming for earlier, October is more realistic for a release date—well in time for Christmas giving or self-indulgence!

I wish you all the best for what’s left of summer (or winter for all of you downunder folks),

Erika G.

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