It’s been a long time coming (22 years, to be precise), but my little travel book “The A to Z Guide for Lightweight Travellers” has finally seen the light of day as a Kindle download. The first edition, largely written in 1988 on aeroplanes and trains, was my first attempt at self-publishing. Back then, desktop publishing software was still a year or so in the future, although I was able to send text files off to a typesetter. By the time I produced a revised second edition in 1993, I was able to use Quark XPress to produce all the layouts.
Those first two editions would never have come about without the help and encouragement of my friend Paul Howcroft. He was the genius behind outdoors and adventure travel clothing company Rohan, and who could quite legitimately be described as having pioneered a revolution in lightweight travel clothing. Between us we set up a publishing company called Writer’s Block, the sole purpose of which was to publish my book! Not unexpectedly, the book was on sale through Rohan outlets and by mail order, along with many independent bookshops. It was the only book that Rohan sold throughout the life of the two print editions – for all I know, it still might be the only one. Sadly, Paul Howcroft lost his life in a tragic accident as edition number two was about to be published, but his influence remains.
You might ask why so long between the second and third editions? The truth is that I simply didn’t have the time. The 1990s saw me jetting about all over the world like a lunatic – there was one year when I spent a total of six months away from home, all on individual small trips, sometimes back-to-back. And from then it somehow never emerged from the background. But with the relative ease of publishing on Amazon Kindle, and the distinct advantage of not having to pay for or warehouse actual printed copies, the last few years have seen me slowly revitalising my back catalogue of books as Kindle downloads.
This latest incarnation has been updated and expanded. The print editions had a fair bit of cross-referencing, something which actually works a lot better in the Kindle format. Needless to say, the feel is still the same, enlivened by Bill Stott’s timeless and quirky cartoons.
