‘Enter’ wins a South African Independent Publishers Award

Friend and writer, Ken Barris, put me onto Darryl Earl David, language lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and initiator of a number of literary festivals that are helping keep reading, writers and publishers alive in South Africa.

arryl Earl David co-organisers of the Booktown Richmond Literary Festival
Darryl Earl David co-organiser of the Booktown Richmond Literary Festival

Darryl had earlier put out a call to indie writers who had published in 2015 to submit their work for consideration for a South African Independent Publishing Award. The closing date was little more than a week away and so I dispatched my book post-haste.

Booktown Richmond

The award ceremony formed part of the annual Booktown Richmond J.M. Coetzee/Athol Fugard Festival co-organised with Peter Baker.

What a pleasure meeting a bunch of interesting, unpretentious, solid, down-to-earth people: writers and publishers who, like I, had decided to go it alone.

Below are some pics of the festival (to view the full-sized image click on any image and use the arrow keys left or right. To escape click ‘x’ top left or hit your ‘Esc’ key):

What also surprised and delighted me was the quality of the publications, all of which could have stood shoulder to shoulder with anything that the major publishers had produced thus confirming my conviction that if you believe in something, then make it happen.

South African Independent Publishers Awards

Below are indie authors whose books I couldn’t resist purchasing:

Leanne Mitchell (nee Raymond) who won an indie award in the fine art category for her exquisite biography on the artist Eleanor Esmonde-White

Leanne Mitchell wins an award in the fine arts category for her exquisite biography on indie award in the art category on her exquisite biography, Eleanor Esmonde-White. Included are Peter Baker and Darryl Earl David co-organisers of the Booktown Richmond Literart Festival
Leanne Mitchell receiving her South African Independent Publishers Award from Peter Baker and Darryl Earl David, co-organisers of the Booktown Richmond Literary Festival. Leanne’s award was in the fine arts category

Linda Louw who won an indie-publishers award in the photographic category for some of the most haunting photographs I have ever seen, in her The Wild Horses of the Kaapsehoop Escarpment, edited by Elize Cookson, whom I also met at the festival.

Linda Louw, author of 'The Wild Horses of the Kaapsehoop Escarpment' with Peter Baker and Darryl David. Linda's book won a South African Independent Publishers Book Award in the photography category
Linda Louw photographed with Peter Baker and Darryl David. Linda’s book won a South African Independent Publishers Award in the photography category

Tree Aloes of Africa by Ernst van Jaarsveld and Eric Judd published by Wynand van Eeden’s Penrock Publications, which specialises in the botanical field, and that won an award for a meticulously researched, beautifully presented work in the field of botany captured lovingly between book covers.

Wynand van Eeden's Penrock Publications wins an indie publisher's award for their 'Tree Aloes of Africa' by Ernst van Jaarsveld and Eric Judd. Wynand is flanked by Peter Baker and Darryl Earl David, co-organisers
Wynand van Eeden’s Penrock Publications wins a South African Independent Publishers Award for their ‘Tree Aloes of Africa’ by Ernst van Jaarsveld and Eric Judd. Wynand is flanked by Peter Baker and Darryl Earl David, co-organisers of the Booktown Richmond festival

As you can see in the feature image used for this post (photo credit: Linda Louw), Enter also won an award in the philosophy category.

What helped ‘Enter’ win the award, I believe, was the professional quality of the physical book itself, thanks to book designer Doret Ferreira of dotted line design. Accolades are also due to Stefanie Swanepoel who served as editor and proofreader, web application designer, Dustan Franks of WordPress Ninja and a relentless team of hyper-critical readers: my two sons, Joshua and Matthew, a good friend, Louis de Villiers, and Fred. Thanks are also due to RSA Litho who reprinted and bound the book at their own cost after the pages in the first imprint came loose from the cover.

Marketing ‘Enter’

I had conflict as to how to go about selling copies during the festival. Should I have them on continuous display on a table at the front like some authors had done or should I wait for people to approach me, hopefully having had their interest piqued during my half-hour presentation during the festival? Near the end after I had only sold two copies: one to Wynand who asked me for a copy and the other to Linda, because I had bought her book, I decided to leave a pile on the front table of the lecture room in the hope of last-minute buyers. When I retrieved my unsold pile I saw that, instead, it had become a prop stand during David Butler’s live performance of Herman Charles Bosman (see the pic of the performance in question, below), which ended the festival.

David Butler’s performance of Herman Charles Bosman that ended the Booktown Richmond festival
David Butler’s performance of Herman Charles Bosman that ended the Booktown Richmond festival.

I took this as a message: no hard sell, instead remain true to the book’s being-ness and allow organic processes to take their course, in the assumption that each book is meant for a particular reader and that the process of finding those readers cannot be rushed. Trust the process and (in the words of Fred to whom the book is dedicated) “do nothing.”

Credit: feature photograph: Linda Louw

8 thoughts on “‘Enter’ wins a South African Independent Publishers Award”

  1. Yea H, sometimes doing nothing is more than that
    the echo of your call, longing for what may, in love.
    Thank you for a beautiful book
    a new angle on a hollow full of skinshine.
    Way T’ go!

      1. Thank you, Hendrik. I’m thinking of ‘reproducing’ it for the blog (on The CV Branch, yes). Obviously with the proper reference. I love your writing style. The photographs can be copied directly from here, so I don’t think it’s necessary to email them to me, thank you.

        xx E

    1. Hi Dominique, thank you for you comment. Mazel tov on your book, ‘Somewhere in-between’, which, I note highlights that ‘(the) most rewarding, most worthwhile job in the world is that of a mother’. Couldn’t agree more. Good luck with the launch at the Book Lounge on the 8 November 2018 (Malherbe, N. (2018). ‘Niki Malherbe’. [online] Available at: https://nikimalherbe.com/ [Accessed 6 November 2018].)

  2. Hi Hendrik! , I’d forgotten completely that I had logged onto your blog previously but saw it come up again on a Google Search this morning for something completely different. And then see your reply to my message here on your blog. – now nearly two years ago.
    Wonderful to connect again,
    Now subscribed though don’t get to read too many blogs.
    Thank you for your good luck comments and observations. My new book on Langenhoven’s mistress will be published early 2021!
    All the very best to you. xx

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