How I Published my First Book.

How I  published my first book:

Memories of Sue and Rich Redman.

[Excerpt from “Squatter in Los Angeles,” a Kindle book.  Also available from the Store at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.]

It was during the time that I was a squatter that I began my life-long association with Sue and Rich Redman. I probably would not have remembered this aspect of my squatting life had it not been for the fact that in December of 2013, when I started writing this book, Sue Redman passed away.  I was very upset, and felt a great sense of loss, and began to recall my life with Sue, and with Rich. They were two sides of one coin.

Even though I had a semi-guaranteed weekly income of $5 a week (circa 1977), and therefore felt that I was on top of the world, I did have enough sense to realize that I should get some sort of job that could provide just a bit more income in case times got rough.  I decided to knock on some doors of small newspapers who might actually hire me.

I went up to the Altadena office of the Altadena Chronicle, owned by Sue and Rich Redman. They decided to give me a try at typesetting since I was somewhat familiar with their massive outdated equipment from when I worked on similar equipment in Ohio.

Gradually, I typeset the entire first edition of my Guide to Wild Foods in my offtime at the Altadena Chronicle office, and Janice (who illustrated the first edition) laid it all out for printing. I managed to save and borrow enough money for the printing and binding. Rich Redman took over the printing, and within a relatively short while, we had a big production going on with the stacks of printed material. 

Rich told me that I could save money if I collated all the very large sheets into their proper order so that we could then take it to a folder and binder operation in Burbank.  So we loaded everything onto someone’s truck and took them to the large kitchen of my Highland Park squatter’s homestead.  Remember, this was going to be about 2000 books, so there were many stacks of large sheets of paper.  I cleared all the counters and tables and invited people over for work one Saturday.  I purchased pizza and other snacks.  We had big stacks in the kitchen and people found their way there and helped to hand-collate the pages.   

Perhaps a dozen people came over, and by dark, Janice and I were still collating.  We finished on Sunday, and then took the book the following week to the book producer that Rich had suggested.   We had begun to see the potential of this cinder block house on top of the hill as a business location.

In about two weeks, the books were done and I was again on the top of the world, relatively speaking.  The book really had quite a few typos and entire sections missed!  It could have and should have been a bit better.  Remember this was all “old School.”  No computers, just printouts and endless printouts, and then physically pasting-up a dummy to be printed from negatives.

Once the initial excitement of having a book in print wore off (which it did quickly), I then realized that I was in possession of many boxes of books which I stored in my room and wherever I could fit them. I upgraded my bed, which had been a sheet of plywood on top of four or five milkcrates.  Now I had a platform composed of boxes of books, over which I laid my plywood bed.  Now, besides everything else, I was in the book marketing and distribution business, something I knew close to nothing about.

By far the most book sales were face-to-face with the people who came to my classes and the stack of books did slowly diminish.  It took about a year to sell a thousand.  Eventually, there was a second printing, with corrections fixed and improved drawings.  Then there was another edition with a color cover, with two printings. Then many years later, there was an edition wherein I drew all the line drawings of the plants – my favorite version. Other editions followed, where I no longer desired to be a book publisher, wholesaler, advertiser, and warehouser. I have since discovered why authors prefer to write books, and let someone else in on the action and income by doing the publishing and sales.

I sold some of that first edition book through an ad that Sue Redman gave me in their Altadena Chronicle, next to the wild plant column I’d write every week.  Not many, really, but I did sell some, and more people began to ask me to give a talk here and lead a walk there. I believed I was doing something important to help the people of the world help themselves. I was living as a squatter, with an income well below the national poverty level, with no medical insurance, just a motorcycle for transportation, and feeling good that I slept on my plywood bed.  Still, despite the fact that my lofty lifestyle and vast success should have gone to my head, I had plenty of people who helped to keep me humble.  My relation with the Redmans began at this very pivotal time in my life, and we remained close friends lifelong.

Years later, after a marriage and divorce, and a period of homelessness,  I then began to reside in a small house on the Redman’s property up in the extreme northwest area of Altadena called the Meadows.  I loved living under the protective umbrella of the Redmans, and felt again as if I were a close part of that family. I had no heating or cooling there, just the open or closed doors. It was a small place where I slept on the floor, and awoke to the sound of birds and a squirrel who always jumped on my roof from the mulberry tree. I made compost there, gardened, did water recycling, and frequently removed a rattlesnakes from the garden and out to the remote canyon. It was a wonderful place that I shared with the deer, the squirrels, and the bear that raided the trash can every Sunday night.

When I came back from Mexico one winter while residing there in Altadena, Sue greeted me and we talked about what I’d just learned about Kukulkan, the Mayan Christ. Sue was fascinated and said, “You must write about that.” Indeed.

Sue’s passing reminds me that life is precious, that each moment is a forever eternity which disappears like the sun behind a mountain.  Sue’s passing reminds me that I have had a rich life in the quality of friends and mentors.  She reminds me that one should live each moment to the fullest and best, and that to love selflessly and impersonally is to become immortal, as she has become in my mind.