Letter to Authors

More news about my books. The various language versions are also available as e-books. You can ask me for any combination of languages and/or region and I will see what I can do about it. Your feedback will give me an idea, what people might want.

Dear all
Let me tell you more about the Zettelwitz books: They will appear in different languages and in versions for different regions of South Africa, Europe and other continents with some 60 of local birds. Coming soon: Krüger Park Wizard

I know how risky it is to publish children's books. But there are some out of print books, that should be evergreens. I will publish those in 2 or 3 languages in one book.

Dear authors, in the new year I am planning to publish an enlarged version of "Stellenbosch Writers" with close to 600 authors of books (softcover).
Please let me know, whether you would be interested, because I won't start printing without enough pre-orders. Let me also have your updates, please!

My new publishing house (www.rosiebreuer.com) specialises on Nature books for children in 2 or more languages, but also on beautifully printed books in small print runs of 50. The quality is superior to that of a normal book.
That way I don't risk too much, the books are sold by myself and soon at Amazon and Kalahari.net.
There is quite a demand for books that can't be sold for the mass market, this is why many interesting books can't be offered by the large publishers. It is a struggle for them, not least because bookshops take up to 64% of the sales price of a book!
I am happy to say that my Zauberer Zettelwitz - Table Mountain Wizard book is doing very well, indeed, and it received excellent Reviews.

I just started my own publishing company -

with a special edition of a children's book and first bird book in one:
Zauberer Zettelwitz - Table Mountain Wizard
in German and English
with 74 Illustrations by the author and 57 bird illustrations by the renowned artist, Jill Adams

Save 20%: Christmas special Rand 170 or Euro 17.50 ISBN 978-0-9869878-0-9
Softcover, 60 pages, beautiful quality

The first 120 copies will be numbered and signed by the author,
who also will insert - if you wish - a name of your choice.

See all See screenshots of the special edition.

You are welcome to see the book at
our home in 18 Constantia Avenue (drive uphill Piet Retief Street until you come to a T and a park. We live above it.) Google map

A bit of a background: I invented Zettelwitz stories for our little sons, when we lived on board our sailing yacht, 1971 - 1976.
I started to rewrite my old stories a couple of years ago as a romp for the family. They are all depicted in the book:
Hans - King Kalinko, Klaus - Zettelwitz, Rosie - Barbara, Hannes - Norbert, Florian - Xaver, his wife, Erica - Yvonne. Anna and Maria are the first 2 names of my mother (featured by my godchild, Carola). Ronja is the name of our grand-daughter (depicted is Carolas sister, Christine). Many names of the wider family and pets appear in the book.
Because I love watching birds, I made Zettelwitz into a bird watcher, too. This childish wizard (and cruel as children can be) develops into a decent man, because he loves Ronja and finds to his astonishment that he feels much better being liked for his useful craft, than hated for his cruel jokes.
I worked on the stories and rhymes again and again, introducing advanced vocabulary, because children - who have no problems learning a mass of new words a day - deserve to be treated better and not bored with too simple texts. They love words like "cacophonous" and new insults like "you unabashed lump of bad luck".
I am so very glad about Jill Adams wonderful bird illustrations!

The bad news: I don't do anymore gratis webdesign, it is just too time consuming with 5-10 hours per page. Updates remain free, if you send me the exact text you want to include in your site.

Please keep in mind that my Stellenbosch Writers website is in slumbering mode, although I do update it regularly.
I have moved on to other projects that keep me so busy that I can't go hunting for information on writers.
So I beg you again, do send me your updates in a text, that I can use as is in your page. Please don't send me a host of information for me to choose from, I just don't have the time for the extra work.
May I also remind you that I am quite willing to exchange your photos for better ones. However, please do not think that you need to update your otherwise perfect photos: We don't want to end up with a geriatrics gallery:)
I prefer photos from the prime of your writing life!
Best wishes
Rosie

Five years ago, I launched my book, Stellenbosch Writers, at Woordfees 2005.
At this year's Woordfees I talked things over with Amanda Botha and other artist people about the next project concerning

:
I have started to collect the information for the Stellenbosch Artists book and CD. It will show some 150 Stellenbosch Artists and their work in colour and I dedicate 2 pages for each of them.
This time I will need a proper publisher and/or sponsors.

I invite artists, who had at least one solo exhibition at an art gallery and who want to feature in this book to send me their information and pictures of their art work. They'll get a free page at this site.

Information (written in English) consists of a CV, an optional list of exhibitions, optional thoughts on art and especially their art, their portrait (photo or painting) and photos of their work. Before the book goes to print, artists can send photos of more recent work and make up their mind, which photos should be included. For the website you are also welcome to add a CV in your mother tongue. (I might be able to include an Afriaans CV on your page in the book if there is enough space. In fact, I wonder whether we can make this book a two-language volume. What do you think?)
I can't promise anyone that I will use their information for the book or CD, it depends how many there are I may have to choose from. Anyway, I hope the website will become as useful as StellenboschWriters.com is. Wikipedia use a lot of my information.

Next project: I am already busy with "Stellenbosch artists", in colour, of course, with examples of their work.

Today, 29 January 2010, I received a lively portrait of Pierre C Haarhoff by John Talbot (www.lulu.com/talbot). It is especially well written. I am always grateful for more information on authors, especially those who are marked (*) in the author's list.

Blue Crane by Jill Adams

December 2009

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Today I received the following message by one of the authors:
"hi rose
i hereby request that you IMMEDIATELY remove all information on my from your website, stellenboschwriters.com. i have agreed to have my image, information and my work published on your site, and NOT for it to be syndicated to a number of other sites. if you do dont remove my information from your site, and see that it gets removed from the site to which you have syndicated the information, i will be forced to take further steps."
Here is my reply:
..., are you crazy?
I do not syndicate any information and don't earn any moneys from my site. Quite in contrary, every free page for authors cost me on average 5-7 hours work.
The only income I get from my site, is from the links to kalahari.net, not enough to carry the costs for server and domain name.
I will immedediately remove your page, though.
Of the over 500 authors on my site, there is only one not pleased with my efforts - and that is you. Perhaps an apolgy from you is called for, to re-upload your page.
Free Wikipedia has my permission to use several texts of famous authors, yours is not among them as far as I know. There are information collecting sites in the net - I have nothing to do with them. But that is what the internet is all about. You should be pleased to be mentioned, it helps sell books.
Rosie

November 2009

Dear authors, artists and friends,

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this website I have started to make special pages of famous authors and began with popular science books, we (my family and I) like best. We also like good science fiction and fantasy and I will add more special pages, soon.
Many authors gave me a list of the books they enjoyed most and I added those in Stellenbosch Writers' Favourite books. You are very welcome to send me your lists of your favourites (any genre), too.

I have achieved most of what I set out to do with this website: sponsor local writers (and artists) and showing off Stellenbosch culture to the English speaking world;)
Of course, there are many more authors and artists out there who belong in our lists and they are welcome to contact me.
It never was my aim to become an online encyclopedia, but I would like to have the information in the authors pages as inclusive and correct as possible. Please don't forget to send me your updates. My homepage shows a list of new books. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or find any errors.
There are a few copies available of the book, Stellenbosch Writers (2005), at the special price of R 160.
I crawled through all 875 pages of my site to remove the "strange" characters (A question mark where there should be an umlaut and replaced them with the correct HTML version.) If you still see them after reloading the page, please let me know. Most browsers will show you the correct text without unnecessary trouble.

I have included the link to your website in your page. Will you be very kind and place my link in your website, if possible? http://www.StellenboschWriters.com/".

Francois Verster wrote a kind article on my site in the April edition of Bolander: Rosie's Baby pdf

Keep well and enjoy the season!

September 2008

I decided not to do the Stellenbosch CDs.

May 2008

I would appreciate it very much, if you could make updating easier for me by sending me your news as a text which I can insert directly into your page.
I am still busy writing a book, but meanwhile I would like to start collecting information for the following project:
A CD ROM including the updated Stellenbosch Writers book, several other books relevant to Stellenbosch by Stellenboschers, artists' galleries and photos, poets' readings and much more. I will include Ters van Huyssteen's charming Footloose in Stellenbosch. Also galleries of birds and other animals found in Stellenbosch. (Birds are my hobby: www.StellenboschBirds.com)

Please give me your feedback :
Do you think it is worth the while doing this CD?
Would you be willing to contribute by sending an excerpt of your work? Poems and other texts, in English or Afrikaans, perhaps even spoken by you?
Your photos or paintings of Stellenbosch and animals of the area?
Remember this will promote Stellenbosch and your work.

I need sponsors. Any suggestions?

Kind regards
Rosie

October 2007

It is wonderful to see what prolific writers you are! Please keep your page in this site always updated. It is a free service.
However, please do not think that you need to update your otherwise perfect photos: We don't want to end up with a geriatrics gallery:) I prefer photos from the prime of your writing life!
My website is a one man or rather a one woman job. The work and correspondence have become overwhelming. I have moved on to other projects, including writing my own books.
From the beginning of this month I will not produce pages for new authors or artists free of charge anymore, but the price is still ridiculously low at Rand 300. Just compare this to what your plummer or mechanic charges for their service. Seen in this light the price of my book is not expensive, either.

July 2005:

My website was created to present Stellenbosch authors of books, thereby giving an idea what is going on in this lovely university town. It was also my tool to find the information for the book, Stellenbosch Writers, which was published in March 2005. Only 300 copies were printed and soon it will be sold out. I am not sure whether I will take the time to produce an updated edition and the website is now in 'slumbering mode' with occasional updates.
Would you like to have the book translated into Afrikaans? Then please let me know! It will be translated, if the demand is high enough to cover the printing costs.
I received many compliments and only Daan Roth complained that it was not published in Afrikaans.

May 2005:

A few facts about the book and the website, Stellenbosch Writers:
I am happy to say that I received delighted comments on the quality of the book and the price which I keep low, so that everybody can afford it. The webside is widely used for reference and had 7000 visits in the last year.
I have started work on this project nearly 5 years ago and sat at the computer for long hours, especially in the last year, as I also had to learn the production side of making a book. On average I dedicated 7h per author (which includes only part of my correspondence), in some cases there was a lot of editing to do.
I thank you again for helping me make the book more inclusive, some of you gave me invaluable information on other authors. Please understand that I can't give away free copies to thank you. The printing and production costs were tremendous. I gave everybody a chance to pre-order the book at a very low rate, indeed, and I also give a reduction of 15% on further orders to those persons who have bought a copy from me before.

March 2005:

Books without errors do not exist. Please help me eradicate them!
An unfortunate click on the wrong button in my search and replace - program played havoc. See correction and updates!

February 2005

Do not worry if you find errors in this website: most pages have not been updated yet, as I was too busy completing the book. You will like it!
It can be ordered at Rand 230.00 (Rand 260.00 for the numbered special edition).

December 2004

For several technical reasons I had to postpone the printing of the book, Stellenbosch Writers, to January 2005. I am very sorry to disappoint those of you who have already ordered several copies of the book as a Christmas present. On the other hand the book will be the better for the delay, as I can include some improvements. Many of the authors' photos I was given via e-mail did not have the necessary quality for printing: they need to be scanned at a resolution of 300, not 72 pixels per inch (which is fine for the web).
The editing and layout of the MS is completed and in most cases nothing can be added to the pages anymore. However they can still be amended, if any errors are found. The authors pages in my website do not reflect the improved pages, as I did not have the time to update this site for the last few weeks. If you would like to see the final version of your page, please contact me.

Thank you very much for the co-operation on the book, the kind advice and encouragement!

Rosie

I am often asked why I make your webpage (and for free, at that. Hélas!) The reason is simple: as an outcome of two new hobbies - studying South African culture and making webpages - I am working on a book called Stellenbosch Writers. It will be an Afrikana or Stellenbossiana and I aim to have it as complete and correct as possible. Could you please help me by drawing my attention to any errors?
I want to present Stellenbosch and its culture to non Afrikaans speakers and readers.
The pages I make for each author are not "private" pages, they are "history"! You are welcome to include a link to your own private and/or business page or even commission me to design a special page for you. While the pages should all be approximately in the same mold, you are encouraged to be as individualistic as you like (after all, this is saying something about you, too) and to make it more interesting.
Most of the 500 authors on our list have been so kind to send me their texts and photos. You will understand that I can NOT research your lives and CV for many hours in the library. I rather spend this time to read your books. It is in your own interest to make sure that your page is correct by writing most of the text yourself (in English and please avoid UPPER CASES).
You are welcome to send - via e-mail only - your CV in your own language, too. It will be included in the website. Your page can be much more inclusive on the website than in the book and I like to insert samples of your work: a poem or a short piece of prose. The website will - hopefully - grow more and more interesting with lots of links relevant to you and your work. Please help us to keep your pages updated, even after the book has appeared.

Keep up your wonderful work!

Best regards

Rosie

P.S.
Please remember, I am the editor of my book. I may not be able to oblige every wish of the authors (over 500!) on the design and outlay of the pages.