Festoon Publishing Blog

With many of the trials and errors experienced with the printing and distribution of books over the years, it became apparent that much of the cost in selling books, or making a book acceptable to a bookseller, was taken up in postage costs. Selling books overseas became prohibitively expensive. There had to be a better way. I had the fortune of attending a conference held near Sydney by the Christian Booksellers Association of Australia (CBAA) where I learned of Print-on-Demand (POD) being a cost-effective way of getting books to buyers from around the world at an affordable price. Books that Festoon Publishing agrees to publish now go through a process of: establishing market distribution, retail pricing, cover style, paper quality, book trim size, and other parameters at the setup stage. Once the book has been edited and proof-read, a trial copy is printed for a final check before it is released for around-the-world distribution and sales. This means that a book that is ordered in England, say, will be printed in England, thus saving shipping costs from Australia.Another advantage of POD sales and distribution is that it gives the author a chance to ‘test the market’ to see if their

Isn’t there enough publishing houses on the planet already without adding another one? This was a question I asked of myself before taking the course of action that I eventually took i.e. starting a business that I knew nothing about before I began. This is a story of how God works in mysterious ways. The beginnings of Festoon Publishing began before it was officially registered, mainly through frustration with existing publishing houses not wanting to add any more authors to their client list – especially authors who wanted to write about certain spiritual matters! When I say ‘spiritual matters’ there is plenty of opportunity to publish books on witchcraft, erotica, horror, romance, murder mystery and so forth, but books that are inspirational and edifying to the soul has to somehow find the ‘niche market’ in a world that craves darkness rather than light. The saga began after much prompting from God to write down some of the things that were so encouraging to me, things that the Spirit of God had revealed to me. These were things that I received after many years of studying and reading the Word of God – the Holy Bible, yet it wasn’t from studying

Festoon Publishing was established by Jonathan (Jon) Holden on the 19th of September 2022. The business is registered for GST. Everything from the founding day of Festoon Publishing has been an experience of learning by trial and error. My first book “Take the Highway” was written under the pseudonym of ‘Paul Bolder’ as I felt that I couldn’t in all honesty take credit for what the Lord God had given me by revelation. I have since learnt that I need to use my own name on all my books as I need to accept open faced accountability before the public for what I write. I need to own it. This book will need to be republished. Lesson learned. When I wrote Take the Highway my first prerequisite to publishing was proofreading then editing and then more proofreading. That done, I sent several copies to people whom I knew would be brutally honest in their assessment of the manuscript. It certainly came back brutally assessed from every one of them. Such is the need for honest appraisal. Fortunately, the content survived with much needed clarification required in places. The editing process took nearly thirty revisions before it was ready for printing

It has been twelve months now since the True Story of Aunt Mabel’s Dead Cat book went on sale and the response from people who have purchased the book has been amazing. The remembrance of the story brings with it a chuckle as people visualise once again the predicament of Aunt Mable and her “precious possession,” and nothing was working out according to plan, that is, until the very end. The Dimond Book Garden – where new and used books can be found in abundance in Kingaroy, has a supply of “The True Story of Aunt Mabel’s Dead Cat” book just below their front counter. (Don’t be fooled. The included image isn’t where the book is actually located – it was a publicity photo only.) Sarah with a copy of “The True Story of Aunt Mabel’s Dead Cat” The book has had such good response that it has been entered into an international competition for authors with cats as being the central theme of their story – I’ll now have to be patient and “wait and see” what the judges think!      

This year has been an interesting year for Festoon Publishing with several books that had been in the “pipeline” for decades finally going to print. It is not easy to “keep the ball rolling” when there are hinderances to getting the job done. Sometimes it is a technical issue, other times it could be a matter of book design or a “feel” for the finished product that needs time to consider, as well as issues to do with marketing, cover design and so forth. Whatever the case, there are many hurdles that need to be addressed before the author gets to hold the completed book in their hands. In that regard, 2024 has been quite a successful year in seeing SEVEN BOOKS  being published. The booklet: ‘The True Story of Aunt Mabel’s Dead Cat’ by Jon Holden had two unsuccessful book launches before finally getting some attention at The Dimond Book Garden earlier this month. The unsuccessful book launches at various libraries in the South Burnett was a disappointment due to unforeseen circumstances arising that prevented library staff from being able to get behind the book launch with advertising of the event that they are normally delighted to do. So,