Our books
A selection of books we've assessed or edited for publishers.
Getting Published: The inside story
Cathie Dunsford
Getting Published: The Inside Story demystifies the process of publishing and guides authors around the numerous pitfalls. Covering everything from how to write a query letter to using an agent and arranging a contract, choosing a publisher and discussing translation rights, this extensive handbook leaves no questions unanswered. While there are many books on how to get published, Getting Published goes behind the scenes and explains the processes in each area of publishing. There is no sidestepping the difficult issues about costs to authors, low returns to authors, rejection, the time involved when a book is sent to a publisher – the mysteries of the industry are all explained.
Sheila Alexander – Director of Autumnwood Editing, USA, 2003.
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Enemy within
Richard Webster
The year is 1860 and celebrated entertainer, illusionist, mind reader and world traveller, Monsieur Cardot, is in the bustling town of Auckland to perform his wondrous feats.
Invited to dine with the Wainwrights, a family whose fortunes are on the rise, Monsieur Cardot consents to daughter Sarah Wainwrights request that he tell the future of each family member by reading their palms.
And so begins the saga of a family that will be torn asunder through greed and ambition, of love unrequited and of love lost, of two brothers born into a life of privilege and possibilities whose radically different natures will pit them against each other for life - with devastating consequences for all.
Richard Webster has 2.5 million copies of his books sold worldwide.
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The Word Burners
Beryl Fletcher
The Word Burners tells the story of the sisters Julia & Isobel and their mother Sally as they face challenges in a time of dramatic change in the status & identity of women. Although they live in very different worlds, they share a common goal in the search for meaning & order in their lives. Each finds her own way, choosing her own companions.
Ideas & events interweave with haunting images of sea & landscape. This strong book portrays contemporary women’s lives in a vivid New Zealand setting.
Beryl Fletcher won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature [Asia/Pacific] with TWB which was the first text ever sold for publication by Dunsford Publishing Consultants.
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The Dynamic Web
Karin Meissenburg
The Dynamic Web invites us to reconsider our approach to life in all its manifestations. It is a manual presenting the key issues of contextual logic and invites us to see life from a new perspective.
Contextual logic is the name for a very simple process which is accessible to all: to think in correlations of things, to maintain an overview of the whole, to intuitively grasp the interconnectedness of all in one grand unity. Most people practise contextual logic in part in their lives without calling it so.
This book is based on more than 25 years experience. Each chapter begins with examples of the fundamental ideas to be discussed and include Ecology, Education, Natural Sciences, Cultural Muliplicity and a final chapter on the Pacific Paradigm - including peace, ethics and love.
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Far and Beyon’
Unity Dow
Far and Beyon’ tells the story of a Botswanan family struggle to cope with the devastation of HIV and poverty. Reeling from the loss of a second son from AIDS, Mara turns to traditional magic to fight the curse she believes is destroying her family. Her children, Mosa and Stan, increasingly reject such beliefs, choosing instead to fight the powerlessness and oppression that have made the family so vulnerable to HIV. In the process, they must challenge adult authorities and scrutenize the ways in which they unwittingly consent to the forces that constrict them.
A contemporary novel Far and Beyon’ relates the ongoing struggles of Mara’s family, giving a fascinating insight into modern African life, and the cultural cataclysm that enables families to live in poverty, wear NIKE, and die of AIDS. Unity Dow writes evocatively of village life, with a compelling and perceptually sensuous style.
…this is a novel for eveyone. …embrac[ing] life in Botswana and the challenges involveed in growing up, confronting adult hypocrisy, poverty, abuse and exploitation.
Sheldon G Weeks – Mail & Guardian.
An urgent message of female empowerment, of dialogue between men and women, between the young and the old, and between the traditional and modern ways of life.
Keren Lavelle – Law Society Journal.
To read Far and Beyon’ is to take a trip to Africa in the hands of a knowledgeable guide, who understands your world as well as knowing her own territory backwards.
Keren Lavelle – Good Reasing.
Dow writes this world the way men and women in her country sing—with a zest fed by connection to the earth and to a shared past… The High Court Judge is an astute diagnostician of the ills—social, biological and political—of her country, and of Africa in general. With this book she will help to change things.
Morag Fraser – The Age
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Values at Work
Michael Henderson and Dougal Thompson
Consider the breadth of the meaning of values. They are undeniably important to any business. Every organisation has values, written or unwritten, and they do affect all the activities and attitudes found there. Henderson and Thompson write "Preference x Priority = Value" and thereby demonstrate the tie between the clarity of an organisation’s values and the efficiency, productivity and morale of the staff.
Two experienced consultants in the field have put this title together. Their goal is to provoke managers and executives into making organisational values live within the staff thereby making them real. They present values as ‘hard-core business fundamentals’ that most companies will recognise and want their staff to buy into.
It tells you how to identify values and how to make sure that they are alive and well in your organisation.
Interviews with New Zealand business managers in the last chapter round off a very useful book. They provide an in-depth analysis of the process the authors advocate. The evidence given by them is that it works, but that it is not easy for any part of the workforce. Do they think the results are worth the effort? Yes!
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