I am not a fan of separating the different parts of myself and for me it was difficult to present a poetry book in such a narrow genre, however many of my faithful Christian friends had murmured that it would be nice if I were to write a Christian poetry book. From this place “Verses for the King” was birthed, it is a thank you to the many Christians who have been so faithful in encouraging my writing whether it be secular, Christian or both.About a year ago, I collated the collection and prepared it for self-publication. As an afterthought I decided to send it to Vineyard International Publishing. I thought ‘well since it has been written by a Vineyard pastor and is full of Vineyard values, then maybe our home grown publishing wing would be interested’. To the best of my knowledge VIP has never published poetry before.

To my delight VIP agreed to a 50% publishing deal, this meant that I had to raise 50% of the publishing costs. For me this was a huge amount of money. I avoid debt at all cost, so the natural progression was to turn to TradeMe.co.nz and Crowdfunding. My nerves are not that strong and I did not enjoy the process, however PledgeMe was a good company to deal with and people pledged enough to cover costs.

Altogether we had 74 pledges, by 12 different nationalities, who pre-purchased 202 books & 32 badges, raising a total of NZ$4200. This was absolutely phenomenal for me. The first print run has the book for sale at €5, this price is discounted because of your generous pledges.

While people were pledging I had a team of ten people and six different nationalities producing the book. It is not easy work compiling an almost mistake free book. But thanks to the team I am very happy with the result.

I had a few hiccups on the way, the printer printed less books and Lithuanian customs charged me much more that expected.

The book was officially launched by Alec Timmerman in Eetcafé, Wageningen, the Netherlands on March 19. It was quite a fun evening with a rocket-launch-style-countdown and with music provided by ‘Cheeses of Mexico’.

The book launch was part of my ‘Number 8‘ poetry and short story tour of  Germany and the Netherlands. “Verses for the King” sold well on tour and is now my highest-selling poetry book. It can be purchased from my website.

Now I am in the throes of autographing, packaging and sending out copies to all the international pledgers. I am also still waiting and encouraging the completion of the eBooks.

Thank you to everyone who has ventured on this journey with me.

And again special thanks to those who helped create this book; Charlen Williamson, David Vink, Fedir Shulenok, Jan Bernard Struik, James Metelak, Katrina Bullen, Maisie Tremain, Sharon Fowler, Tomas Šečkus and Kim Hough at Vineyard International Publishing.

“Verses for the King” is a worship poetry book. The King being Jesus, and finally I would like to offer my thanks to him for making this crazy journey possible and for blessing every step along the way.

Thanks and cheers, Kel