David Box

The Australian Gin book you’ve been waiting for...

Hi, my name is David Box and my mission is to seek your help in covering a portion of the costs to self-publish the book Australian Gin for gin lovers around Australia.

The world has gone mad for gin and Australia is no different. New distilleries are opening at such an astounding rate and yet in 2017 when I started writing this book, no one had written a comprehensive book about Australian Gin.

Our new Australian distillers are leading the world as they experiment with complex flavours, ageing, and hybrid styles like shiraz gin and green ant gin. Global awards are being won, but how do you find out the "who, where, why and what" of Aussie craft gin and the distillers making them.

That lack of information had to change and I decided to dive in a write this book. The writing, researching, image gathering and more was a great effort and cost than I ever imagine, especially the last stage of editting and laying out the book. Also to do it properly the book had to be of the highest quality: hard cover, lots of images and great graphic design, so that it would sit beautifully on the reader's coffee table or, maybe more appropriately bar top. It turns out also that there isn't much money to be made at all in writing and self publishing a book - and certain little hope to receive anthing for the hours invested, so I need a little help from this campaign to at least cover some of the costs to produce the book.

In Australian Gin, I have got together a few contributors to give some insight, including Jon Lark (KI Spirits), Dave Irwin and Matt Argus (Patient Wolf), Cameron Mackenzie (Four Pillars) and Phillip Jones (The Martini Whisperer). I gathered detailed information on 80 distilleries that started the current gin craze; the people, the gins, their cellar doors and much more. There is also a list of dozens of newcomers who have recently opened, or who are about to open. 

In Australian Gin I also wanted to include information on such subjects as:

• What exactly is gin?

• The history of Australian gin

• Different gin styles

• Starting a distillery

• The issues distilleries have to face

• How to enjoy gin

 and more!

So please help by pledging and by doing so, receive one of various great offers.

I didn't realise that retail and distributors take 70% of the book's margin. That is what it costs to promote, sell, receive, store and deliver a book. Furthermore, if it does not sell, you have to cover discounting and possible returns. Even to get tha basic cost back is difficult and very few of all the books publishes recover their total cost. That is even before receiving anything for the thousands of hours invested in writing the book. 

How the funds will be used:

Book production (design, layout, graphics, etc): $16,000

Images: photography artists: $2,000

Editing and review: $3,000

Miscellanous costs (transport, postage, office supplies): $1,000

Cost of hours spent writing (well over 1,000hrs): donation of my time - zero.

Total: $22,000

The book printing costs of ~$55,000 I truly hope to recover by selling enough copies.