JIM CONRAD'S NATURALIST NEWSLETTER
Written at Hacienda San Juan Lizárraga about a mile
east of Telchac Pueblo, Yucatan, Mexico, and issued
from Hotel Reef Yucatan (http://www.reefyucatan.com/)
on the coast ten miles north of San Juan.

Back in 1988 I thought my book-writing career was
taking off. I'd sold a book, SPRING COMES TO THE
SOUTH, about my wandering throughout the US Southeast
chronicling the signs of spring, to Dodd, Mead &
Company, a New York publishing company with a very
long, distinguished history. They liked my book so
much they encouraged me to do a second one, Spring
Comes to the Southwestern Desert, where I wandered
all through the US Desert Southwest chronicling the
arrival of spring.

On my last week of traveling for that book I picked
up my mail forwarded to Mexican Hat, Utah and found
that Dodd, Mead, after more than a century of
publishing, was bankrupt. They wouldn't publish
either of my books. They never returned the copyright
to me of the first one, which they had bought, so my
work on it was completely lost and I took the first
of many financial losses on such projects. Eventually
I published six books before realizing that I'd never
more than break even writing books. Then I began
freelancing for magazines, which paid a little
better.


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