Embark on the most psychedelic book pages of pandemic dystopia

A psychedelic logbook written in the first confinement in Portugal by a hypochondriac who embarks on a journey inside his own room. And believe: he goes far!

After a period of searching for publishers interested in the work, I chose to establish a publishing partnership with Kotter Editorial, an independent Brazilian publisher that has published some authors I like, such as Ferrez, from marginal literature, and Henry Bugalho. It should be made clear here that Kotter Editorial is not part of the crowdpublishing campaign, it will only be the publisher publishing the book, but it does not play a role in this crowdfunding project, which was conceived and promoted exclusively by me, the author of the book. Kindly, Kotter Editorial allowed your name to be mentioned here so that I could inform you that the book already has a publisher to call yours, and given your generosity, it is up to me, therefore, to clarify the role of both, that of publisher and mine, in the book project. The publisher will edit and publish it through their own means, while I will run this crowdpublishing campaign to collect support in financing the publication of the book, which has costs shared between publisher and author. Therefore, with this campaign, I intend to earn enough support to cover my investment in the work, and at the same time, the books will be sold to the benefactors who contribute with this collective funding. The market price of See you later, and thanks for the beams! is €14, and this campaign will offer the possibility of various types of cash support that will be converted, depending on the value offered, in the book itself, in gifts or in a public thanks at the launch session.

See you later, and thanks for the beams! it began as a short story that soon evolved into a text of approximately 130 pages. It is divided into 42 mini-chapters written or sketched, all of them during the first confinement. It was an arduous job of collecting «clippings» from other literary, musical or cinematographic works that make up the sets and lend characters that dialogue with our poor hypochondriac protagonist in his misadventure. It is a light book, or better, balanced, balanced, that combines more serious, tense and even dramatic parts with more relaxed and even fun moments, endowed with a certain humor inspired by the famous work The HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, to whom I try to pay homage in some way, as can be seen in the title chosen, which parodies one of the books of Adams' "trilogy of five", See you More, And Thanks for the Fish!. Despite using such clippings from other artistic works, the great backdrop cannot be other than the pandemic and the main fracturing themes of the world's social, economic and political current, but especially in Brazil. As I say, see you later, and thanks for the beams! it is more poetic than pamphleteering, more refreshing than despairing; it subverts logic and revolutionizes quarantine, without, however, romanticizing it. I am sure that reading it will certainly offer a bittersweet flavor to the reader due to the tragedy vs. comedy duality, but it will also open up new perspectives or at least new lines of understanding of the dystopian period in which we all live.

Finally, I would like to say that the publication of this book transcends in importance for the author, for me, because it was the great project of my life throughout the year 2020 and part of 2021. Without it, the two years of pandemic dystopia would be even more empty and would make even less sense. This book fulfills the various gaps generated by isolation and loneliness, and its publication is a celebration of resistance, resilience, of what I call «loneliness», and of life itself, a moved life that has resisted (almost ) without going crazy. The product of madness, however, is this work that needs your support to gain wings. I hope I can count on you. Thanks!

About the author

Born in São Paulo, the son of a Portuguese woman and an almost Bahian, he found redemption in the reverse migratory path, in Aracaju, who adopted him at the age of five. He grew up in the capital of Sergipe, until he migrated to Portugal at the age of eighteen, where he currently resides in the city of Porto. He also resided in Braga, Madrid, Krakow and Prague. Due to his interest in photography, he initially studied arts, but soon joined the Geography course at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (FLUP), where he graduated in 2010. The following year, he did a postgraduate degree in Geographic Information Systems and Spatial planning in the same institution before heading to Prague, where he discovered bohemia, hedonism and luxury, but also physical degradation, depression and the gutter.

Back in Porto, he became a photographer and worked in nightlife events and summer festivals. He was a founding member of the Brazilian Anti-Fascist Immigrants Front of Porto (FIBRA) and since 2018 is responsible for the photo-activist project Ativismo Em Foco. He has two poetry books, Travessa das Almas (Corpos Editora, 2014) and Significance in Poetic Scale (2016). He is currently studying for a Master's Degree in Risks, Cities and Spatial Planning (FLUP), with a focus on the Right to the City, focusing on tourism gentrification, and is a research fellow in the project «SMARTOUR – Tourism, local accommodation and rehabilitation: smart urban policies for a sustainable future'.

Despite having a modest academic career, my great passions in this life are the arts of photography and writing. I am also an expert in the art of making mistakes, and making bad mistakes, but this is not exactly a passion, but a very inconvenient skill, although it also ends up inspiring artistically, because, as we know, misfortune and misfortune are potent spiritual propellants of art production. I write not to go crazy, literally. Or because I'm already crazy about creative madness. Art also serves to rescue and restore memories that wounds have perhaps erased, and perhaps even heal them, those same wounds, with its inexhaustible regenerative capacity, because only art saves! That's why I write, that's why I'm a poet. That's why I'm an inveterate lover of words and all the ways we can create with them.

Budget and due dates

The table below presents a budget simulation based on a realistic number of campaign supporters (column «How many people»), so that it doesn't get lost in unattainable goals for what it proposes and given the short space of time. As this is a «crowdpublishing», that is, the aim here is to raise support in the financing of a book, the costs assumed are inherent to the product's sales price (€14), attributed by the publisher in charge of its publication. As the promoter of this campaign and, therefore, author of the book, has a commitment to share the investment with the publisher in the purchase of 65 copies of the work (total of 910), this campaign aims to attract buyers before it is officially published. The promoter (and author) therefore intends to raise funds that will allow him to finance his part of the agreement with the publisher, in order to make the publication of the book viable involving the readers themselves, the target audience of the product. The table presented has only simulated values and as a demonstration of what is intended. Note that there is a final profit margin (in the simulated case, €196.6) which should, in reality, be used to finance the costs of mailing participants/buyers who do not attend the presentation session and reside far from the city of Porto. It is not expected, however, to earn such a significant profit margin in reality, but, if it exists, it will be used to print more gifts (stickers and posters). It may also be necessary to cover some costs related to the presence of the editor of Kotter Editorial in the city of Porto during the launch session.

From a scheduling point of view, the aim is to carry out the entire campaign within a month, during which the campaign will go through some important stages:

1) Its launch and subsequent adequate dissemination, with the creation of a Facebook page on the same day. This is scheduled to take place on the day the project is approved.

2) An incessant period of searching for supporters, with daily posts and sharing in groups on various social networks, initially seeking to reach the closest people, such as relatives and friends, to try a "snowball" effect from them. campaign reach more and more people. The promoter will be committed to this function on a daily basis and will have the support of some family and friends with time to play a similar role in social networks and beyond.

3) From November 20th, the project will have a face, that is, the publisher will make available a 3D image of the book cover, making everything more tangible. It is expected that engagement will increase even more from that moment on and that, with the book finally revealed, the number of supporters will increase towards the final stretch of the campaign.

4) With the end of the campaign, the amounts obtained will be revealed, as well as their benefactors, and the advertising focus will become the book launch event, where it will be delivered to supporters, as well as gifts and thanks. This launch event should take place on December 15th in the city of Porto, in a location yet to be defined.

Images