Welcome to Ovenden Lodge Publications
Ovenden Lodge Publications is a one-person publishing company that began in 1999 as a means of publishing the author’s books about Port Adelaide, South Australia. It is run by John Couper-Smartt, a retired psychiatrist who has written extensively in the medical field as well as on the history of South Australia’s major port. Since retiring he has been able to devote more time to writing fiction and screenplays.
After many years as a recreational cruising sailor, John sold the junk-rigged schooner he had built with his wife, Lina, to take up the more sedate hobby of flying. His kit-built Savannah is based at Gawler Airfield.
From his own experience of writing, editing, indexing and publishing over many years, John knows how daunting it can be to contemplate the production of your own book, thesis or paper. Printers and publishers will be a great source of assistance – but have to charge at rates of more than $30 per page for lay-out in order to meet their overheads.
A good index will make all the difference to any factual or scientific publication, but, even with publishing software, it takes considerable skill and patience to get it right.
Even in a family history for limited distribution, a thoughtful layout makes an enormous difference to the accessibility of the material. Proper placement of images, maps and diagrams makes the text, in any book, so much easier to follow.
With help, you can do it all yourself for a good deal less. Whether you are producing a Master’s or Doctorate thesis, a family history, a novel, a book of poems or a screenplay, an expert’s input can usually help. Everyone’s project is different; the cost is determined by the scale of the production – and just how much the author wishes to do themselves.
So, whether you need assistance with writing, spelling, syntax, indexing, design, layout, or preparing your work to print-ready status, John can probably help.
Free, no-obligation quotations for services are readily available. Please feel free to contact John at Ovenden Lodge via the Contacts page to seek further information.