These are the words of Kaye Pope, Balboa Press author of “Pope’s Passion“ Kaye and Owen answered the call to write their book and self-publish with Balboa Press. To learn more about their story visit their website and Facebook page. Download the Balboa Press free publishing guide to receive more information. 

About the Authors

Owen Pope grew up in the small New Zealand farming community of Haldane, situated at the far end of the South Island, but he didn’t immediately throw himself into farming.

Instead, he tried a variety of jobs and married young, ignoring those who told him he was making a mistake. He had three children before divorcing and ending up in a bitter custody dispute.

Everything changed when he met a schoolteacher named Kaye, who he asked to marry him after knowing her a week. In 1987, they became the proud owners of a block of land in the Moutere, which had a small patch of raspberries.

The couple thought they could make money from a raspberry crop, but that wasn’t easy. They discovered that they could add value to their crop by making jam, and began selling their Anathoth brand of jams at a brisk pace.

Soon, other farmers joined their effort, and the couple found themselves at the top of one of New Zealand’s most successful businesses.

Preserving Our History

Our business was taken over by investors in 2003 and a new story was being told. The history of how we started the Anathoth business was lost. I wanted our story told as part of our family history for our children and our grandchildren. I also wanted to encourage and inspire others, especially farmers. We wanted to help people who might want to start their own business by processing their products further. I needed to document the struggles we had financially to survive on our raspberry garden until our jam business became successful and provided us with a good living. When other farmers came to us with similar problems we could help them out. I saw a need for the values of our generation to be made known.

Inspiring Others

In our retirement, my husband and I started a new jam business and became active participants in our local community. We sell our jam at the local markets. I wanted to inspire other retirees to have a go at something and become part of their community.

When the time came to put my very rough ramblings into a disciplined writing format my husband researched on the internet for a company that would assist us to self-publish. He saw Balboa Press as the ideal company to do this. Self-publishing was difficult at first but once I decided to enjoy the assistance from Balboa, it started to become a reality. My book would be published!

Owen and I were pleased with the assistance and the result of our book. We are now looking forward to self-publishing a sequel to our first book.

Balboa Press authors who’d like to share a 350-600 word experience related to the self-publishing of their books are invited to do so by the submission form on the Guidelines page. We may not be able to use every story, but we will read and consider them. Balboa Press reserves the right to edit stories for content, grammar, and punctuation accuracy; as well as for space.