Editions...

Published in Canada and the US

Two paperback editions of the book, differing only in their titles and respective publishers, were published in August 2004...

             

The Key Porter "Canadian" edition cover     The Firefly "American" edition cover

Why Different Titles?

Here's the whole sordid story...

The Author's contract to write the Book was with Key Porter Books in Toronto. The intent was to donate as much as possible from sales of the book to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Canada, so the Author agreed to donate his royalties to the WWF. The Author's chosen/working/written title for the book was The King of North America: Saving the Monarch of the New World and the intent was to pose a question or conundrum in the title: "What? There's no KING of North America! What's this book about?"

Fairly early in the manuscript review process the publisher proposed changing the title to The Last Monarch Butterfly but the Author was adamantly opposed to a negative title for the positive' "it's-not-too-late-we-really-can-save-the-Monarch" book that he was writing. Eventually, lacking any artistic vision whatsoever, the Key Porter Books edition was published under the redundant title Monarch Butterflies: Saving the King of the New World, redundant because of the big picture of a instantly-recognizable-by-95%-of-eveyone-on-the-planet Monarch butterfly shown on the cover!

Unbeknownst to the Author at the time, FIrefly Books had licensed the US rights to the book and it was printed and simultaneosly published under the "forbidden" title! Not only was the extremely-negative title used, despite the Author's specific and known objection to it, it became not just redundant, but triply redundant: The Last Monarch Butterfly: Conserving the Monarch Butterfly in a Brave New World, over the same large cover photo of, you guessed it, a Monarch Butterfly.

Apparently "Saving" wasn't good enough and was replaced with "Conserving" (the author works under the adage that he should never use a big word when a small word will do). And, to make matters worse, the Author asked, "Where, pray tell, did "Brave New World" come from?" Finally, where did the WWF logo go? Obviously, no donations would be coming from the much-larger US consumer market!

Why is this story important? Because the Author still hates that title but, in a marvelous display of indifference by the universe-at-large, it is currently the only title under which the book is commercially available. EXCEPT, the Author still has a few hundred copies of the "acceptably-titled" (still not the chosen title!) Key Porter Books edition. And you can get it cheap...