Michael loved to travel all around the world. He practically visited every country in the world and along the way, he learn a lot of things about the countries and himself. Like many interesting things in Michael's life, Michael's travels was barely discussed. Things have drastically changed since Michael died in 2009 and all aspects of his life have been discussed and written about. Two fans name Antonie Cadinot and Christophe Charlot wrote a travel guide book on Michael's travels and famous stops called Travelling With a King Travel Guide For the Fans of Michael Jackson. This is the first edition of the English version of the book and it contains very interesting facts about the locations. This session is about the book, the inspiration behind the book, what it took to make the book and the dedication both men had in completing the book. I hope that this session you make you, a reader of this blog, to purchase the book and enjoy it.
Q: What was the inspiration for doing this book?
A: The inspiration is Michael of course. Antoine and I are major MJ fans since the 90's. His music and his art inspired each and every line written in the book.
Travelling with a King, 2015.
Q: What was the inspiration for doing this book?
A: The inspiration is Michael of course. Antoine and I are major MJ fans since the 90's. His music and his art inspired each and every line written in the book.
Q: What countries are mentioned in the book?
A: In Travelling With A King - Book One, there are USA, South America (Mexico, Argentina, Brasil) and a few selected places from Europe and Asia. The second part, Book two, will include Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Last year, we published a full edition in French which included every country of the world. For the English version, we decided to make it in two volumes so it's more easy to bring in travel.
Michael in NYC in the 1970s.
Michael in NYC in 2001.
Q: How did you come up with the idea of the book?
A: In every places we traveled, we always wanted to find places located to Michael Jackson. Such as, records shops, Madame Tussaud's and the Hard Rock Café. When I made trips in Japan, USA and Thailand, I always looked for places to discover that related to MJ. Before I went on the travels, it was hard work finding great places. So that is how the idea came about in regards of the book and to help fans with a book that includes all kinds of places of interest.
Q: It is assumed that a lot of research was done for the book when it comes to the types of places Michael visited. How did you tackle the information?
A: First of all, we know Michael Jackson's career and life very well and we tried to list all the of places he traveled in his life by our memory. We also made a few travels by ourselves on the footsteps of Michael Jackson, especially in the USA. The biggest part of the job was searching for locations, in books, magazines, newspapers and the Internet to collect more and more information. Then, we managed to verify every information, by contacting our friends all around the world and by contacting places we wanted to mention in this book. Of course, we made a selection of places for this book. We wanted to help fans to find great places, not every place. We wanted to show locations that worth the travel. We could mention every airport in the world or almost every stadium where the Jacksons and Michael Jackson ever performed. However, that would not have been really interesting for the fans. We think you would prefer to find places where things worth seeing and places with symbolic value. So we did not pretend this book was totally comprehensive. The search, verification and selection was a two year job.
Michael in Brazil, 1995.
Q: How long did you take to complete the book?
A: We worked about two years before releasing the French version in 2014. Then we took another year to complete the Book One in English. However, the idea began to come in our minds nearly five years ago.
Q: Had you had any trouble getting a publisher for the book?
A: No because we do not have a publisher. We never searched for a publisher for the moment. The idea is not about making money. We wanted to do everything by ourselves. So we were sure to have the whole power to decide on everything on this book. We wanted to be able to choose the name of the book, the colors, the pictures, the artwork. Of course, I would have been more easy to find a publisher, to send him the text and wait for him to finish the product. However, we wanted to be able to share our passion from A to Z.
Q: What was the hardest part of doing the book?
A: Making the book was a real pleasure. For Antoine and for I, it was a passion. So, it's not really hard. Even if sometimes we were wondering if we would succeed in finishing the book. However, the hardest part is to make sure that every MJ fan is informed about the release of the book and order it. It's a day-to-day work today to make the promotion because we do not have a publisher, we're doing everything by ourselves. However, we do not have the marketing budgets of a big publisher. So, I would say this is the hardest part.
Q: What were the challenges you had doing the book?
A: One of the challenges was to select the places. Of course, we do not pretend to be 100% comprehensive. There might be other places. For example, we do not mention all the airports of the world, although MJ probably went into each airport.
Michael in London in 1985.
Q: How did the both of you teamed up to do the book?
A: We divided the part of the world by each of us working on different countries. Then, we corrected and made proposition of new locations on each countries. The both of us had some missions. However, all the big decisions were taken together.
Q: How dedicated were you when you were working on the book?
A: Working on the book was not our main jobs, (we have a real job), so we worked on it during our free time. It was each and every day. For three years, we have been working on the book and there was not a day that went by without working on the book. Even now, we're totally dedicated to answer the questions, to ship the orders and to answer questions for interviews. All this hard work is really paid off when we see all the comments of the book and the interest of fans from Japan, China, USA, Europe and it is great to see their enthusiasm.
Q: Traveling with the King has a second edition coming up. What will be included in the second edition?
A: All the countries of Europe (France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands), Asia (Japan, China), Australia and Africa.
Q: What interesting facts did you discover about Michael's travels when working on the book?
A: It was interesting to see that in some countries, Michael did a lot of sightseeing in countries such as Japan and Germany. However, in other countries,he had no time to discover or do any sightseeing.
Michael at Neverland, 1993.
Q: What made you decide to do a English version of the book?
A: The fans. When we released the book in French, a lot of international fans asked us to publish it in English because they were interested in a travel guide about Michael Jackson, but didn't understand a word of French. So we heard them and decided that would be exciting to have it in English. Also, I had the chance to give the book to the Jackson brothers, Jackie, Tito, Marlon and Jermaine, I was wondering if they would understand what was stated in the book. So, with the English version, I hope they would also be able to use our book in their next travels.
Q: What do you want the reader to learn from the book?
A: I especially want that the book help them. It would be my real pleasure that they use the book a lot. That they discover some new places around the world when they travel. Even if they do not make a "tribute trip" for MJ, they can bring the book in any travel ad add a little Jackson touch to it. I know much of the French fans are using the book bring them even if they go on a professional trip. I hope to see the same kind of thing with our book with English speaking fans. I was so happy last week when I received pictures from Californian fans discovering a restaurant in Los Angeles related to Michael's chef (in which there is a Gold Record of the HIStory album)... It's funny to think that our book made by two European guys can even help U.S. fans and that means a part of our mission is a success.
Michael in Gary, Indiana in 2003.
Traveling With A King: Travel Guide For the Fans of Michael Jackson Book One is on sale now. You can order the book through their website and Amazon.com.
You can contact the authors of book by clicking on these links -
Website - http://www.travellingwiththeking.com
Twitter - http://twitter.com/mymjguide
Email - travellingwiththeking@gmail.com
*My thanks to Antonie Cadinot and Christophe Charlot for taking the time to do this session.
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Pictures -
The pictures are from a google.com search.
The pictures are from a google.com search.
