About us
I was born and grew up in a family where there were no books, but there were stories told, nursery rhymes and songs hummed.
My parents lived with my maternal grandparents and worked in a shoe factory. Every day they left early in the morning and didn’t return until late in the afternoon. So I spent my entire childhood, until I started school, at my grandparents’ house. And my grandfather, who, like most people at that time, only had the fourth grade, was a wise and clever man, felt that he had a grandson there who would educate and entertain. Among the many things he dedicated himself to was telling me and singing me stories, rhymes, rhymes and changing the order of the world, having earned the nickname of Avô Cangalhas. With my grandfather I learned how to combine tradition and creativity, giving free rein to the imagination.
Only when I arrived at school could I see and read books. It was love at first sight.
I have always been an avid reader. And because of the stories heard and read, I began to scribble rhymes, stories and dreams. In this initial process, my primary teacher was very important, because she pushed me and helped me to marry imagination with words.
Throughout my school career, helped by teachers, I acquired literary writing skills.
When I grew up, I participated in the young pages of many newspapers and magazines, publishing mainly poems.
I nurtured the dream of publishing a book for children, a recipient with which I always felt identified.
I sent manuscripts to various publishers, almost always without getting answers or getting ambiguous answers. At the time, as today, editing a first book was difficult and you had to know the medium and I didn’t know it.
In 2007, I sent a manuscript to a publisher that agreed to publish it, but imposed editing conditions that, at the time, I could not accept.
On the way home, after the interview at the publishing house, I reported what had happened to a friend who asked me: “Why don’t you make a publishing house?”. I told him that I had no money or availability. He replied that he would help me.
A month later he was calling me and asking me what he wanted to call the label. He didn’t even want to believe it, he had never thought about it again, the result of a small conversation.
I told him that the idea was to make Trinta-por-uma-linha and the expression soon became the name of the publisher. To do Trinta-por-uma-linha, which is to say, not to take ourselves too seriously and not to have a strict editorial policy.
From the very beginning, we insisted on giving time and voice to new authors, writers and illustrators.
As I saw myself, from one moment to the next, in the position of editor, I sought training, because, in fact, I knew nothing about editing. In this context, I did the «master in books and children’s and youth literature», at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. I participated in meetings of editors and specialized in “knowledge from experiences”.
Throughout these years, maintaining the identity of a small publisher, independently, which publishes mainly Portuguese authors, there have been very difficult times: the economic crises, the difficulties of distribution (with failed bets on distributors), the shortage of human resources, among other challenges typical of the medium.
In February 2020, the pandemic froze our editorial plan, made our human resources even scarcer, but… brought us closer to Digital. And it helped us discover that, more than just a children’s literature publisher, we are an editorial project that helps writers to write, edit/publish and promote their Children’s and Youth Literature books.
This “refoundation” made us return to the initial purpose (editing new authors) and associate digital marketing innovation.
We therefore propose to help authors write, publish and promote their books.
With us, do you want to Trinta-por-uma-linha?