Living and working: three successful illustrated books were produced in this shared room, 1985
Sleeping (adjoining room) and working are already separated here, 1986
Together we check the glue wrap of the double pages, 1986
Shortly before handover, our best friends Dagmar and Hethe, 1986
Trying to make ends meet with slide shows, 1986
For us career changers, this was a leap into the water - a good eye is needed for color nuances on the printing press, 1985
Jackie jumped into uncharted waters as soon as she arrived, here during color matching at the Quensen print shop in 1985
The HAZ reports on our publishing house, photo: Jochen Lübke, 1987
Press photo on the occasion of receiving the Kodak Photo Book Award 1988
"Publishers out of perplexity" titles DIE ZEIT about KaJo, Frankfurt trade fair stand, 1990
We have already moved into the attic, spoiled for choice at the light table, 1991
For many years we had a small (expensive) stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but in 1991
The volunteer fire department made its premises available to us for the 10th anniversary celebrations in 1995
Naturally, Karl's parents also celebrated the publishing house's anniversary in 1995
Ein unverschuldeter Sturz aus einem Baukran hatte fast fatale Folgen, Intensivstation des Nordstadtkrankenhaus 1990 (Foto: Jochen Lübke)
For a few years we even had a small publishing office on the ground floor at Lichtenbergplatz, in 1995
The NDR reports with a TV team on a project, 1996
With Jackie on the ICE train to Würzburg to buy KaJo and the Stürtz publishing house, October 1996
By the time our travel series was sold to Stürtz, the total print run had reached almost a quarter of a million copies, 1996
Our penthouse often served as the location for deciding the order of the double pages, here for "Berlin roofs"
Friend and colleague Manfred Schmidt was an indispensable pillar of the publishing house for decades

Our KaJo publishing house learns to walk ...

in 1985, after 3 years of traveling around the world and long nights at the (expensively rented) IBM writing computer, "Bilder einer Weltreise" was ready for print and KaJo-Verlag was born. After numerous rejections from various publishers, Karl took his goal into his own hands. A start-up loan from the state of Lower Saxony went entirely towards the production of the world travel book, the first edition of which sold unexpectedly quickly. KaJo was able to hold its own in a niche in the competitive travel book market, as the book trade was still in the "golden age". Our first three illustrated books were created between a bed, a light table and an Atari PC in a 16 square meter room in a shared flat. "Publisher out of embarrassment" was the title of a 1990 DIE ZEIT report on the young KaJo publishing house, which also published internationally renowned colleagues such as National Geographic photographer Eric Valli or desert photographer Michael Martin, in order to finally be able to appear as a real publishing house and not just a "self-publisher". But financial risks also grew considerably for us newcomers. Against this background, when we sold the KaJo edition ("mit der Handschrift") to Stürtz-Verlag in 1996, it comprised 18 illustrated books and had reached a print run of a quarter of a million copies. Three titles were awarded a Kodak Photo Book Prize and two were published under license in English. In future, we concentrated our publishing activities solely on regional Hannover volumes. Our friend and colleague Manfred Schmidt was our most important support from the 1990s until 2011.