Parade floats book

For several decades, my family was the premier parade float builder in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.  Innovation and style led the way in making the Minneapolis and St. Paul festivals among the top five in the nation each and every year. My father built his first in 1937 and, after taking time off to serve in the US Navy during WW2, quickly becoming a nationally recognized leader in the business.  People still talk about the grand floats that once roamed the streets with awe and admiration. The book, Fantasies on Wheels, The Golden Age of Parade Floats in the Twin Cities covers that era when businesses gave art free rein to stand above the crowd with the public.  
I have spent the better portion of the last decade collecting photos and stories (hearing and living so many all my life), a book seemed like a logical step. After a recent online search, I found that there hadn't been anything beyond festival programs written about parade floats, or parades at all for that matter. Floats are one of those things that are greatly anticipated and admired when they appear in parades, but nobody knows where they came from or what went into creating them.

After years of writing, researching, editing (I put in great effort to get as much of the story correct as I could) it's finally finished. A publisher has been chosen. But now I find myself short of funds, mostly due to the collapse of the float/events business, exasperated by the covid shutdowns which began in 2020, which we (collectively) still have yet to completely recover from. These stories yearn to be told, if anything to let people know that such things need not be merely relegated to history - they still have an important place in today's culture.

After spending a lifetime in such an art-driven business (a tricky career to begin with), I find myself in an area I have never travelled before, without a map to guide me. The product is a book. There is no team, no business model. My credentials are literally being born into it, thinking this life was "normal". Of the more than a thousand floats that came out of Dad's shop, I had a hand in, or outright created over 200 myself. It's been a while since I built my last, but people still talk about them and there are a few that still roam the streets of the Twin Cities parades. The customers are people who remember those halcyon days, are involved in festivals today, are interested in the "lost" history of their cities, or just appreciate what it took, what it takes to put these shows on the streets. Most importantly, it's to let them know that creating such things are still possible, that dreams can indeed come true.