“You know you don’t have to go, right?”

There was a quiet sincerity in his voice that brought me up short. That, and the fact that he was my boss, the editor of a small alternative newspaper that I’d joined just a few short months before. It had been my idea to go to Bosnia and report on the end of the war, but it had been the editor who’d made it happen. And it hadn’t been easy, far more than just a matter of weighing the news value of such a trip.

Our paper, with just two full-time editorial employees, had no business at all getting into the international reporting arena. We could barely afford salaries, much less the enormous expense of a five-week journey into a war zone. To fund the trip, the publisher (after much strong-arming by the editor) appealed to the community to help foot the bill. We argued, in print ads as well as in person to the advertisers to whom we appealed for money, about the importance of sending an independent observer to the region, someone who could see the conflict with fresh eyes and report back from a perspective that was unique to what could be found in the mainstream press. It was an argument we were used to making as an alternative source of news in our own community; it had been my idea—which had been embraced by my bosses—to expand that philosophy to the greater world.

The community responded admirably. The local independent bookstore offered me a few hundred dollars worth of books for research; both readers and advertisers contributed large and small amounts of money; a local magazine publisher with a correspondent in Bosnia offered me free room and board in Tuzla. Finally, the other members of the staff passed the hat and raised pocket money for my trip. Amounting to just over $500, it was a ridiculously feeble budget, but I knew no better. I was only 25 and had never been out of the country before, much less to a conflict zone.

Because of how many people had contributed to the trip, and how publicly we’d beat our breasts about the need to send an inexperienced reporter from an impoverished Colorado newspaper into the teeth of the biggest story of the moment over in war-torn Eastern Europe, it surprised me when my editor gave me an escape hatch. What did he mean, I didn’t have to go?

Considering my nerves that morning, it was easier for me to think that I certainly did have to go, that there was no option to change my fate. I considered bailing out, leaving my backpack of clothes and camera equipment in the trunk and going with him to some early-morning bar to drink a few beers while the plane I was supposed to be on left without me. But it was only a fleeting instinct.

In truth, I wanted to go to Bosnia not for my paper or its readers; the paper was just a vehicle to get me there. I knew from an early stage in my career that one of the things I wanted to do as a journalist was travel the world and write about conflicts. My job at the small alternative weekly was my first opportunity to do so and I was lucky to have convinced the bosses that it was a worthwhile endeavor. In the end, of course, I believe it was. I didn’t win the paper the Pulitzer for my coverage (or anything else, actually, except for a third-place photography award) and I seriously doubt the publisher considers the adventure worth his while.

But was certainly worth mine. My visit to Bosnia in 1996 led directly to my trip a few years later to Kosovo, which led to the publication of my first book The Road to Kosovo; A Balkan Diary. And that, of course, led me exactly where I’d wanted to go in the first place, into a career that has taken me around the globe.

Why bring this up? I recently had the rights to The Road to Kosovo reverted to me and over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be re-editing the work and releasing it in a digital version, which currently doesn’t exist. It’s the only one of my works not available for Kindles or iPads and I’m excited to change that. There’s also some nice synergy to doing this now—it will give me a chance to dust it off, give it a clean new look and put it on the digital shelf at about the same time all of my previous works, as well as my latest one, will become freshly available early next year. In addition to the springtime publication of my newest book (whose title is still being worked on, but which will likely be called Pot Inc.), Blood Diamonds is being re-released with new material to update it for its 10-year anniversary and Flawless is coming out in paperback. Of course all of those later works will be available digitally, so it’s nice to allow their eldest predecessor, published well before the advent of e-readers, to join them.

I’ll update the e-reader project as it moves along; in fact, since I’d like for it to have a new cover, I’m considering some sort of contest among my readers to either choose one or design one. I’m still mulling this over, but if there’s any interest amongst you, please email me your thoughts and/or ideas at greg@bygregcampbell.com.