Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

The Healdsburg Tribune was kind enough to post my upcoming event at the Hotel Healdsburg on their website. Check it out if you get a chance.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

“I’ve wanted to be an author my whole life.” That’s what a young 6th grade boy said to me last week when I visited James Monroe Elementary. “You’re an inspiration to me. Thank you for visiting our school.” He made my heart melt. It’s moments like this that are just priceless and make me love what I do. School visits are definitely one of the highlights of book promotion.

James Monroe Elementary is small school in Santa Rosa, CA. I was fortunate enough to have the library for my presentation. The school library is beautiful — tons of books and an impressive computer lab to boot. There’s even a cozy reading corner set up with a cushy chair. The library tech was kind enough to let me use her space and her furniture for my presentation.

Camille Picott preparing for her presentation at James Monroe Elementary School

My first presentation was for the 5th graders. I talked about comic books, graphic novels, and illustrated novels, and the similarities and differences between them. The second presentation was for the 6th graders. We talked about Chinese Mythology.

Camille Picott presenting a lesson on Chinese Mythology to students at James Monroe Elementary

The students had a wonderful curiosity. They asked a lot of questions about my book and writing. Some of them were curious about me: Am I married, do I have children, what do I do on the weekend, etc.

I ask questions during the presentation to help the kids focus on the lesson. When a student answers a question correctly, I give him or her a Raggedy Chan bookmark. After the presentation, the students asked me to autograph the bookmarks. A few girls also asked me to sign their hands. One wanted me to sign her sweatshirt (with a permanent marker!). Thank goodness the librarian was nearby and supplied paper instead. I really enjoyed myself and look forward to my next school presentation.

Camille autographing Raggedy Chan bookmarks for students

*You’ll notice that I purposely only post pictures where you cannot clearly see the faces of the children. This is to protect the privacy of the students.*

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

In celebration of Chinese New Year, I will be reading from Raggedy Chan at the Hotel Healdsburg on Sunday, February 7th, from 1:00 – 2:00pm. The event is free and open to the public. Almond cookies and hot apple cider will be served. A Raggedy Chan coloring activity will follow immediately after the reading. Hope to see some of you there!

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

After some minor/major website issues, I finally got the Raggedy Chan landing page up. Check it out at: http://www.raggedychan.com/ (Next time, will someone remind me not to pull the old site down until the new one is up and operational?) It now links directly to Pixiu Press and eliminates the worry of having to take care of 2 websites.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

At this month’s meeting of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Assoc, we were given a special treat: a power point presentation by E.M. Ginger of 42-Line. 42-Line is a publishing company specializing in converting rare manuscripts into digital books.

What I loved most about this presentation was the innovative use of digital media and eBooks. There are lots of eBooks out there, but let’s face it: nothing beats the smell and feel of a real book. But 42-Line realizes there are in fact a lot of rare books out there that can’tbe held and touched and smelled by the common public–books like the Guttenberg Bible, of which there are only 3 in the world. 42-Line makes rare and special books available to common public though digital media. A rare book that carries a price tag of $143,000 can be purchased as a digital book for anywhere from $20 – $80 from 42-Line.

42-Line gained access to the Library of Congress, where they used specialized equipment to photograph every page of rare books such as the Guttenberg Bible. They use the highest resolution available, so that buyers of their ebooks can zoom in on rare illustrations found inside the books. They also take high-res photos of the book covers, so the details can be enjoyed by bibliophiles. 

The photographs of the books and all the interior pages are only one facet of 42-Line’s digital books. Each eBook is designed so reader can print the entire content. They also include translations. They even embed a search engine into the eBook, so readers can search for special passages. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. The eBook software can’t scan the pictures of the text. Instead, every word of the books has to be manually embedded into the software for the search engine.

To produce these digital formats of rare books, 42-Line employed designers, photographers, typographers, writers, translators, etc. — everything you would need to produce a print book, and in some cases, more.

And where does the name of the company, “42-Line,” come from? Apparently, the Guttenburg Bible is famous for having 42 lines of text on each page. From what I understood from Ginger’s presentation, this was the first time 42 lines of text was made standard.

I’ve seen a lot of great presentations at the monthly BAIPA meetings, but this one was by far the most exciting. I love to see how other publishers are distinguishing themselves through creative innovation.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

I just love these notes from the students. I can’t resist posting one last one. It’s my very favorite of the bunch. (Hey, be glad I’m not posting all 60!)

The note reads: “November 19,2009. Dear Camille Picott, Thank you for coming to our school on Tuesday November 17. I love your book and that you came. Thank you for doing the presentation of Raggedy Chan. Thank you for making Raggedy Chan for all the kids in the world. Can I say thank you 1 thousand times. From, xxx”

“Thank you for making Raggedy Chan for all the kids in the world.” Seriously, it makes my heart just melt.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Here’s the next thank-you note from a student at Waldo Rohnert Elementary:

It reads: “Dear Ms. Picott, Thank you for coming to our school and thank you for telling us about the story. Raggedy Chan is a cool story. Thank you for the book mark. Sincerely, xxx” (Again, name omitted to protect student’s privacy.)

I asked a lot of questions during my presentations. When a student answered correctly, I gave him or her a Raggedy Chan bookmark. That’s what the student is referring to in the letter. I think this letter is so sweet!

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Back in November, I went to Waldo Rohnert Elementary School to do a presentation on Chinese Mythology for the kids. I recently received a packet of thank-you notes from the children. Each note was accompanied by an illustration of a character of scene from Raggedy Chan. I was so impressed by the thank you notes. The students’ penmanship and writing skills were fantastic. I was blown away by the little details so many of them recalled from the presentation. I’ve scanned a few of the letters and will be posting them over the next few days. I have removed the name of the student from the letter to protect their identity.

The letter reads:

“Dear Picott, I like the dragons that you showed us. I can’t believe dragons in China are nice to people. I thought that they were mean to people! I think it is interesting that one of the dragons can swim under water. I can’t believe that you have been writing books since you were nine! Sincerely, xxx” At the very bottom of the letter is an illustration of Raggedy Chan.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

I’m a little ate posting on this month’s BAIPA meeting, but better late than never, right?

First off, I had the pleasure of attending the meeting with Amanda Baker, a local illustrator from Sonoma County. You can learn more about Amanda and see samples of her fabulous illustrations at: http://amandakaybaker.com/ She is actively seeking work as an illustrator, so if you know of any opportunities, please contact her. Most impressive are her fairies.

This month’s BAIPA presenter was David Cole of Bay Tree Publishing. His book is The Complete Guide to Book Marketing. (Check it out on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Book-Marketing/dp/1581153228.) David gave us several great handouts. One handout covered the Bay Tree publishing model, and the other was a list of marketing resources. Some of the resources on his marketing resources handout include: Independent Book Publishers Association and Northern California Book Publicity and Marketing Association.

David Cole had some neat insights into the publishing industry. Here are a few of the things he covered in his presentation:

- Writing in only about 10% of the work; the other 90% of the work is marketing/publicity. I think this is true whether or not you are a publishers or an author or both. If you want people to buy your stuff, you have to let them know it exists through marketing and publicity.

- Marketing is Everything & Everything is Marketing. This is one of my favorite tips that I picked up from David. When he says everything is marketing, he means EVERYTHING: from the author, to the interior of the book, to the title, to the target audience, to the book cover, to the publisher — EVERYTHING is an aspect of marketing, it’s just a matter of finding out how it fits into the puzzle. This made me think more about some of the marketing plans I’m working on.

- The intent of a writer is to find a reader, to share his/her story with others. If this wasn’t the intent, all of us would be writing and just sticking our stories away in a drawer or computer file. Some of us do this anyway. It’s always a bit scary for any artist to put his or her work out for the public, whether it’s a painting or a sculpture or a magazine or a book. But it part of the process, and a part of intent behind the writing (for most of us, anyway).

- Marketing is the process of putting the writer and the reader together. You don’t have to reach 1 million people, just the people who are most likely to buy your book.

- How do you make a small fortune in the publishing business? Start with a large fortune. Enough said.

-

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of being a presenter at the annual Best Book Workshop at the Sonoma County Office of Education.

The workshop was organized by Michael Powell, one of the district librarians. It was attended by approximately twenty-five local librarians and teachers.

My presentation had two segments. Since part of the workshop involved “book talk,” I presented a power point show of my book. I included many of the illutrations and gave a summary of Raggedy Chan. This gave me a chance to highlight some of the themes in the book, such as ‘immigration’ and ‘fitting in’.

Next I did a presentation on speculative fiction. I discussed why I thought it was important to education, and I talked about some of the free resources out there for educators interested in incorporating speculative fiction into their lessons.  (One of the free resources of course being my website, where I give away free teaching curricula.)

Here is a picture of me with Raggedy Chan and Michael Powell.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Heritage Tale logo

And here it is — the finalized version of the Heritage Tale logo! (I know it looks suspiciously like the ‘nearly final’ logo I posted last week, but my designer did some final tweaking on it.) I could not be happier with the way it turned out. The amazing Joey Manfre (designer) has done it again!

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Joey and I did some more tweaking to the Heritage Tale logo. I’m really happy with the way it’s shaping up. I’m especially happy with the new font Joey created for “Heritage Tale.” I was trying to figure out a way to add a fantasy genre element to the logo. Joey came up with the idea of fiddling with the font to accomplish this, and I think it really works.

Here’s what it will look like on the books. I think it will be easy to recognize as a brand image (or at least I hope it will be!).

Here’s a close up. The descriptor above the logo (in this case, “Chinese”) will change with each book to reflect the heritage in the story.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

On Tuesday, November 17th, I visited Waldo Rohnert Elementary School to give a presentation to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders on Raggedy Chan and Chinese Mythology.

I had a blast. The kids were just amazing. They were SO well mannered, inquisitive, and adorable.

I started off by sharing the story of my Chinese auntie bringing me a Chinese rag doll by the name of Raggedy Chan when I was a little girl.

Camille Picott giving a presentation on Raggedy Chan and Chinese Mythology

I had the pictures from Raggedy Chan enlarged and laminated on poster boards. I gave the students a short summary of my book. As I talked about the story, my mom walked around with the poster boards. I’ve never heard so many “ooohs!” and “aahhs!” before! The kids really seemed to love the artwork. I wish my illustrator could have been there to hear all those “ooohs!” and “aahhs!” over his work.

To help focus their attention, I periodically asked the kids questions throughout the presentation. If a student answered my question correctly, he or she got a Raggedy Chan bookmark. At first, only 5 or 6 kids raised their hands to answer questions. By the end, about 60 hands shot up into the air — before I even asked the question! Then when I called on some of them, they would say, “Oh, I forgot.” Their enthusiasm was so cute.

I am definitely looking forward to my next school visit, which will be in January.

Camille Picott with Ms. Zimmerman, the teacher who organized the author visit.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

I did some more work with Joey Manfre on the Heritage Tale logo. It’s not quite there yet, but I’m liking the direction that it’s moving.  I especially like the new font for “Heritage Tale” that he made — I think it has a distinct fantasy genre feel to it.

Heritage Tale logo - Take 3

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Once upon a time, I had a nice blog. Then the blog demon came along and ate up everything that was good about the blog. I then had to beseech the aid of the fabulous Web Wizard from www.winlum.com, who waved his magic wand and vanquished the evil blog demon. Now all is right again in the world of my blog. The End.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

This will be my last post about World Fantasy.

This was a panel of particular interest to me. It was moderated by Alan Beatts, owner of Borderland Books in San Francisco. Also on the panel were Justin (didn’t catch his last name and it’s not on the website) of Slow Glass Booksin Australia, and Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books. Beats has been in the business for 12 years; Justin, 21 years, and Ketter, 33 years. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this panel of pros.

I wasn’t able to get great quotes in my notes, so instead I will paraphrase the juciest tidbits and give credit to their source. If I had accidentally mis-quoted someone, please let me know so I can make a correction right away. I try to be precise when I take notes, but I get writing pretty fast and so sometimes make mistakes.

Anyone can publish a book, but not anyone can get into a bookstore. On average, 2-3 new publishers make contact to try and get a bookseller to take their books. There was a time when it was possible to carry every SF/F book in print. SF/F now has a lot of small presses representing the genre. It’s impossible to carry them all. There’s also a huge reprint market. — Greg Ketter.

With Lightnins Source (a POD printer), book prices are going up, but the number of big publishers is going down. — Alan Beatts.

Walmart and Target are both trying to get into the bookselling game. — Greg Ketter.

Amazon sells eBooks as a loss. — Alan Beatts.

Amazon doesn’t make money selling books; it makes money selling data. — Greg Ketter.

In Australia, a mass market costs about $20; a tradeback about $34; and a hardback about $50. — Justin

Book prices currently don’t keep up with inflation. Publishers only make money on 1 of 2 hardback sold, and 1 in 3 of mass market books. Big chains order lots and return lots, which increases the overall price. — Alan Beatts.

Return rate of indy book stores is much lower than that of big chains. Dreamhaven only returns about 1% of books. — Greg Ketter.

Indy stores are more expensive, but employees have better knowledge. Chain stores are cheaper and more convenient, but more difficult to get help in. Amazin is negating the convenience of chain stores. — Alan Beatts.

Espresso Machine costs about $100,000. It costs about $21,000 to set up a bookstore. — Alan Beatts.

Barnes & Noble and Borders are the 2 main national chains in the US. Borders took a lot of loans, and that money is due in April 2010.  If Borders goes down, it will have a massive effect on the whole business. — Alan Beatts.

Beatts asked the panel to make 1 prediction for the world of bookselling in 10 years: Greg Ketter predicts he will retire. Justin predicts libraries will be in bigger demand, and also be a bigger resource center. Alan Beatts predict national chain book stores will not exist as physical storefronts.

Half Price books (a chain) specialized in buying remainders. Half Price might beep growing, though they are dependent on the big stores like Borders and B&N generating those big remainders. — Greg Ketter.

Consumers vote with their dollar. — Alan Beatts.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Once upon a time, I had a nice Word Press blog, complete with nifty banner to match my website. Then one say, Word Press suggested that I update to the latest version. Wanting to be a good Word Press user, I updated. Lo and behold, my banner disappeared. Now I can’t figure out how to get it back. Sigh.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

Is violence over-used in speculative fiction?

This was the question faced by panelists of “the Last Resort.” It was moderated by Mark L. Van Name, who had an amazing amount of knowledge and sensitivity in regards to the subject of violence. Also on the panel were Sue Bolich, Peter V. Brett, Alan DeNiro, and Joan Spicci Saberhagen.

I found the discussions and comments thoughtful, insightful, and illuminating. It helped me reflect on my own writing. There were so many interesting things being said during the panel that I couldn’t get it all down. I’ve tried only to put in quotes those sentences that I feel I was able to capture completely as I listened. In areas where I felt I may have missed something, I’ve summarized. Again, if I’ve accidentally mis-quoted someone and you would like me to pull it off the post, please let me know. My goal of this post is to share the content of what I felt was the best panel at the convention.

Some quotes jotted down during the panel:

“Violence needs to fit with the needs of the story.” — Peter V. Brett

“Society creates a class of people [soldiers, policemen, firemen] to deal with things that no one else wants to deal with.” — Mark L. Van Name

“Violence done out of profession is different than violence done out of weakness of character.” — Mark L. Van Name

“Culture and personality effect the level of violence.” — Sue Bolich.

“Violence is hard-wired into all of us.” — Peter V. Brett

“Culture decides what’s violent and what’s not. Society decides when violence is justified.” — Joan Spicci Saberhagen

Question from Mark L. Van Name to the panelists: “How does your personal background effect your approach to violence?”

Answer #1: Sue Bolich served in the army, though she never went to combat. Her characters are not the aggressors. Violence is a reaction to a scene or setting. This is a reflection of her own reaction to violence.

Answer #2: Joan Spicci Saberhagen is from a big Italian family. She says they were always one step away from real violence, though there was never really follow through.

Answer #3:  “The party with the fewest rules will win the violent fight.” — Mark L. Van Name. In his fiction, Mark likes the explore the following question: Given the same situation to live over, would the character do the same thing? He says that as a society, we should not judge so harshly those who do things in certain situations.

Question from Mark L. Van Name to the panelists: “What’s the moment in fiction where you feel it’s okay to resort to violence?”

Answer #1: “That moment of tension that needs resolution.” — Peter V. Brett

Answer #2: “Depends on the character.  Your reason needs to be true based on an individual character. It needs to arise naturally.” — Sue Bolich

Answer #3: “Violence could be a function of world building.” — Alan DeNiro

Answer #4: “You don’t have stories unless you have obstacles.” — Joan Spicci Saberhagen. She explained that violence takes different forms in different stories. For example, in a Jane Austen story, a person stalking out of a room would be considered violent. The setting determines what is and what is not violent.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

This was a fascinating panel at World Fantasy.  I’ve never heard of The Library of America. I actually never got a clear definition of it, although after attending the panel, I suspect the might be responsible for several of the large anthologies I had to lug around as an English student. Their tag line is “America’s Best and Most Significant Writing in Durable and Authoritative Editions.” Apparently, when they produce a volume, the writings and/or author become recognized as being part of canonized literature. To be in a Library of America book is to have legitimacy in the eyes of academics.

Anyway, the panel discussion was led by Peter Straub. Also on the panel were Brain Evenson, S.T. Joshi, Tim Powers, and Gary K. Wolfe.

*Note:  This post is based on the notes I took during the panel. I am paraphrasing. If I mis-state of mis-quote someone, please know it is not intentional. If you let me know, I’ll fix the mistake. My opinion are in parentheses.*

Peter Straub had the honor of putting together a two volume collection of “American Fantastic Tales.” He recounted many of his adventures in putting together this collection, which took about 2 years. It was fascinating to listen to him.

First off, he was told: no science fiction, no fantasy. (In a collection called American Fantastic Tales. Go figure. I suppose us sf/f writers are the elephant in the room certain intelluctuals don’t want to acknowledge.) So basically, the stories in the collection fall into the horror category.

He did run into some challenges with authors and publishers. Some authors wanted too much money for their stories, and some publishers just plain refused to sell reprint rights. Sometimes he couldn’t get his hands on the original publications, because some owners of old magazines weren’t willing to share.

Straub would have liked the collection to be twice as long, but he was limited to 800 pages in each volune. He also had to undergo intense negotiations with the Library of America board. If they decided they didn’t like a story, there wasn’t much he could to keep them from discluding it. Although he did say the meetings often resembled “horse trades,” where Straub really had to fight for those stories and writers he felt were so important to the genre.

The collection has stories published up through 2007 — the most current of any stories to be found in LOA collections.

Here are some of the fascinating quotes I was able to jot down during the panel:

“Defining a canon is not the same as choosing canonical stories.” — Gary K. Wolfe.

“Seriousness need not be negated by introduction of the fantastic [to literature]” — Peter Straub.

Originally published at Pixiu Press Blog. You can comment here or there.

I had the great fortune of being able to attend this year’s World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. I sat in on a lot of fascinating panels, listened to some great stories, and met some great people. I’ll be posting about it over the next week or so (I took lots of notes). But first I thought I’d get the photos up. I wish I’d taken more, but I was so preoccupied with everything going on around me that I didn’t think about my camera very much. I’m such a dork that I forgot to get a pic with my buddy who attended the con with me, Stephen Gold. Here’s a look at the few pics I did get:

Patrick Swenson of Fairwood Press, who was kind enough to have a few drinks with me and share some of his experiences in the publishing world.

Artist John Picacio, who gave a fantastic presention about his artistic process. I was lucky enough to get a book autographed by him.

Author Michael Shea, who I discovered lives in the same town as I do!

 

Author Jay Lake, who always gives a fun, lively reading. I was able to get him to autograph a few books for my daughter.

Author Jeffrey Ford. I've read some of his stuff (good stories!). It was neat to put the face with the writing.

Author Jeff Vandemeer, reading from his book about sentient mushrooms and noir detectives.

My friend Ann Wilkes, reading from her novel, The Awesome Lavratt, with the gals from Broad Universe.

Author and Guest of Honor Michael Swanwick, preparing to read to his audience.

And that’s all the pictures I got (besides a handful of crappy panel pictures — rooms were too big and the panelists are all dark and hard to see).

Now I’ve just got to figure out which con to go to next…