Camille Picott

World Fantasy Report #4: Publishing & Bookselling in 10 Years

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:35:09 GMT

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.

Once upon a time, I had a nice blog…

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:55:51 GMT

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.

World Fantasy Report #3: The Last Resort (A discussion about violence used in SF genre writing)

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:28:25 GMT

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.

World Fantasy Report #2: Canonical Fantasy–Genre Fiction & The Library of America

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:04:39 GMT

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.

World Fantasy Report #1: Pictures!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:59:37 GMT

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…

Raggedy Chan at the Sitting Room – A Tea Party Under the Redwoods

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:07:04 GMT

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

On Sunday, October 18th, I spoke on a “Writing for Children” panel, an event sponsored by Cotati’s Sitting Room library.

The event began with a lovely tea party under the redwoods. Each table was set with lovely china tea cups, cloth napkins, tablecloths, and miniature pumpkins. There was hot tea for all to enjoy, along with homemade bread, homemade cookies, homemade sandwiches, and local melon. Guests brought their favorite childhood book, which served as a nice conversation starter.

Three types of finger sandwiches were available: cucumber, chicken salad, and egg salad

One of the many lovely tea pots at the event

Homemade cookies - yum!

Guests enjoying tea and snacks under the redwoods

After the tea party, we all moved inside. A small podium and microphone were set up. Each of the authors spoke on several topics: favorite childhood book, what inspires stories, etc. I had an opportunity to talk about my childhood love of speculative fiction, and how I seek to promote speculative fiction in the classroom with free Raggedy Chan curricula.

Camille Picott, author of Raggedy Chan, discussing the importance of speculative fiction in learning environments

Lisa Shulman, author of The Moon Might be Milk, offers classes on 'writing for children' at the Sitting Room

Tina Stolberg, author of Little Shrew Caboose, discusses her favorite childhood book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with the audience

After the presentation from the authors, we had a special treat: Lynette Hunter, performing solo as Laura Ingalls Wilder. Completely in character and costume, Lynette gave us an insight into the life and stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Lynette Hunter in character as Laura Ingalls Wilder

And finally, this wonderful event was all made possible by the wonderful J.J. Wilson, one of the founders of the Sitting Room.

The amazing J.J. Wilson, host of the event and one of the fouders of the Sitting Room library

For those of you not familiar with the Sitting Room, it’s a privately funded non-profit library located in Cotati, California. It has a collection of over 7,000 books. The Sitting Room also hosts writing workshops, book groups, and other events related with literature and writing.

The Frugal Book Promoter, by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:19:53 GMT

I just finished reading The Frugal Book Promoter, by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. I figure that since I can't afford a fancy publicist (although I do get excellent help from <lj user="av8rwinn>) I need to educate myself as much as possible when it comes to publicity. This book did a great job explaining press releases (aka media releases) and press kits. There is great information on landing radio gigs and other forms of self-promotion. The only discouraging part of the book is time. I don't think the average working person can possible keep up with all the work publicity requires. (I guess that's why people hire PR firms.) On the bright side, I can focus on a few avenues and improve my skills. Some PR is better than non, and I definitely feel better prepared after reading this book.

Publishing University

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:13:47 GMT

Every year, IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) holds its annual Publishing University, where publishers large and small can go and learn about the publishing industry. It's pretty pricey to go, so instead, I got the next best thing: an MP3 DC-ROM for the 2009 Publishing University. It has MP3 recordings of every session. (In some ways, this is better than actually going, since there is no way I could attend every session.) It even includes PDFs of all the handouts given at the event. I'm in the car about 40 minutes a day, so I've got plenty of opportunity to listen to them.

Word Press connected

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:44:50 GMT

Okay, I feel like a rock star. I figured out how the make the Word Press Plugin work so that my Pixiu Press blog feeds into my LJ site. I'm so impressed that you'd think I wrote the code myself.

Raggedy Chan at Litquake

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:42:29 GMT

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

I was invited to participate in Litquake’s “Off the Richter Scale” reading at the Koret auditorium in San Francisco’s Main Public Library. This was my first visit to the library. It was incredible — one of those types of places you could happily lose yourself in for a week. It was so cool to see so many books in one place.

San Francisco Main Public Library

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Litquake, it’s a 2-week literary event in San Francisco. There are readings, panels, presentation, and even the famous Lit Crawl.

Litquake - Celebrating 10 Years of Literary Mayhem

“Off the Richter Scale” readings began at 11am and lasted until 5pm. Each hour specialized in a different theme. I participated in the hour entitled “Visualize This: Graphic & Illustrated Works.”

Koret Auditorium - SF Main Public Library

The Koret Auditorium is a beautiful room. This picture doesn’t quite do it justice, but you can see the huge screen hanging over the stage. Each presenter of “Visualize This: Graphic & Illustrated Works” had a slide show to accompany the reading. This was a great way for the audience to become acquainted with the artwork to be found inside the books.

Inside the Koret Auditorium

Also reading during the hour were Ben Fong-Torres, Annice Jacoby, Ivory Madison, and the Stanford Graphic Novel Project.

Litquake Readers: Annice Jacoby, Camille Picott, Ben Fong-Torres, and a student from the Stanford Graphic Novel Project

Camille Picott, reading from Raggedy Chan

One of the Raggedy Chan presentation slides, which tells listeners about the free teaching curricula offered with the book

This was really an amazing event. It’s so neat to see so many people excited about literature and reading.

Litquake is coordinated by a fleet of volunteers. I have nothing but admiration for the folks who work for months and months to organize this every year. The organizer of the Koret Readings was Jeannine Klein. She had to organize 36 different writers over a 6 hour period. She worked with the Friends of the Library to make sure everyone had a chance to sell their books at the event. Thank you Jeannine, for putting together this wonderful event!

Blog Feed

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:55:27 GMT

I think I may have just figured out how to feed posts from my Pixiu Press blog directly into my LJ blog. Cross your fingers that it works...I'm so not tech-savvy.

Prepping for LitQuake reading

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:33:12 GMT

I get to use a power point presentation at my LitQuake reading next weekend, since I'm reading with the "Visualize This" group. It will give me a great chance to show off some of joeyink's fabulous work.

Nugget's First Halloween!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:16:49 GMT

Okay, so Halloween is like a month away, but since I will be attending World Fantasy this year, I'll technically miss my nugget's first Halloween. We were invited to a pumpkin carving party this weekend, so I decided to make the best of it.

First, I dressed nugget in her Halloween-themed outfit and took her to the local pumpkin patch. (Everyone thinks she's a boy when I dress her in orange; I never knew orange was a "boy" color - I wear orange quite often.)

They had some neat old tractors at the pumpkin patch, and they let kids crawl all over them. So of course I had to take her picture on one. Doesn't she look like she's ready to start driving?

I also discovered the people who run this pumpkin patch have a tradition: all babies paying their first visit to the pumpkin patch get a hand-made, Halloween bib. I turned her bib into a cape. I think she looks like a super-heorine in training:

And here she is, posing with the pumpkins in her magnificent new cape:

Nugget in her magic Halloween cape has Close Encounters with the Feline Kind:

After the pumpkin patch, it was time to get ready for the pumpkin carving party. I decided to dress her up in her Halloween costume (even though this wasn't a costume party). I bought this costume last year, before she was born. I got it on the clearance rack for like $5. I think it's supposed to be a dinosaur, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a baby dragon. And look, she even has talons!

And look, the Baby Dragon even has a tail!

Raggedy Chan at SF's LitQuake

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:12:04 GMT

I'm reading from Raggedy Chan at the SF Library next weekend, part of the annual LitQuake Event. I'll be reading with a group of authors who also write/produce visual books.

Today I received an email from the event coordinator. Apparently, there is a STAGE. I have to admit I'm nervous -- "stage" sounds like the audience and/or room will be HUGE, and I don't have a lot of experience with large groups. However, I plan to spend part of this weekend practicing. I only have 6 minutes to read, so I have to make it good. (Plus if you go over your time limit, men with big muscles will firmly remove you.) They will also have projection equipment there, which is cool, so I can put up some illustrations from the book.

And tomorrow...(besides practicing for the reading)...will be the nugget's first trip to the pumpkin patch!!

Memory?

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:53:15 GMT

Something happened to my memory after I had the baby. It just shriveled up and fell out of my ear, I guess. I had something interesting that I wanted to post about tonight, and now I can't for the life of me remember what is was. Sigh.

I know part of it has to do with lack of sleep. But I make it worse on myself. When I get up at night to feed the baby, I often stay awake long after she has fallen asleep, just so I can cuddle with her and marvel at her angelic beauty and kiss her head. (I'm her mother so I can say she has angelic beauty.) All those precious minutes that could be spent on sleeping so I'm not a zombie during the day, but I just can't seem to pry myself away from her in the wee hours of the morning.

And look, I found something to write about.

Handcar Regatta

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:19:25 GMT

OMG. I just got back from Santa Rosa's 2nd Annual Handcar Regatta. WOW. It was like a giant steampunk festival.

It was extremely hot for our nugget, so we only got to stay about 1/2 hour. Still check out some of these amazing costumes! (I used to do a lot of Ren Faires, so I know how much these folks suffered in the heat for these fantastic outfits!) It looked like people fell our of Joss Whedon's Firefly.

These ladies were nice enough to pose to for me.

These 2 ladies were my favorite. I love the African Safari meets Victorian England.

And I have no idea what this outfit has to do with steampunk, but the guy looked hilarious. He had on a pair of black bikinis, a green cape, and angel wings. In his hand is a bottle of wine.

Don't these ladies look great?

And the main event of the day: Human Powered Vehicle Races! All the handcars had to fit on the railroad tracks.

These guys put a bobsled on giant ice blocks, and pushed it all the way down the raceway. I thought it was clever.

This guy's bike was HUGE. I'm standing right below him at 5'3", so that gives you an idea of how tall the bike is. He could hardly pedal it was so heavy, but doesn't it look great?

And some other nifty attractions at the Regatta:

A giant snail made out of metal. I want one for my backyard!

Gorgeous metal sculpture. I heard it was from Burning Man, but I don't know that for sure.

And check this out -- a human-powered carnival swing! Four adults ride the bikes, which powers the swing for the kids.

We came across these 2 fellows in the parking lot. They were still working on their vehicle. I'm not sure if they were racers or not -- there were lots of folks cruising around on neat contraptions.

Can't wait to go again next year!

How to Fall

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:14:00 GMT

My mom announced to me today that she had successfuly taught the baby "how to fall."

Basically, my mom thinks the baby is going to learn to drag herself upright on the furniture any day now. So she decided the baby needed to learn how to fall "correctly." "Correct" falling entails a slight twisting of the body so that one ends up on one's bottom, rather than full-on sideways crashing.

The falling lessons began on the couch. My mom propped my daughter up against the back of the couch, where she could see out the window. She put pillows all around the baby to cushion her fall. My daughter prompty toppled over with complete lack of grace. Some would call it crashing. Good thing there were lots of pillows.

By the time I arrived for lunch, my daughter had successfully figured out the correct falling technique. Now when my mom props her up on the couch and she starts to fall, she turns her little bum and lands rather gracefully on it.

I'm not sure what I love more: being a mother, or being a daughter.

New Spec Fic Market - Open to Submissions

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:54:50 GMT

I'm officially open to submissions now. Please pass this information along to anyone you think might be interested.

PIXIU Press is a new indy publisher specializing in fully illustrated science fiction and fantasy stories for children and adults. We are now open to submissions. We are looking for speculative fiction writers and illustrators who would like to contribute to our Heritage Tale series for juveniles. We are a paying market. Details are here: http://www.pixiupress.com/submissions.html

Battlestar Galatica - Series Finale

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:57:35 GMT

I don't have the Sci-Fi Channel, and I don't usually watch tv on my computer, so I only just recently got my hands on the series finale of BSG.

Was anyone else as disappointed as I was with the ending? I mean, the writers created a world so technologically advanced that an entire civilation has the ability to download their minds into new bodies every time an old one is killed. They can even GROW their own bodies!

All this technology, and they choose to end the series with deux es machina?? HUH??

And to top it all off, the entire remaining pack of humans (all 39,000 of them) unilaterally decides to trade space ships for loin cloths.

I say again, HUH??

All throughout the series, the humans can't agree on ANYTHING, and yet somehow they all magically agree to fly their spaceships into the sun and give up all technology? Live off the land, and all that good stuff? (Because Gaius was once a farmer!!) Wouldn't their advanced technology give them a chance to create an eco-friendly world? Rather than go back to sticks and spears?

And what about health? Please, Doc Cottle, I hope you kept some anesthesia in your medicine bag. And maybe some antibiotics and some of the other good stuff. Because the last thing I would want is a root canal with no novacaine.

I'm totally okay with stories about divine intervention. Joan of Arcadia, for example. But the difference is that JOA was set-up from the very beginning as a story with an interactive diety.

BSG had religions, people prayed, etc. But all of a sudden we find out Gaius and Caprica were seeing ANGLES for all 4 season? And Starbuck herself became an angel? For those sorts of story lines to work, they have to be established early. But BSG was set up as a sci-fi story, where answers were dereived from science. Thorwing in angels at the end just seemed like a cop out, like the writers wrote themselves into a box or something.

And what about Galen's son? The kid just completely disappeared from the story. Sorry, Nikki, Daddy is going to go live a hermit's life on an island.

And what about Adama going to build his cabin on the ridge? What was he going to eat? It's not like he had seeds for crops, or even a hammer or saw to build with.

I kept expecting the 8th Cylon to show up -- Daniel. The writers seemed to hint that he was Starbuck's Dad. (When she played music for Sam, it was music by her dad, Daniel Thrace.) I thought he had programmed her with the Eye of Jupiter image, etc. I thought he had gone behind Cylon John's back and set everything up to save humanity, even going so far as to program the Final 5 with that musical coordinates. But no, that smoking gun never went off.

Up until that last episode, though, every single episode of season 4.5 was killer. My husband and I stayed up late for several nights watching episodes. I just wish

Wading through Internet Murk

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:25:01 GMT

Today I set myself the huge task of wading into the social networking arena for PIXIX Press. I set up a blog on Word Press (www.pixiupress.com/blog). My friends over at www.winlum.com were kind enough to install my PIXIU banner on my Word Press page. Then I made profiles on Facebook and Twitter. I think I was able to link my WP blog to FB, though we shall see how that works out. I tried to download a WP plugin that would allow my blog posts to go directly to Twitter (or at least the first 140 words). I have no idea if it worked. I find these sorts of tasks frustrating. My goal is to be able to post to WP and have everything magically feed into the other sites. Eventually I want to be able to feed into other blog sites (like LJ), but for now I'll stick with FB and Twitter. They're proving to be complicated enough. Everyone keeps telling me how important all this social networking stuff is. The problem is that I barely have enough time to pack my lunch, let alone hang out on the web these days. Oh, well, we'll see how it oes.

Raggedy Chan - marketing

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:14:15 GMT

113 out of 123 education brochures mailed out to local schools. I should be able to finish up the rest tomorrow.

Also got my shopping cart set up on my new website, thanks to my fabulous friend av8tor at www.winlum.com.

Tomorrow is my husband's first day back to school. I always miss him in the fall when he goes back to work. I like having a house-husband!

Raggedy Chan - Marketing

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:39:42 GMT

I'm working on a direct mail campaign for Raggedy Chan today. I'm sending out brochures to 123 local schools, advertising my free author visits and free teaching curricula. Hopefully the brochures will garner some interest.

I've also booked 3 Raggedy Chan events for Sept-Oct! I'll post details as the event dates are closer.

Also working on getting Pay Pal connected to my website. I can't quite get it all to behave quite yet, though I have ideas on how to fix it.

LJ linked to Facebook

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:44:14 GMT

I just tried linking my LJ blog to Facebook...time to see if it worked...

PIXIU Press

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:03:44 GMT

My original idea for PIXIU Press was to spend the next few years just producing my own illustrated books. Then in a few years from now, when my daughter was older and I had more time, I would expand PIXIU Press to include the works of other writers.

My husband has been inundated with all my publishing ideas lately; he is very sweet and always listens. I was discussing my long range plans the other day, and I realized that just because my daughter would be 3 or 4 years instead of 7 months, I would still more likely be just as busy. And I am one of those personalities that will find a way to fill every spare moment of down time. My husband said that if I am excited about publishing and really want to give it a go, there's no reason to wait. (Have I mentioned how much I love my husband?) He said everyone should go after those things in life that excite them.

So I've moved up my timeline. I'm very excited. My website is close to being finished. I'll be sending out requests for submissions in the next 6 weeks or so. Hopefully some writers will be interested in my press. I'm not quite ready to open submissions to the world at large, but I hope to get there eventually.

I'm nervous that I'm biting off more than I can chew. I'm nervous that I will fail. But I'm excited for the opportunity to bring stories and art together. And I'm excited about the opportunity to run my own business my way, and hopefully do something my daughter will get a kick out of when she gets older.

The Nugget's First Swim Lessons

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:16:59 GMT

We took our daughter to her first swim lessons last week through the local part and rec department.

I have to say that I had certain expectations going into the class. I thought we would learn to help her float, learn to teach her to hold her breath, etc. (My dad calls this "drown-proofing".) But when we showed up at the class, all we did was sing Ring-Around-The-Rosie and play with balls (all of which, in my opinion, can also be done on the grass or in the living room, so why bother?). Apparently, my expectations were high; my boss at work even laughed at me when I told him the story. But even though I was disappointed with the class, I love to take my daughter to the pool, and it was fun to swim with other parents and kids.

I signed the Nugget up for classes at 5:45 pm so I could go with her after work. The time slot is good for her; she's always up ad pretty refreshed from her second nap. However, we happened to hit a cool spell, and they don't heat the pool this time of year, and so my poor Nugget ended up shivering. My husband had to take her into the locker room and put her into a warm shower. So we ended up not taking her back to any classes last week. Hopefully it will be warmer this week so we can go to a few more.

We did get some fun pictures, though.

Proud Papa with his little girl.

Proud Mama with her Nugget.

Nugget and Papa discover the pool gutter...

Mama and Papa help the Nugget float, even though it is not part of class curriculum. :) She did great!