Tractor Fun

I have had a great two weeks meeting new people and discovering new things while marketing "The New Blue Tractor"! I now have 3 stores selling my book on consignment and am hoping to contact two more this week. My book is now available online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders and Target! How exciting to search and see it pop up! I am working on getting the large, local stores to carry it as well. I have only had one disappointing contact, one of the local libraries. The person I met was concerned about the binding holding up although there were many early reader books there with the same type of binding! I checked them out for my kids a few years ago. The same person also shared the many things that they thought were wrong with my book, in their opinion. Oh well, I don't expect everyone to appreciate or like the book. I took it with a grain of salt, not my favorite library anyway!

I met with a fantastic lady at my local university and she really enjoyed my book. She has many ideas on the marketing angles and also invited me to speak to a class of undergraduates in which they are required to write a children's book. I am VERY EXCITED!

I did another book signing at a local store this weekend for a Christmas promotion. There was a fair amount of traffic in the store, but not a lot of interest in my book. It is, however, selling fairly well without me there :)

I have now completed two more interviews for local papers. One in particular was quite enjoyable as the reporter was also a children's book author. We traded some stories as well as tips.

I have begun working on my second book. The story is about a bulldozer and it will start my construction series. The text has been a little more challenging. It is difficult to keep the short, simple text while writing about the work this machine can do! I'm sure the text will come along. I have shared it with Richard and our next plan of action is to meet with someone, a professional, who is familiar with bulldozers to check the technical "stuff".

I am hoping to capitalize on the holiday purchasing for my book. I am glad we were able to get it published by this time.

More another day,
Stacey

Having Fun Going to the "Market"

I'm still expanding my list of places to visit, widening my circle. Most people I call are very pleasant and welcome the chance to meet. It is a little intimidating (is that the word?) asking people to look at my book to see if they might want to purchase it. However, I feel I am getting better at it. I have completed one interview (with a photo here at my house) for a local paper and have another scheduled in a few days. I am kind of surprised that writers are so willing! It is a good thing that I have a couple of days off next week for the Thanksgiving holiday since I don't know how I would fit in these meetings.

It is fun to watch the ranking of my book on Amazon fluctuate. Some days high, some days low.

I have been able to add a word search puzzle to my site for people to print off. It is simple and just right for a young child to complete. I have just begun setting up my author profile on Amazon. It is kind of fun!

Stacey

Marketing has begun

Just last weekend I experienced my first children's book author signing event, as an author! I met a wonderful children's bookstore owner that happened to be having a local author book signing on Saturday and she invited me to participate. We didn't have a lot of people attend but it was a good experience to meet other local authors who like me, are publishing books. I saw a couple of neat books and made a few contacts while there.

This week, I plan to visit a few local places on my list to sell my book. It is pretty easy to talk about The New Blue Tractor since I think it just looks fantastic! I'm hoping others think so as well.

Amazon now has the cover picture up when you click on my title and boy does it pop! Those great primary colors really call attention to the book. We have had a couple of wonderful readers leave some nice posts. Richard made a "how to" list and I touched it up a little to pass out with the books I am selling requesting people to post comments for us.

Some days I feel like my life is just a little too crazy working full time, promoting this book and being a mom full time but....I try to remember the big picture. Also, dust has always been a friend in my house so why chase it out now!

More to come.....

Stacey

Books are here!

The books are finally here from Dog Ear and they look fantastic! I have had them for about a week and it has been quite fun. I have received many positive reactions and comments, but then the people that I have shown it to are a little biased :) Many people that I work with have purchased a copy and many friends have as well.

Dog Ear produced a quality book for us even though it took a little longer than expected.

Now, on to the marketing plan to get this book "out there"!

Final Proofs, Finally!

Who could have guessed that it would take almost two months to get to the final proof goal??!! While I usually consider myself to be a relatively patient person, this entire process has been a test! Could it be the publisher that I have chosen? Dog Ear Publishing out of Indiana is a small publisher but I had hoped that they would have more of a personal touch. However, the process with them has taken 3 times longer than I was told!! Maybe it is that way with every publish on demand publisher. Any thoughts out there?

Richard and I had very few changes to make from the first proof pages so I did not anticipate a long process to get the final proof pages. Last I heard, our book was almost through the "quality control" phase and would be ready for the presses. I'm hoping to see them arrive at my door within the next couple of weeks. However, this whole process has taught me to not get my hopes up.

Many people have asked me when the book will be ready so I hope this points to a few sales. I am trying to map out how I will be able to make the many contacts that I would like to make in my area. I would like to visit area schools, libraries, daycare centers, etc. in the hopes of promoting my first reader. I also hope to get a newspaper article out of the deal with a book signing at a local store.

Will post again when something new develops....hopefully the arrival of the books!

Proof Process Has Begun

I can't believe it has been this long since I have blogged...so sorry about that! Vacation and down time on the book ate up the days.



Anyway, the proofs have finally begun to arrive from my publisher, Dog Ear! I have seen the cover and the first few pages. DE had the incorrect title page so we are still trying to sort that out but they look almost identical to what Richard and I submitted. This process has been a much slower process than I anticipated but since all I can do is wait, that is what I have been doing.



Being a teacher means that my time will soon be consumed by school and I had hoped that I would have some time this summer to begin marketing the book locally. Now that time will have to be squished in between the many other things that normally make up my days 9 months of the year. Oh well, everything happens for a reason, right?



This week, I have begun the text for my next title in the readin' machine series. It involves bulldozers, so I have been reading up on them. I am hoping to meet with a gentleman who works with bulldozers to nail down some ideas. That, at least, I can do before I start teaching!

Many thanks to the blogger who posted that they are looking forward to seeing the book on Amazon. I am looking forward to it as well! Be sure to check back and I will keep you updated on the process.

Stacey

Watching the illustrations become a book

Do you know what it is like to envision an illustration for each page of your text and have a creative graphic designer understand, create and build each page into a book? Richard, my illustrator, has been able to complete this project for me. As we worked together building this early reader book, he seemed to be able to read my mind and illustrate the exact picture that I could see in my mind. Sometimes, his illustrations were even BETTER than what I had envisioned!

We worked together for approximately 2 months creating this 24 page book, The New Blue Tractor. He would send me illustrations and I would show/share them with friends and family. Occasionally, we would think of something to add to the illustration but most times Richard nailed it. At one of our last meetings before submitting the book to the publisher, he had put together the illustrations in a book format so we could see a mock up of what it will look like.

At this point, we have not heard from Dog Ear Publishing but hope to this week. It is hard to be patient but at least it is summertime and I am busy with family things to keep my mind active.

Stacey
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Staying Positive During Publishing

Thanks for your question/comment last week, blogger! I try to stay positive during this process by remembering that I am working with a reliable partner, my illustrator, and by trusting my publisher. I think we have a great book to publish that children will read when they first start to read on their own. I am a little nervous about getting the word out though that we HAVE this great book! This blog and my website are attempts to bring awareness to The New Blue Tractor.

This is the first blog that I have ever done as well as the first website I have ever set up. If interested, my site can be found at http://www.readinmachines.com/. It is sure a learning process for a person who hasn't ever done it! I have been working through Google using their services for web design as well as the blog. I have a wonderful sister who is more active in both of these areas that has been, and continues to be, a great help! I have to say that working with the website has caused a little stress. I was trying to add a link to this blog and apparently hit something different and I thought I lost my home page! I was really in a panicked state! Fortunately, I had to leave to go to my son's baseball game so I logged out and the program just reset itself with my old home page. What a relief.

Richard, my illustrator, just sent me some coloring pages to put on the site so I will be adding those in today. Hopefully all will go well.

Stacey

Quiet Time Continued....

Still in "quiet time" mode. I haven't heard from the pubisher about any problems so that must be a good thing. Richard and I chose a small publisher that uses publish on demand technology named Dog Ear Publishing. I read, printed off, and emailed many publishing companies on the web and was impressed by DE's friendliness, professionalism and lack of bad reviews! Some other companies are a little too big for my taste. I was even able to contact a couple of authors of children's books that were published by Dog Ear and they had positive comments.

More history of this process.... After Richard and I agreed to work together, I set out as the research partner to find a publishing company. We equally agreed to give Dog Ear a try. I had sent Richard my text for this early reader book and he began to work up some drawings. He created a page layout of the book pages. We were meeting approximately every two weeks and discussing/sharing information. We emailed every couple of days with information or questions to each other. I don't know how traditional authors survive during this process! Some NEVER even meet their illustrators!!! How could you communicate your ideas if you never even meet??!!

We also were trying to make cost effective decisions with size of book, hardcover vs. softcover, number of pages, cost to print and submitting print ready files. Richard is a graphic designer so he is able to work with the type of files needed. I was also researching a marketing plan and looking up early childhood learning objectives to target our market of readers.

That takes me through months one and two of the process. More on another day.

Stacey

Publishing an early reader book

My author contact at the publisher calls this the "quiet time". I am waiting to see what they think of the book files that I have submitted. While the process up to this point has seemed long to me, it is short by traditional publishing standards. I began this discovery process with an illustrator back in January of 2007 and we sent the files of the book to the publisher just last week. It has only been about 4 months in the making. We have chosen to self-publish our early reader book. I had tried the traditional publisher path and deemed it too long and restrictive.

I am working with a wonderful illustrator whom I met by chance (or fate) that takes my simple text and adds life. I had briefly met Richard at a craft show when I purchased some of his construction machinery art for my son's room. When I was searching for an illustrator back in January, I looked him up on the web. I fired off a hesitant email asking if he had ever illustrated any books. I never thought I would even get a response. But, within days he contacted me and replied that he was most interested in illustrating a book but had never had the opportunity. He wondered if I had any ideas on the subject. We met shortly after and decided to go into this project as partners. He has since become a treasured friend.

Many things happened in these four short months, those items are to be continued......

Stacey