I’m consolidating. If you’re interested in hearing more from me about my small press, work-life balance, writing, reading, blah blah blah, please go to adriennebashista.net.

I’m a bit behind in really using web 2.0 to promote the books I publish through my little independent press, but since I’m on the eve of promoting my press’s next book, The Forever Friends Club, written by Sue Gainor and Sarah Gibson, and illustrated by Miranda Mueller, AND November is National Adoption month, it is an opportune time to try new things, like making book trailers.

In preparation, I’ve been looking at book trailers for picture books on the Internet. I’ve found a few that I think are well done.

First, here’s one for Up! by Kristine O’Connell George, illustrated by Hiroe Nakata:

I like it because, while the text stays still, the illustrations move, which gives the impression of animation although the image is static. It’s also a very clean, clear, playful trailer with un-annoying music. It’s also short, but not too short, and importantly, isn’t the author reading the book.

Here’s another one that is super-cute, for the book Chicken Butt, written by Erica Perl and illustrated by Henry Cole. Within about 3 seconds it pulled my 7-year-old in from the next room over:

I really like the 3-D effect of the first few frames, and I also like the voice-over. Again, the music is unobstrusive and the illustrations amusing and well chosen.

Here’s another I found for Captain Cheech, a book by Cheech Marin and illustrated by Orlando L. Ramirez. Again, the soundtrack is appealing, and I like how the words are animated, but you can still read them. No voice-over, but kids laughing and water splashing add a layer to a simple soundtrack:

The trailers I seem to like have a couple things in common: they’re short, they’re cute, and the creators have paid special attention to the soundtracks. They also give the impression of animation although confined to static artwork.

Have you made a book trailer for your book? Let me know how it went for you, how you came up with the design of the trailer, and what tips you might have for a book trailer newbie. Feel free to post a link to your book trailer in the comments section, or post a link to another book trailer you think serves as a great example.

Hey!

Is your child easy to love, but hard to parent? DRT Press (my baby easy-to-love, easy-to-parent business baby) wants you!

DRT Press is seeking personal essays written by parents of children with ADD, ADHD and/or other mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders for a book about the experience of parenting children with such conditions, for publication (expected) in January 2011.

Essays in this collection will be ones in which parents who care for challenging children can see themselves.  Parents/readers will laugh, cry, and find comfort in these stories.

Focus should be on the feelings and experiences of the writer/parent, rather than simply a description of the child and the child’s condition, behavior, and treatment.  We are looking for honest feelings, lessons learned, epiphanies, commonplace and extraordinary experiences.   Although we are not looking for how-tos on the best way to parent a behaviorally challenged child, we would like to see essays that give parents glimpses of what has worked for individual parents.

To read more guidelines, including HOW to submit and WHO to submit to, please go to the DRT Press website.

Miranda R. Mueller rocks. Responsive, fast, gets the job done.

A pleasure to work with.

She did my 2nd book, Mishka, and she’s working on DRT Press’s next project, The Forever Friends Club. Flexible and fast! Funny. Helpful and supportive. Has chickens, too. And worms?

Anyway, if you need someone to illustrate your next book, I highly recommend her.

I read this article “Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid,” on PublishingPerspective.com with great interest. In it, the author argues that traditional publishing houses should pay authors more, since in the current publishing environment authors seem to bear the burden of marketing. Here’s what she says:

Times have changed, and with them, every aspect of the publishing landscape is morphing. And from my vantage point, nowhere is it changing more than in marketing. Authors aren’t waiting and watching to see what publishers aren’t doing for their books — they are jumping in feet first and months ahead of their houses to make sure there’s a serious marketing and publicity effort.

And publishers aren’t gnashing their teeth over the author’s involvement anymore — they are encouraging it…In almost all cases, publishers are making it clear that they expect authors to supplement their marketing/PR effort in various ways and, in some cases, even soliciting the author’s help with both time and yes, money.

As a result, today the author’s marketing/PR effort is often equal to or even greater than what the house is doing.

I have no doubt that this is the case if one is dealing with a large publishing company. I don’t have personal experience with this, but I’ve heard many writers describe magnificent marketing plans and I wonder if they are seeing a true return on their investment (of time or money) since they are making pennies every time a single book sells. Since I am self-published (and only recently have begun to publish others) I make anywhere from $4-10 every time one of my books sell. So even a modest booksigning or storytelling event is worth my while. And any marketing I do always pays off. Of course, I did put up a significant sum to publish my books, and even if I’m making dollars and not pennies for each book sold it takes a while to earn my output back. But if I were only making 35 cents for every book I sold, I’d probably think twice about doing appearances or giving out free bookmarks. Why would I be doing it? For the fame?

I’m not saying traditional publishing isn’t the way to go. Fact is, my books have such a small niche audience that they’d never have seen the light of day in a business where selling 10,000 copies in a year is small potatoes and bookstores are the primary ways of selling books. Even if my books were the best written picture books in the world they would’ve never made the cut. If my books were for a more general audience, however, there’s plenty to be said for the marketing and distribution channels of a large traditional publisher. Plenty. Heck, I’m working on something right now that I’d love to submit to a big house. I’ve certainly submitted my share of ideas and manuscripts to traditional publishers, big and small, in the past and I will continue to do so. But it’s important to enter the situation wisely. Authors get paid for their work.

The article is thought-provoking (although nothing new), but the part that is most interesting to me is the comments section. That’ll be the topic of my next post.

Not that ANYONE is reading this blog these days, but at least it’s readable right now.

My blog looks a little strange to me, as if something is screwed up.

So I’m doing a test post.

Hmm.

Test post looks strange.

Is my wordpress corrupted? Grrrrrr….

1. You have $15,000-$20,000 just sitting around and you can’t think of anything better to do with it.
2. You are positive that you can do a better job picking an illustrator, a designer, a distributor, and marketing the book than the big publishing companies that have been creating award-winning books for years and years.
3. You have the best story in the world (that’s been rejected by every publishing house out there, but still, it’s really good!) and you know everyone will love it!
4. Your son’s pre-k class really liked it when you read it to them.
5. If you publish it, they will come.

Yes, yes, I know. I was being facetious. But truthful, no?

Okay, now for real.

1. Your book fills an untapped niche.
2. You’ve done your research and you know that there’s a market for your book, and…
3. You know how to reach your market.
4. You have the time, energy, and passion to get the word out about your book to the people who will buy it.
5. You have created a solid business and marketing plan and have read every book out there on self-publishing, lurked on the self-publishing listservs for months, and have a detailed schedule for production and marketing. Despite all this, you know you have a lot to learn, but you’re ready to take the leap nevertheless.

my boss offered me part-time. So I took it.
I’m feeling mighty ambivalent about it.
Here’s why: I decided to quit to I’d have more time to work on my small press, on writing, on my other small business and play a bigger role in my husband’s business, which I’ve been helping him with all summer. He has been working a ton - up from 40 hours a week to probably 70-80, and not only does he need my help with the business, you know who’s been picking up all the slack at home. That’s right, moi. And so, while I like my job and of course there’s a (modest) salary involved…we started to feel like our heads were exploding around here. Something had to give. We decided it’d be the Day Job.
But when I went in to quit my boss offered me the part-time solution, which I honestly didn’t think they’d ever consider or I probably would have asked about it months ago, and upon talking it over with the husband and the person with whom I’d be sharing the job, I decided to do it. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the most intelligent solution. It’s a rational, grown-up, thoughtful compromise.
But also not really what I wanted to happen.
Not exactly the enormous leap out of the airplane from my dream.
More like a half-leap. A step. A crouch.
So what does that mean for my little business? 20 hours more a week to work on it than I’ve had the past 2 1/2 years. Ish (because you need to factor in helping my husband, etc.) Which is good. Which means I can go confidently forward with some projects I’ve been a bit stalled about. But also means I need to stall on some other projects that I’d hoped to move forward with if I’d gotten rid of the Day Job for good. Which makes me a little sad, but is also probably prudent. But still sad.
Now, I’m usually a glass half-full kind of gal, so I won’t be writing about the wah-wah of this any more. I think I’ve done enough of that in this blog the past several months. I need to get back writing about self-publishing and small presses and adventures in marketing.
So, for my last word, I’ll leave you with this: being sensible is a drag!