For all aspiring authors, the Highlights Foundation is a wonderful workshop resource. They have unique, inspiring theme ideas and impressive experts. I haven’t gone to one yet, they’ve been too far away for us, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to attend. This one was just forwarded on to me, so I thought I’d share an example:

In the beginning, a book is no more than an idea: a dancing pig, a talking spider, or a series of unfortunate events. As we consider what that idea can become, our job as the writer grows ever more important. We develop our idea so that it can resonate with readers, leaving them satisfied and, we hope, in love.

What makes readers fall head over heels in love with a book? It is never as simple as connecting with a character or liking the plot. No, the books that make their hearts beat in hurried little rhythms have something more, something that makes them rise above all others on the shelf. But what is this something that draws readers again and again through the very best books?

Books That Rise Above: A Children’s Book Colloquium will help us answer that very question. This colloquium is for writers, librarians, and academics wishing to learn from an exquisite panel of children’s book experts about what makes an award-winning, heart-stirring book come to life.

Linda Sue Park will lead us through the best in middle-grade and young-adult literature. She will draw on her own Newbery Award-winning book, A Single Shard, as a shining example of that extra something that hooks the older reader (and award committees) into reading a book again and again and again.

Michael L. Printz Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Deborah Heiligman will speak about the common threads that pull nonfiction from the dark shadows of the bookshelf and into the light of top honors in the field of children’s literature.

Leonard S. Marcus will share his experiences as critic for The New York Times and The Horn Book and as a member of the selection committees for the National Book Award, the Caldecott Award, and the Ezra Jack Keats Award. As the author of Candlewick’s popular Conversations With . . . series, Leonard will also share what he has learned in interviewing hundreds of children’s book historians, authors, editors, and illustrators.

Author and seasoned editor Patricia Lee Gauch will share her expertise in the picture-book format and her experiences editing three Caldecott-winning books, including Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.

Elizabeth Bird, noted blogger for School Library Journal, contributor to The Horn Book, member of the Newbery and National Book Award committees, and children’s librarian at the Children’s Center at the Forty-Second Street branch of the New York Public Library, will talk about making books that teachers and librarians reach for.

Seats are limited, so if you would like to pull up a chair next to one of these experts and understand what makes an award-winning, heart-stirring book come to life, call Jo and reserve your spot now.

For more information about this workshop (taking place near Honesdale, Pennsylvania), or to request an application, please visit our Web site, contact Jo Lloyd at 570-253-1192, or e-mail Jo.Lloyd@highlightsfoundation.org.

Please feel free to share this e-mail with others who might have an interest, or to include the information in blog posts or through other social networking forums.

The Highlights Foundation is a public, not-for-profit 501©3 organization. We dedicate our efforts to connecting, nurturing, and inspiring children’s book writers and illustrators.

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Nothing accompanies deep thought better than skipping rocks across a body of water.
—Attribute unknown

If you’ve read our first DoU Adventure, Just Another Monday, you know there is a skipping rock involved.

Rock-skipping is one of those basic, fun, must-have life skills, like whistling or dancing or watermelon-seed-spitting. You just need to know how to do it. Naturally, there are many web sites on the subject. This one has an energetic teacher:

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We have unfortunate news. If you haven’t been following along lately, we needed to find a printer who could fold our very thick, sturdy, durable paper…and we did. Pause for a “yay, we jumped that hurdle” moment.

Okay, so now, we’re waiting on our blank dummy and our usually-very-on-top-of-things liaison doesn’t contact us the very minute it should arrive (he usually calls us within seconds of an emailed question. Amazing.) Should we panic? No, no, it’s just a small shipping bump or something probably, but we decide to call a day later because we have no fingernails left to chew on. And then he says “Well, they’ve been hit by a typhoon.”

What?!?!? That’s not the slightly late delivery truck driver we were expecting. Now I know what it feels like to not know what’s going on in the world. How can someone be hit by a typhoon and I don’t even know it?

As far as the printing, let me reassure you that it sets us back time-wise a little, but won’t stop the printer from getting things done. They have in fact bent over backwards for us.

Now when I complain about not being able to get writing/art done because I have a cold, or it’s too hot out, or I didn’t get enough sleep, I’m going to remember our printer who’s getting our book done despite having their home hit by a typhoon. Thank you for that. You’re completely allowed to take a day off from adventuring.

For the rest of you, get out there and live it up! Make each day (or maybe every other if it’s a major one ;P ) an adventure! And maybe choose to read up on what mother nature has in store for another part of the world…

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Time for another segment in the Saga that is Just Another Monday. To keep it brief (and easier to read) here are the bullet points:

• We debated and hemmed and hawed and then…

…decided to start a publishing company!

• SWAK publishing, LLC is born

We paperworked, ran numbers, filled out forms, looked into printables, etc etc

• Just Another Monday gets more refined

The dummies (copies we print as samples) have copyright and dedication pages. Pictures are shifted this way and that by mere pixels. We add the bio page into the back. You get the idea.

• We decided to get some help and ran a kickstarter campaign to raise $$$

Phew, one sentence for a month of insane work! If you want to know more about it, we’ll answer any and all questions.

• During the kickstarter campaign, another printer contacted us and, because of the lower quote, we get to have thicker paper.

Thicker paper = sturdier tabs = more durability for eager little fingers

• That brings us to “now”

Now, we’re doing upkeep and waiting on our paper dummy – which I will add pictures of absolutely as soon as it gets here. We’re posting on facebook, pinning on pinterest, tweeting, blogging, talking about our book, lining up launch locations (possibly the Duluth Children’s Museum in the Clyde Park Complex!), setting up news articles, packing media kits, talking, reworking our sell sheet, networking, printing labels, talking, packaging kickstarter rewards, printing business cards, and…you guessed it…talking about our book to anyone who will listen 🙂 especially if they’re half as excited about it as we are!

Woohoo! We’re truly a publishing company, with a book on the way. All that hard work is starting to settle into place – I can’t wait for the book to be sitting in my hand (or better yet, in your hand 🙂 ). I feel like that moment just before the top of the rollercoaster where you realize exactly what you’ve gotten into, the top will be a few weeks before our launch date, and then the wild ride down. We’ve signed ourselves up for quite the adventure this time!

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A children’s picture book should (in no particular order):

• tell a story
• be beautiful
• be fun
• teach us something

The more of these an author/artist can accomplish in 32-48 pages the better. Are we missing anything?

There are many fabulous, beautiful, funny, charming, delightful children’s books to be had. Some old. Some new. Many wild and a few true.

Here are a few current faves (not counting the Seuss/Sendak dynasties):

Picture books

   The Book That Eats People by John Perry and Mark Fearing

   The Monkey with a Tool Belt series by Chris Monroe

   Hubert’s Hair Raising Adventure by Bill Peet

Chapter Books

   The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill

   The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

   Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice

Keep reading. It’s fun and good for you, too!

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We recently hosted a Kickstarter project and thought we would share some ideas that worked for us. Here they are in no particular order. Good luck in your ventures!

1. Reddit.com – make a post of your page and respond to comments
2. Referral Bonus – the last week we made a facebook post of an extra piece of art we mailed to anyone who referred someone else above a certain dollar amount
3. Facebook Daily – we posted two sentences/day of a story (with a poll about what should happen the next day). It gets your page refreshed on everyone’s wall at least once per day. You could do anything that people would look forward to each day.
4. Pinterest – a note here, don’t pin up all of your images at once. You want to have one for every day or every other day of your campaign.
5. Digg.com – make a post, comment on other posts, etc
6. Guest Blog – if you have a friend with a blog (especially if it connects in any way with your project), offer/beg to write a guest blog for them
7. Blog – this is a little hard to start during your campaign, but if you already do it, don’t forget to keep doing it
8. StumbleUpon – this is also better started sooner, but asking people to thumbs you up during your campaign is all to the good. Remember, win or lose, the exposure is great and can be as valuable to your project’s success as the $$$$.
9. Friends – do you have a friend with 500 pins or a master rating in their forum of choice? They’re already considered a prominent member of their community, even if it’s not the neighborhood block. Ask them for support! If you get even one backer out of asking, it was worth it, right?
10. Join New Forums – joining forums is very easy, and even junior members can post and comment. It won’t hurt (as long as you’re not trolling or ticking people off), and it certainly might help! It’s even an interesting use of your time since the forums ought to be on the same topic as your project.

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Joy (mom) uses inDesign all the time, and she’s teaching me! Here’s my first attempt and a great flowchart for making this decision an easy one:

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We posted a guest blog on Heidi Skarie’s site. She wrote a wonderful book about a Shoshoni medicine woman, and is blogging about writing and spirituality. If you have any more questions about kickstarter, don’t hesitate to ask. Cheers!

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It was pretty tricky to keep ‘tabs’ on what was working and whether all roads really did lead back home as we claim in Just another Monday. We finally had to sketch it out as you see here.

This also told us how many pathways exist for navigating the book again and again. And it helped explain why our heads hurt from trying to make everything work!

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I saw a card recently with the phrase “Dad Rocks” on it. Father’s day is coming up, and this statement is so true! I decided to come up with crafty ways to tell dad he rocks (sort of literally), so here’s what I’ve got:

• A big pet rock. Like this one from 2boredteens. I’ve always had a thing for them – my big doorstopper’s name is chiquita bonita. She rocks.

• A wood picture frame with rocks on it, ala Crafty Life and Style’s:

• How about writing with rocks like people do in the sand?

• Or you could write your message right on the rocks. Like Frugal Home Design:

I’m sure there are a million more ideas. If you try these or any others, let us know how it went (we’re just working on theory here).

Dads Rock!

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