Enjoy your FREE downloadable Groundhog's Day coloring page, featuring a scene from the book " Prairie Storms", written by Darcy Pattison, illustrated by me, and published by Sylvan Dell Publishing.
If you have not checked out my website in a while, click HERE. There, you can find more coloring pages and check out books I have illustrated, as well as new books coming out in 2012. You can also "like" the "Prairie Storms" fan page on Facebook.
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 12/13/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
FREE, Children's Book, Sylvan Dell Publishing, Champ's Story, Prairie Storms, contest, Children's Book illustration, kids, just for fun, Add a tag
Thank you to all of the wonderful friends who have visited my blog, come to my book signings and events, and bought my books this year. I am excited to have 2 new books coming out in 2012. But as a way of saying thanks for making 2011 such a fun and successful year, I am giving away signed copies of 2 of my books, "Champ's Story" and "Prairie Storms". Just leave a comment on my blog as to why you think you would like to win my books. I will draw a winner at RANDOM from all of the entries be sure I have a way to contact you. Contest ends Thursday, Dec. 15th at 7pm Central Time Zone. I will contact the winner on Friday.
Random Acts of Publicity DISCOUNT:
$10 OFF The Book Trailer Manual.
Use discount code: RAP2011
http://booktrailermanual.com/manual
 ORDER NOW! I’m still celebrating the publication of my picture book, PRAIRIE STORMS, by creating another video. This time, I attended the AETN-PBS Family Day event in Conway, AR, where I talked with parents and kids about reading and books. I invited the kids to be “You Tube” Stars by answering a simple question: What is a Rainbow?
As you might imagine, we got a wide range of answers. See what observations these young scientists made!
If you can’t see the embedded video, view it here.
More Than One Book Trailer?
Excerpt from The Book Trailer Manual by Darcy Pattison
Most authors make a book trailer and stop. This is my third book trailer for PRAIRIE STORMS, and I plan more. This chapter explains why multiple videos are a great idea.
More than one book trailer? Does this question surprise you? You’re unsure about doing one video, much less a couple. Should you really think about more than one book trailer for your book? Yes. Here’s why.
Networking: Like every other social media, it’s your network that counts. And networks grow when you post regular content to keep them coming back. You may want a series of trailers spread out over several months, so viewers – and readers – have reasons to come back often.
Short Life of a Video: In May 2010, Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova reported that the shelf life of a video is very short. Half the viewers of a YouTube.com video come in the first six days. 75% of the viewers are within the first 20 days. Of course, there’s going to be a long tail, in which your video gets a few hits/day for a long time. But if you want a high level of sustained interest, you might want to consider a series of videos, distributed 1-3 weeks apart.
There is precedence in the online world for multiple marketing messages. Often marketers use an auto-responder to set up a series of messages which are automatically sent to an email list at specified intervals. For example, you might sign up for an camera site’s newsletter because they promise to send a series of three tutorials on taking portraits with a digital camera. You sign up and get your first issue of the newsletter right away, along with a second email that contains the first tutorial. The second and third tutorials turn up at one week intervals. These automated deliveries are via an auto-responder.
The idea behind auto-responder messages is to build your audience’s trust in your ability to offer something valuable on a long term basis.
<
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 8/22/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Children's Book illustration, Drawing, weather, science, Animals, coloring page, Children's Book, Sylvan Dell Publishing, black line art, Prairie Storms, Add a tag
Feel free to click the pic to download my latest Prairie Storms coloring page! In this scene, we see a cougar taking refuge from a chilly, November hail storm.
Official Release Date: PRAIRIE STORMS
Celebrate with me the release of my new picture book, PRAIRIE STORMS.
Here’s a new book trailer, which has a chant about the weather in each month for kids to learn. This is an adaptation of an 18th century poem.
Prairie Storms: A Chant of Months
Snowy, Flowy, Blowy,
Showery, Flowery, Bowery,
Whippy, Skippy, Nippy,
Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy.
If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to see the first trailer.
This is the second book trailer. Here’s the first.
If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to see the second trailer.
What do you think? Isn’t it exciting?
By: Darcy Pattison,
on 7/15/2011
Blog: Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
science, environment, goodreads, giveaway, ecology, darcy's books, tornado, skunk, bison, Pattison, eco, blizzard, habitat, cougar, biome, prairie storms, K-3, Add a tag
Note: Fiction Notes is on vacation until August 1. See you then!
Last year, I interviewed Joelle Anthony about her use of a GoodReads giveaway to promote her book. One of her biggest reasons to go with GoodReads is that she had 1348 people enter the giveaway.
Here are some other interesting statistics from GoodReadshere and here:
- 21% of members have a book blog
- 750-785 people enter the average giveaway.
- 8% of those who enter will add the book to their to-read list.
- 50 books added to user’s TO-READ shelf
- 45% of the winners will review the book.
- 8 reviews (1% of entrants & 42% of winners)
Wow, that sounds good to me. Let’s try it!
So–ENTER! It’s FREE!
I’ll report back on the results of the giveaway after it closes on August 10.
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 7/7/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Children's Book illustration, kids, weather, science, video, Animals, Children's Book, Darcy Pattison, storms, Sylvan Dell Publishing, Prairie Storms, Add a tag
Watch this exciting book preview video of my new book, Prairie Storms, written by Darcy Pattison and illustrated by me. The book is just weeks away from its release date. I am so excited. Watch the video HERE! (Thanks to Darcy for putting together this video.)
By: Darcy Pattison,
on 7/4/2011
Blog: Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
YA, Picture book, science, social studies, prose, Sylvan Dell, second, writing young adult fiction, third, prairie storms, Add a tag
YA for Dummies and Prairie Storms
What sounds does a ground hog make? An earless lizard? A burrowing owl? Six months ago, I had no idea!
 August, 2011 Release When I decided to create a book trailer for my forthcoming book, PRAIRIE STORMS, I knew I wanted something fun and useful for kids, parents and educators. We know the sounds of dogs, cats, horses, cows and goats. But do we know the sounds made by other common creatures? Skunks? For this trailer, I decided to focus on the sounds made by each animal in PRAIRIE STORMS. This post is about how I created that video.
But it’s also a celebration of a second book launch, Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies, which includes my sidebar, “Darcy Pattison talks Book Trailers”.
 Written by Deborah Halverson, founder of the writer’s advice website DearEditor.com, it has great advice on writing and publishing a teen novel. Deborah edited young adult and children’s fiction with Harcourt Children’s Books before picking up a pen to write the award-winning teen novels Honk If You Hate Me and Big Mouth.
The book is filled with great features, including:
- tips for targeting an audience, finding an angle that’ll make the story stand out, and writing a killer hook
- an extensive chapter on self-marketing to help writers move boldly into the realm of self-promotion–including book trailers
- techniques and exercises to shape plot, create teen-friendly characters, develop a convincingly youthful voice, write natural dialogue, and use setting to illuminate characters and plot
- 13 National Book Award winners and finalists, Newbery medalists and honorees, and other award-winning luminaries sharing their insights
- self-editing tools to transform a first draft into a strong submission-ready final draft
- insider tips for finding the right agent and/or editor and preparing a stand-out submission package
- answers to common book contract questions
- advice on self-publishing for YA writers
Read more at DearEditor.com
Finding Audio for a Book Trailer
To anticipate the release of Prairie Storms and celebrate the release of Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies, I’m debuting the Prairie Storms book trailer here today.
As the author of The Book Trailer Manual, I had some simple ideas on where to find public domain sounds and inexpensive audio tracks.
Sound Track. First, I knew that I wanted a sound track to back up the
A couple bits of personal news:
- My picture book, PRAIRIE STORMS, comes out in August. The illustrator, Kathleen Rietz has done monthly coloring pages, and here’s the July page! Please LIKE the Prairie Storms Facebook Page for monthly coloring pages. And please let your friends with kids know about the monthly nature coloring pages.
 Coloring Page for July, Prairie Storms. For monthly coloring pages LIKE www.facebook.com/PrairieStorms
The Wayfinder is reviewed this week on Susan Heim on Parenting blog. There’s a free giveaway, just leave a comment.
NonFiction BookBlast
Sunday, June 26, 2011. 8-10 am.
ALA Conference in NOLA.
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 6/24/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Sylvan Dell Publishing, Prairie Storms, Children's Book illustration, summer, Illustration Friday, weather, nature, science, Animals, coloring page, FREE, Children's Book, Darcy Pattison, Add a tag
Here is a preview illustration from my latest book, Prairie Storms, set for release in just a couple of weeks. The book was written by Darcy Pattison, and published by Sylvan Dell. We have a follow-up book, called Desert Baths, which will be coming in 2012. It has been wonderful working with both Darcy and Sylvan Dell. In this illustration, an earless lizard shimmies to find shelter from a dry, crackling lightning storm in the middle of an August night. You can download a free coloring page version of this illustration here.
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 6/13/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Children's Book illustration, kids, just for fun, science, Animals, coloring page, FREE, Children's Book, Darcy Pattison, coloring book, Sylvan Dell Publishing, black line art, Prairie Storms, Add a tag
To help launch the August release of my new picture book "Prairie Storms", written by Darcy Pattison and published by Sylvan Dell Publishing, I will be making available FREE coloring pages drawn by me! Each coloring page features a month with a scene which coordinates with a scene from the book. Just click the image, then either download the coloring page, or drag and drop it to your desk top. Be sure to print the image in a "landscape" format on your printer. The image size is 8.5" X 11". I would love to see your child's finished, colored page when they have finished coloring it. This week I am featuring the coloring page for the month of February: a prairie dog peeks out of his snow-capped burrow on a foggy morning. Will he see his shadow in the snow?
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 5/16/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
weather, science, Animals, coloring page, Children's Book, owls, rainbow, Darcy Pattison, storms, Sylvan Dell Publishing, Prairie Storms, Children's Book illustration, Add a tag
To help launch the August release of my new picture book "Prairie Storms", written by Darcy Pattison and published by Sylvan Dell Publishing, I will be making available FREE coloring pages drawn by me! Each coloring page features a month with a scene which coordinates with a scene from the book. Just click the image, then either download the coloring page, or drag and drop it to your desk top. Be sure to print the image in a "landscape" format on your printer. The image size is 8.5" X 11". I would love to see your child's finished, colored page when they have finished coloring it.
The doe and her fawn heeded the warning of the violent lightning and explosive thunder that a destructive thunderstorm was on its way. This illustration is from the children's book I just illustrated, called "Prairie Storms", written by Darcy Pattison and published by Sylvan Dell. The book is scheduled for release in August.
By: Kathleen Rietz,
on 1/17/2011
Blog: Kathleen Rietz
( Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Children's Book illustration, kids, just for fun, weather, nature, Animals, Children's Book, chicken, coloring book, Sylvan Dell Publishing, black line art, Prairie Storms, Add a tag
Two different illustrations for the topic "Chicken". The first illustration is for the current children's book I am illustrating for Sylvan Dell, titled "Prairie Storms" (2011). It is a prairie chicken, also known as a prairie grouse. The second is a coloring page I created, called"Chicken Dance".
This is the spread I created for the month of September in the upcoming picture book "Prairie Storms", by Sylvan Dell Publishing, due for release in 2011. Kathleen Rietz - websiteKathleen Rietz - blog
 This is the spread I created for the month of September in the upcoming picture book "Prairie Storms", by Sylvan Dell Publishing. The book is due for release in 2011. I am enjoying illustrating this book IMMENSELY!
This is the spread I created for the month of September in the upcoming picture book "Prairie Storms", by Sylvan Dell Publishing. The book is due for release in 2011. I am enjoying illustrating this book IMMENSELY!
|
What do John Dalton, Al Roker, and Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog have in common? They’re all famous weathermen! Groundhogs, which also go by the name woodchucks, are ground squirrels related to chipmunks and prairie dogs. They live in the North East of the United States and in Canada, where they feed on wild grasses and insects and live in burrows they dig for themselves. Sometimes the tunnels that make up their homes can interfere with the homes of humans by making the ground under buildings unstable. Some farmers and homeowners get mad at Groundhogs for damaging their property. However, other people believe that Groundhogs provide a useful service for humans: they predict the weather!
Where the land is flat, the sky’s dome becomes a blank canvas for storms. In this lyrical book, experience a year of prairie storms from the point of view of native wild life who must shelter, hide, escape, disappear, endure and withstand those storms. Watch the sand hill cranes avoid the tornado, the red fox thrill to a soft evening shower, the earless lizard shimmy as it disappears beneath the burning sands of summer, the cougar dodge hail stones, the bald eagle shed sleet and the bison face into the teeth of a blizzard and stand defiant. Each month features a storm typical of that season and a prairie animal in its normal habitat. The prairie biome or ecosystem is explored through its weather, especially its storms. Told in lyrical prose, this story is a celebration of the grasslands that dominates the center of American lands.
Cool contest. Now which coloring page to choose???
Go for it, Santiago!