I was thrilled to be invited to join the Millions of Monkeys blog. My friends Elaine and Kurt, owners of Monkey Doodle Dandy, a toy design company, set up the blog a short while ago. Here's my first addition.
Here's a bunny I drew for the weekly, just wanted to do something different.
I'm Looking For A Monster! has now had 3 reviews. Bookgasm.com , 100 Scope Notes, and National Writing Center For Children
I just found a nice review on 100 Scopes Notes
bookgasm.com has reviewed my book!:
It will take you maybe 15 seconds to read I’M LOOKING FOR A MONSTER in its entirety, but I’ll bet you take much, much longer to peruse its pages. See, Timothy Young’s book is a pop-up, intended for pre-kindergarteners, and while they’ll be entranced by the wheels, tabs, flaps and snaps, it’s adults like you who can truly appreciate Young’s illustrations. Each spread contains a single-colored background, with all the figures in the foreground in black. Only eyes, teeth and various kinds of horns and claws render as white, making for a simplistic, stark cartoony look that’s rather cool. It should keep the kids entertained until Halloween, when they’ll wish their trick-or-treat bags looked as hip.
Things are finally calming down a bit. I just got another email from someone who wants me to do another book-signing and I'm hearing from friends all over who've gotten the book. Since I can't be everywhere looking in bookstroes to see who's carrying it, especially small local bookstores, I have a challenge and a reward. Send me a picture of you holding a copy of "I'm Looking For A Monster" in front of your local bookstore (if your the owner of the store, you can do it yourself!) If you can't get the book locally, but bought one online, take a picture in front of something interesting in your area (like the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China). I'll put the pictures online and on Halloween, I'll draw a random winner of another Monster Sculpture! I'm only going to cast a few of these, mostly as gifts to people who've helped on the book. I'm going to sign and number them. Email the pictures to me at [email protected]
On Tuesday, the release date for the book, I found that I was front page news. I new my local paper was doing an article, lucky for me it was a slow news day and I made not just the front, but above the fold. Here's a link to the full text.
Then, on Wednesday I read I'm Looking For a Monster for the first time to a group of kids at storytime at the Easton branch of the Talbot County Library. About 2 dozen kids were there and a bunch of adults. It was great fun. The Star Democrat ran this picture of the event in Thursday's paper and a video on their website. 
Here's the caption: PHOTO & VIDEO BY ROXANE DOSTER WATTS Easton author Timothy Young read his book “I’m Looking for a Monster” to children at the Talbot County Free Library. The children also made a picture that included their own monsters. Young is currently working on his next book, “I’m Looking for a Dinosaur,” which he expects to be out next year. Young will be at the Old Towne Creamery in Easton on Saturday to sign his book, which was released Tuesday.
You can see the video here.
On Saturday I had my first Book Signing at the Olde Towne Creamery. We sold close to 50 books and had a great time seeing friends, collegues and lots of local kids come out. I'll have photos from that event next week.
Don't forget to check www.ImLookingForAMonster.com for more events and where to buy the book. Let me know if you find it locally, and I'll give your local bookstore a plug.
Tim
I'M LOOKING FOR A MONSTER! is finally available in bookstores tomorrow, July 8th! If you can't find it locally, it's available online all over the world. You can google it and you'll find multiple listings, or go to www.ImLookingForAMonster.com and you'll find links. If you do find it in your local bookstore, let me know and I'll plug them on my website.
My book, I'M LOOKING FOR A MONSTER, is released next Tuesday, July 8th. I'm very excited and the thing that thrills me the most is how many international booksellers are carrying my book. I found it on the French, UK and Japanese Amazon sites, as well as other book sites in Canada, Denmark and Australia. You can find links to these on the I'm Looking For A Monster website.
Here's a monkey character I created for a client, the Olde Towne Creamery in Easton, MD. Two weeks until I'm Looking For A Monster is released. Woo-Hoo!
I finished the sculpture for the contest. You'll be able to enter on www.imlookingforamonster.com soon.
I sculpted one of the monsters from my book. I'm going to be raffling off a painted casting of it on my book website for I'M LOOKING FOR A MONSTER.
I'm adding a memory matching game to my website for "I'm Looking For A Monster". It's not done, so it's not on the site yet. If you'd like to try it out, go to the Creatures and Characters Weekly site in the links. I borrowed the layout from a free Flash template site, and I'm still replacing all of the images with my own. If you'd like to see the full book website in progress, go to the link on the right. July 8th is coming soon!
By the way, I was just told by my editor at Random House that the Wegman's Supermarkets in the northeast are using my book in a Big Summer promotion. I don't know the details yet, so I'll put up more info as I get it. So, in the meantime, shop at Wegman's.
I've been putting up Creatures & Characters Weekly for a couple of years now on my own website. I've decided to mirror it here so I can take advantage of RSS and links from Google's blogger system. I am the Author/Illustrator of I'M LOOKING FOR A MONSTER, which will be published by Random House on July 8th, 2008. I'm currently working on a promotional website for the book, here is a picture from a Flash game I'm working on.
