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My new business cards have arrived, I'm so excited! Take a look at these babies:
Did I really need to order 500(!) ? Um, no.
But they look great, and I'm sure I will use them. You may notice that I did not include a phone #. My other exciting news is that my family is getting ready to spend six months in France, so I need to be as portable (and mysterious) as possible.
I haven't really had anything printed before, so these are part of an experiment with different services. I will order postcards (and maybe bookmarks?) from a different service to compare. Do you have a favorite printing place to work with?
Ask anyone who has the distinct un-pleasure of taking about book promotions with me: I have a hard time with the whole affair. I love joining fellow writers in conversation. I like thinking out loud about the stuff of books, how they are made. But launching books is difficult territory for me, and the universe, I'm convinced, senses my ambiguity. Either it storms mightily on my book launch day (so much rain, the roads are flooded). Or there aren't enough books to go around. Or something really unsavory is written the Big Day Of. Or all things happen at once. Book upon book.
I should take that as a sign, should I not? Or should I just grin and bear it and stop writing blog posts like
this one, which got me into a little trouble back in June.
Not surprisingly, I have been following Lena Dunham's book tour with great interest. What she says stacked up against what she'll do. Here is the latest, a
s reported by Alexandra Alter, in
The New York Times:
In an era when author tours and splashy book parties have grown increasingly rare, Ms. Dunham has organized a traveling circus of sorts that seems more like a roving
Burning Man festival than a sober, meet-the-author literary event. Prominent comedians and writers, such as the “Portlandia” star Carrie Brownstein and the novelist Zadie Smith, have thrown their weight behind Ms. Dunham and will appear on her tour as part of a carefully curated cast of artists, along with live music, poetry readings and, naturally, food trucks.
“I found the idea of a traditional author tour, where you go and stand behind the lectern and talk about yourself, I found it a little bit embarrassing, a little blatantly self-promotional and a little boring,” Ms. Dunham said. “I wanted it to have an arts festival feel, which is why we now have all these remarkable, special weirdos who I found on the Internet.”
... The tour is also a way for Ms. Dunham to shed her TV persona and rebrand herself as an author. By putting her onstage alongside seasoned writers like the memoirist Mary Karr and the novelist Vendela Vida, Random House hopes to cast Ms. Dunham as a major new literary talent, not just a celebrity who leveraged her fame for a big book deal.
The question then is—Does a cast of characters and a performance schedule negate the self promotional aspects of a book launch? Can the nature of any event rebrand a celebrity as an author? I'm thinking (small thought) that what matters most in the end is the book itself. And that Lena Dunham has probably written a very good one—a book that would sell and please, regardless.
By: johnmanders,
on 9/19/2014
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Heave on your futtock-shrouds and don’t leave your swashes unbuckled! ‘Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Don’t forget: If you are anywhere near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, shape a course for The Art Center (819 Ligonier Street) where I’ll talk about illustrating pirates this evening from 6:30 – 8:30. If you miss it, I’ll be at The Art Center again tomorrow morning 10:00 – 11:00ish (we need to clear the decks before noon—when some poor lubber’s wedding takes place).
As promised, here are the answers to yesterday’s M is for Movie Pirates Quiz:
First row: Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Carribean (2006). Second row: (left to right) Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate (1926); Robert Newton as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950); Sherman the parrot; Errol Flynn as Captain Blood (1935). Third row: Charles Laughton as Captain Kidd (1945); (Charlton Heston as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1990); Dustin Hoffman as Hook (1991); Walter Matthau as Captain Red in Pirates (1986). Fourth row: Maureen O’Hara as Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stevens in Against All Flags (1952); Laird Cregar as Sir Henry Morgan in The Black Swan (1942); Kevin Kline as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance (1983); Graham Chapman as Yellowbeard (1983).
Aye, Friday: the day we’ve been waiting for all year, International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Polish your hooks and sand your peg legs! If you are anywhere near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, set a course for The Art Center (819 Ligonier Street) where I’ll talk about illustrating pirates Friday evening from 6:30 – 8:30. If you miss it, I’ll be at The Art Center again Saturday morning 10:00 – noon.
To celebrate the big day, here is an illustration from P is for Pirate—a theater full of movie pirates. They range from freebooters of Hollywood’s Silent Era to today’s swashbuckling sea dogs.
How many can you name? I’ll post the answers tomorrow, by the powers!
If you’ll be around Pittsburgh Saturday, September 13, please stop by the old Salty Carrot shipwreck pavilion (the big blue slide) in Frick Park. I’ll be part of Alphabet Trail and Tales from 10:00 – 1:00, reading & painting and telling horrible pirate jokes.
Just found out a logo/t-shirt thingy I designed/illustrated will be in Print magazine’s Regional Design Annual! The root beer shall be flowing tonight!
I’ll be here drawing caricatures Thursday, Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday.
Confession: There are a lot of us who die many small deaths during the act of promoting our books. We wish we didn't have to. We wish we were Michael Ondaatje or Alice McDermott or Colum McCann or any of the greats for whom the world both spins and waits, and not us, ourselves and ourselves only, who are easily forgotten, or never actually known.
Book promotion. It can involve embarrassing displays of self-involvement (for the next sixty minutes I will be doing all the talking, thank you very much), nasty tricks (remember the writer who recently shipped her dead husband's ashes around with the galleys?), indulgent wardrobing (you will remember me, you must remember me, won't you remember me?), and bold pronouncements about one's own talent (eeewww). We are asked to do many things. We do what we can. We close our eyes, we (maybe) grin and (barely) bear it, and then, mercifully, the promotion season has passed. We can be ourselves again.
We can buy and celebrate the books of others.
I'm not a touring writer. I'm not a famous one. This here blog, which is dedicated primarily to writerly musings and the works of others during the bulk of the year and to the news it seems right to share following the release of the small books I write (forgive me, I beg you, forgive me), is my home base, my foundation, my brand, my world, my virtual me. There is also, for the record, a flesh and blood me—a somewhat innocuous middle-aged woman who has little to say in real life and surprises people who meet her for the first time.
Just ask dear Debbie who could not, on Tuesday night, at Books of Wonder, get over how short I actually am.
(You might have thought I was tall? You might have thought I was glamorous? Ha! Wrong on both counts. Plus, I don't have a memorable wardrobe.)
I think about this promotion thing sometimes. Indeed, not long ago, musing out loud, I told my agent that I had begun to feel pressure not to speak of myself anymore on my blog. That, if only I had much more time than I do, I'd spend all the blog language on others.
"But it's your own blog," she said, "and you have responsibilities to your books."
"I know," I said. "But. Still. People are talking."
I'm talking about all of this right now because I just read Caleb Crain's piece on Stephen Crane in this week's
The New Yorker, "The Red and the Scarlet." It's a fine piece of biography and it doesn't need much of a preface; it stands, wildly, on its own.
But here's the part I'd like to excerpt for you. It's the late 1800s. We're looking at self publishing and self-promotion. Seriously. Has anything changed?
Unable to find a publisher, Crane scraped together the money for "Maggie" to be printed. He chose yellow covers and the pseudonym Johnston Smith, and his friends threw him a raucous party....
To advertise the book, Crane hired four men to read it as conspicuously as possible on the elevated train, which, unfortunately, had little effect on sales. "It fell flat," he later admitted."
Self promotion. It's a terrifying term.
I'm going to be taking a small respite from the blog for the next few days, for I have several books I've bought and am planning to read. I need a little reading time and space. And then I'm going to report back here, as my short and unglamorous self. I hope you'll return when I do.
By: johnmanders,
on 5/3/2014
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Thank you, Claire Kirsch, for your fine reportage on my recent visit to Penns Manor Elementary and my collaboration with the students to create the horrible & dreadful Baby Pandasaurus Rex! Read all about it here.
By: johnmanders,
on 3/21/2014
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As I mentioned yesterday, Target offers grant money to schools and organizations who need help with an early reading program. An early reading program might entail hiring a children’s book author/illustrator to present to students (he said rather shamelessly).
Dollar General also has a grant program for early literacy/youth development—as does Barbara Bush, Verizon, Scripps-Howard, and Clorox.
Here is a round-up of foundations who offer grant money for summer reading programs. Here are awards & grants available from the International Reading Association.
If you would like a detailed description of my presentations to help you apply for these grants, be sure to give me a yell!
If you’re a school librarian looking to hire an author or illustrator to present to your students (hint, hint) Target is accepting applications for Early Childhood Reading Grants.
I’m busily putting together a world tour. I’ll be barnstorming across New York State and Pennsylvania—maybe winding up in Connecticut—September/October 2014.
I’ll be in the Pittsburgh area for Read Across America Week, March 2 – 6, 2015.
If I’m booked for 2 or more consecutive days in the same area, I’ll give those schools a discount on my speaking fee. If you’re interested e-mail Lisa at [email protected].
By: johnmanders,
on 3/12/2014
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I am booking school visits in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area for Read Across America Week, March 2 – 6, 2015. Friday the 6th just got reserved this morning. If I can book the whole week, everybody gets me for 25% off the regular rate.
Contact Lisa— [email protected]
I see Hesperus Project is doing another one of their wonderful musical accompaniments to a silent film—this time around, it’s The Mark of Zorro, with the mighty Douglas Fairbanks.
I love these concerts. If you like ancient music or silent movies—or both—you’ll want to see and listen. A while back these guys were in Pittsburgh courtesy of the Renaissance & Baroque Society of Pittsburgh. They put together a concert of mediæval music for another Fairbanks flick, Robin Hood. Here is the art I created for the promotional poster.
By the way, if you’ve seen the 2011 movie The Artist, you’ve already seen one of Douglas Fairbanks’ daring stunts from Zorro painstakingly recreated for a new audience.
Click over to Kathy Temean’s blog—she interviewed me and posted a bunch of images.
Click over to Kathy Temean’s blog—she interviewed me and posted a bunch of images.
From the press release my lovely wife wrote:
“The National Cartoonists Society 67th Annual Reuben Awards were held in Pittsburgh this past weekend. Manders, a first time attendee and nominee, won a Reuben Award in the Book Illustration division. The award was presented to him by Sandra Boynton. John is a local children’s book illustrator who resides in Franklin and has a studio at the National Transit Building in Oil City. Fellow nominees in his division were John Martz and Dave Whammond. John was honored to have been nominated with such talented cartoonists. Seven cartoonists/artists were nominated from Pittsburgh including George Schill, Pat Lewis, Vince Dorse, Mark Brewer, Michael McParlane and Wayno.”
What an honor! What a fun weekend! Thanks to everyone who has encouraged and supported me over the years.
From the press release my lovely wife wrote:
“The National Cartoonists Society 67th Annual Reuben Awards were held in Pittsburgh this past weekend. Manders, a first time attendee and nominee, won a Reuben Award in the Book Illustration division. The award was presented to him by Sandra Boynton. John is a local children’s book illustrator who resides in Franklin and has a studio at the National Transit Building in Oil City. Fellow nominees in his division were John Martz and Dave Whammond. John was honored to have been nominated with such talented cartoonists. Seven cartoonists/artists were nominated from Pittsburgh including George Schill, Pat Lewis, Vince Dorse, Mark Brewer, Michael McParlane and Wayno.”
What an honor! What a fun weekend! Thanks to everyone who has encouraged and supported me over the years.
Woot! Check it: My newly revamped site is Adobe Muse's Site of the Day.
You young kids already know about Etsy, but for the benefit of oldsters like me—it’s an online store where you can shop for handmade items directly from the artists. I set up my page here. Please swing by and take a look. All the art is original. If there’s an image from one of my books you’d like to see up there, give me a holler.
Although you're no doubt tired of me going on and on about Adobe Muse, tough cookies, cause I'm gonna make one more post about it. It's just such a great program if for no other reason than it makes it SOOOO much easier for non-programming types to build a super-duper web site. Seriously, I love it. If I were Brad and Angelina, I would adopt it. (I swear Adobe isn't paying me...) (Oh, and click on the images below to embiggen.)
It functions a lot like Adobe InDesign, which means you use things like:
- Master Pages, meaning if you make changes there, such as the menu, it's automatically applied to all the assigned pages. Yes!
- Character and paragraph styles that are applied site wide.
- Headers and footers.
- A drag-and-drop site layout that uses page icons.
- Move stuff around willy-nilly on the page, any ol' way you like without worrying about CSS or tables or whatever nonsense.
Additionally, it allows you to do lots of neat-o web stuff with familiar panels, and no coding:
- Widgets that include cool interactive stuff like light-boxes (I'm looking at you, illustrators), dynamics menus, pop-ups, slideshows, news boxes, accordion menus—all totally customizable. Brilliant.
- Your menu is automatically updated site-wide when add, remove or move pages. Glorious.
- Import your images any old size and Muse will automatically optimize them for the web and generate thumbnails when publishing.
- Embed all kinds of junk anywhere on your page: YouTube videos, Google maps, all that.
- Design yer site for tablets and smartphones. Booyah.
- Publish directly to your web host within Muse, no third party FTP app needed.
- You get to use Adobe's library of web fonts so you're not stuck with Times or Arial. You can also use your own fonts, but bare in mind those will automatically be converted to images on export.
- If you want to tinker with some of the code, you certainly can, although you have to export the site and edit the HTML, etc. in a program like DreamWeaver.
- Gives you a back rub, asks you about your day and really listens, then makes you a nice hot cup of herbal tea.
Now, I know a lot of illustrators are perfectly happy with some of the simpler site-building tools out there. Fine. Goody for you. But if you're interested in making a web site that isn't boring and lame and just like every
other web site on the interwebs, and want to do it easily, well partner, you might wanna look into Muse. That is all.
I'm sending out these postcards now. Hoping they'll bring lots of good projects!
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