Literacy Night at Freedom Elementary

February 13 was “Literacy Night” at Freedom Elementary School in Colorado Springs.

For fourth graders at the new elementary school, it was culmination of their study of Colorado history characters.

For Filter Press, it was a chance to see up close the way our Now You Know Bio series can be put to use in the classroom.

Filter Press authors John Stansfield (Enos Mills: Rocky Mountain Naturalist) and Emerita Romero-Anderson (Jose Dario Gallegos: Merchant of the Santa Fe Trail) made presentation to Freedom students and parents.

John Stansfield showed his skill as storyteller in appearing as Enos Mills himself Emerita Romero-Anderson used the story of her ancestor Jose Dario Gallegos to give the young scholars an understanding of the historical and cultural background of Colorado’s San Luis Valley.

As you see in the pictures, many of the students appeared in character to share insights about characters from Colorado’s history such as educator Emily Griffith, Denver physician Dr Justina Ford, first lady Dottie Lamm, explorer John Wesley Powell, and Mrs. J.J. ‘unsinkable Molly’ Brown.

Molly Brown is in the top photograph followed by Jose Dario Gallegos (with autor Emerita), Dottie Lamm, Emily Griffith, and John Wesley Powell.

It was a fun - and educational - evening, and we are looking forward to the next year’s Literacy Night at Freedom.

 

At Colorado Association of Libraries Conference

One of our favorite places to exhibit Filter Press books each year is at the Colorado Association of Libraries conference. The 2007 conference was held Nov. 8-10 at the John at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center/Holiday Inn DIA in Denver with the theme Get RadiCAL 2007. The conference is always well attended by enthusiastic, committed professionals who enjoy talking about books as much as we do. (And they help us write some orders!)

This year’s conference was lots of fun for many reasons. Our son Brad attended his first CAL conference as a librarian from Colorado Mountain College. He is completing his first year of work at CMC’s Spring Valley campus after receving an MLS from the iSchool at University of Texas. Brad was able to visit with Dr Loriene Roy, one of his professors at UT Austin and president of the American Library Association. Dr. Roy was able to address the question “Can an ALA President Get RadiCAL?” in her presentation to the conference. 

Filter Press authors gave two presentations at the conference. On Saurday morning, Joyce Lohse, John Stansfield, Emily Warner, Dottie Lamm, Mel Bacon, and Dan Blegen collaborated on the topic Delighting in Colorado History Through Storytelling, Interviews, and Research. Joyce is a geneologist and historian; John a gifted storyteller and writer; Emily and Dottie have insight into the interview process from researcher and subject perspectives; Mel and Dan have extensive experience in public education and historical research. Judging by attendee feedback, the program was a big hit. You can get a sense of the presentation from handouts.

On Saturday afternoon, Emerita Romero-Anderson, Nancy Oswald, and Mary Peace Finley presented  Colorado Cultural Convergence: Spanish Settlements, Native American Peoples, and American Expansion.  These three talented writers help young readers gain a sense of place and an understanding of cultural influences.  They told how they were drawn to Colorado history and culture - and how they have used the knowlwdge in their books. Emerita’s Now You Know Bio tells about Jose Dario Gallegos, merchant and early settler of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Nancy’s book Nothing Here But Stones  is based on a Russian Jewish colony’s attempt to settle in the Colorado mountains in 1880’s. Mary’s Santa Fe Trail Trilogy follows Julio Montoya and his sister Teresita on a trip of self discovery set along the Santa Fe Trail in the 1840s.  

And while libraries were on our mind, we enjoyed Future Reading  by Anthony Grafton in the Nov. 5  New Yorker. Grafton speculates on Google Book Search and Google Library Project (as well as similar efforts by Amazon and Microsoft) in relation to past attempts to collect, catalog, organize and search the world’s written record. Opening with description of Alfred Kazin researching his first book in 1938 at the New York Public Library, Grafton closes with the thought, “Sit in your local coffee shop, and your laptop can tell you a lot. If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path that leads between the lions and up the stairs.” 

Out and About in NYC

Our last notes on the Filter Press trip to New York include the city itself. We had time for exploring and found NYC crowded, busy, noisy, dirty, exhausting - but wonderful - as expected. 

We had a long walk from PMA University at the Park Central Hotel through Central Park to the Met Museum. The park is a lovely oasis amid the noise and bustle, particularly pleasant on this late spring visit. The picture  is “The Pond” in southeast corner of the park. The newly re-opened Greek and Roman galleries were highlights of the Met Museum stop. 

Later, we enjoyed Bryant Park (between 40th and 42nd Streets on Sixth Avenue) very much: reminding us during the day of Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, but cranked up on Wednesday night for a big screen showing of the Yankees game. Tom was thrilled to see Whitey Ford in the autograph tent.

Bryant Park is behind the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. 

(There are Whitey and Joe Girardi.) 

On a trip north to Morningside Heights, we visited St. John’s Cathedral,  severely damaged by fire in 2001, but with renovation in

progress. The cathedral is larger than Chartres and Notre Dame combined, and the Statue of Liberty could fit nicely beneath the dome.

Nearby, we stopped at Columbia University, Morningside and Riverside Parks, Riverside Church, and Grant’s Tomb (never finding out who is actually buried there).

Later in the week, we walked around in Greenwich Village, checking out sites familiar from the 60’s: Washington Square and the coffee houses on Bleeker and McDougal Streets. All seemed quite tame these days, but a fun and nostalgic trip. Our tour of the West Village was capped by an excellent meal at “The Grotto” (100 Forsyth Street) in Little Italy. 

Just hours before leaving Manhatten, we took the subway to Ground Zero. We thought the quiet churchyard at St Paul’s just across the street from where the towers stood was a moving spot to contemplate that awful day. 

You can see a few of the other pictures on Flickr.

BEA

We spent most of Friday and Saturday (June 1-2) wandering the aisles at Book Expo America. BEA was held at the Javits Center and featured over 1500 exhibits on two floors. Yep, two kids in a candy store.

The exhibits, signings, seminars, and presentations were way too much to begin to absorb in a meaningful way, but we knew that. Amazon and Google had enormous presences, consistent with the changing face of publishing.  If you haven’t read about Richard Charkin’s great Google computer heist on the BEA floor, you might enjoy reading about at Charkin Blog. The act itself, the posting on the blog, and the comments offer an overview of changing times. “You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone,” a very great man once said.

The book signings were fun with lots of big names. Our highlight was meeting the very gracious Ian McEwan (Chesil Beach); and we also snagged books and autographs from Lynn Johnston (charming), Frank Deford (distracted), Digger Phelps (great eye contact), and Scott Ritter (passionate and angry about the Iraq dustup, but who isn’t?).

PMA also had a large presence as usual with lots of exhibtors and traffic on their aisle.   

PMA-U - The End

Are you tired yet?  I was but soon became energized by the outstanding May 31 courses.

 Class #1, Online Technology to Gain the Winning Edge. Speaker Jeff Compton www.thirddimensiongraphics.com strongly recommeded adding more memory to your computer touting more memory as very cheap insurance, e.g., 2 gig external hard drive is available for $40-50. The insurance part–an external drive makes backup a snap — or, rather, a click. Jeff says that only 4-6% of users backup daily. All guilty raise your hands.  If you haven’t thought about your printer costs lately, Jeff says ink/toner cost is the more important consideration in printer purchasing decision. Ink jet is much more expensive than laser in the long run. Design software: InDesign is the most commonly used program for book layout. I had assumed Quark was number 1.  Printers as a rule have no preference.  Many tasks of general office organization can be accomplished by using Google tools from calendar to batch emailing to contact list…all free from Google. Jeff is a big advocate of each book having a unique website since the business should be promoting books, not the publishing company. Using Go Daddy is fine since all that is needed is a splash page with boook cover, link to publisher, author contact info. Can add, and he recommends you add video, audio, media room, customized shopping carts.

Jennifer Thompson, MonkeyCMedia, was awesome (Is that word still in use? no? Then Jennifer Thompson, MonkeyCMedia, was INSANE.) She likes:

•  turning websites into marketing tools  
• GoDaddy (for websites and blogs)
• WordPress for free blog (I can vouch, WordPress is easy to use and FREE)
• using URCHIN to track where site visitors come from, where do they go in your site, where do they exit your site
• Using tools — Overture, Google, Nichebot — to stay on top of those all important key words.
• Spicing up your site using color but be wary of too much yellow or red.
• Using bullet points. White space is important
• Using imagery which can be purchased at sites such as www.istock.com if you don’t have images of your own. 
• Slide in windows not pop ups (so 2006!) for news, to capture visitor info, sign-ups, special offers
• Creating interactive activities such as surveys or contests for your website
• Giveaways such as free tips sheet
• Changing the content. No need to drive traffic to a stale site, but duplicate content within the site is a no-no.
• RSS feeds
• YouTube
• Audio on web sites. Check out www.audioacrobat.com and www.freeconferencecall.com
• Creating communities among the visitors to the site or blog
• shopping carts and gateways: Kickstartcart.com //google checkout // zen cart // mals-e cart. I confess ignorance. all are unfamiliar to me.
• to capture email addresses she suggests getresponse.com or constantcontact.com
• website newsletters
• Blogs on websites where they increase visit time and traffic
• Organizing people, teams, groups using basecamp.com and whois.net
• Using deadlinks.com to get rid of dead links on your site
• Using backlink.com to check out who links to you
• Posting a comment high traffic sites and linking back to your site
• checking keywords monthly
• keeping passwords in three places
• knowing when your URLs expire
• and lastly, Jennifer likes using surveymonkey.com which allows up to 10 questions to 100 people before charges are incurred.

Class 2, Website Tricks to Pull More Traffic. Penny Sansiveri www.amarketingexpert.com, Jennifer Thompson, monkeycmedia.com, and Celeste Simons, thirddimensiongroup.com shared these “tricks”–

• Define the focus of the website by hiring a copywriter
• Gain trust by including a privacy statement, a guarantee, testimonials
• Keep calendar up to date or get rid of it
• Offer value in content. Keep fresh articles posted
• Engage your visitor by using slide in windows, quizzes, offering bundled items, special offers, free on-line classes
• Host your blog on the site
• Match keywords to what the intended audience would look for
• Do not optimize your site before it is ready (define ready!)
• Learn what not to do at websitesthatsuck.com
• Demonstrate or present a problem and solve it
• Be honest. Do not make unreasonable statements or offer that cannot be delivered

Networking Lunch — Always beneficial to hear from others in the trenches. During the lunchtime, PMA elected new board members for 07/08.

Two afternoon sessions concluded PMA-U

Class #3, How to be a Publisher Kathleen A. Welton, Director, Book Publishing, ABA and Dominique Raccah, publisher, Sourcebooks. Two very smart women led us through a crash course on strategic planning for a publishing business.

Kathleen emphasized knowing that 3 to 5 year snapshot of your market/audience, your program (publication, revenue and profit targets), your editorial roadmap (title planning and format planning), your financials. Her ten steps to success: strategic goals, research, market needs, goals & objectives, editorial roadmap, sales and distribution, marketing & promo, engaging customers, financials, and publishing plan.

In 19 years, Dominique Raccah had taken her company from a ‘bedroom biz’ with initial investment of $17,000 to 250 titles per year and a publishing record that includes nine NYT best sellers. She was both enlightening and entertaining as she described the job of a publishing CEO, which is to plan future strategy, to hire the right people to implement the strategy, and provide the right people with the right resources to implement the strategy. Another point of emphasis–the difference in being a publisher and being a company builder. “Don’t create a job for yourself. Create a business where every job is replicable.” Dominique repeated what we’d heard from others at the conference–Publish authors, not books. And final wisdom, “A publisher takes a book to market. A printer warehouses books. A publisher’s job is sales, not printing.” Big take away for yours truly.

Class #4, Let’s Brainstorm the Marketing of Your Book. Three days before leaving for PMA-U, I had received galleys for Prunes and Rupe. What an opportunity to be able to  show the book and have the board members of PMA comment on marketing possibilities! The panel discouraged my big idea to market the book to pet supply stores and chains. They thought the book would do well if most of the marketing efforts were applied locally and regionally. It was a privilege to have the new title ‘reviewed’ by this group and a hands-on and extemely practical way to end my PMA-U adventures.

More on PMA-U

At PMA-U, not a moment is wasted. Wednesday, May 30, offered four training sessions, lunch with best selling author Robert Kiyosaki,  and countless opportunities for networking.

Class # 1, Marketing Regional Books. Three panelists dispensed more good ideas than i will be able to recall here. Dorothy Molstad from Voyageur Press emphasized taking advantage of local celebrityhood. Voyageur always queries authors for affiliations all the way back to the author’s elementary school. She schedules signing anywhere people gather including grocery stores. David Cole, Baytree Publishing, reminded us that every author is from somewhere and every book is local to someplace.  Do your market research. Where do people shop who would want the book? Jacqueline Church Simonds, Beagle Bay Books, began by saying that regional books are a very deep spring. A good book about an area can have a years long shelf life. Don’t overlook neighborhood weeklies and other small media outlets. Heritage travelers is the new travel industry buzz.

Class #2, Workable Marketing Plan with speakers Peter Bowerman www.wellfedwriter.com and Brian Jud www.bookmarketing.com. Peter spoke from experience as writer and self published author. Admonished us to know a) what kind of book are we selling — niche or mainstream, b) why was it written/published, c) how much money &/or time is available to invest? Answering these questions will make for more efficient marketing. Websites from Peter: www.booksonline.com for listing of niche bookclubs, www.internweb.com for ’cheap’ help, www.wellfedsp.com for samples of cover letters and other pr helps. Brian Jud’s take was to define the problem of the target reader, make recommendations, spell out what reader will gain by taking action or the recommendations. What you sell when you sell the book is the results or what the reader will gain. Remember that nobody cares if you wrote a book, but if you can solve a problem then they care. Another tidbit: People buy emotionally. They may explain rationally, but they buy based on emotion. And yet another pearl of wisdom: Bookstores display books. They do not sell books. Last words: Know your audience. Heard that before? Book site recommeded: http://bookcentralstation.com

Luncheon Speaker  was Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Kiyosaki is an engaging and relaxed speaker. A quote of note from his talk: “I am not a best writing author. I am a best selling author.” He emphasized the difference. I think we’ve all long known that good writing does not equate good sales, but his first person take on the difference was a strong reminder that marketing trumps. Kiyosaki said learning public speaking was a key to best-sellerdom. His book has sold by the bucket load for years, so take heed.

Class # 3, Meet the Online Retailers An hour + with Google, Amazon, Booksense, and bn.com. W-O-W. We began with Google, whose aim is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. All content in all languages, then they’ll rest. Google Book Search is a partner program that can lead to more exposure and discovery by readers. Several publisher testimonials were given. Google can match content to inquiry quite easily….so can Amazon, but more on that down the scroll. Numbers: 13% of books are sold online, but 66% of book buyers research on the web before buying in stores. Google has 700,000,000 users per month and realize 95% of their revenue through ads. For the publisher thinking that Google Book Search is a threat, here’s the deal: sign up for the program and uploading book files are free. Books listed on the GBS site can be linked to publisher’s website or to local bookstore or other. Content access is limited to 20% of the book, no right mouse functions are enabled, and all images are low dpi. GBS never posts an entire book at one time –except works in public domain. Did I say GBS implies no transfer of rights? Google will report to publisher how many visits to a title, how many clicks within the book, and which pages are clicked on. Coming soon: GBS will allow a one-week downloaded rental of any book for a fee or sell the physical book. I can’t report on how much of the rental fee or selling price Google keeps.

bn.com was next to the podium. bn.com checks in with 9.5 million visitors /month, has 10,000 vendors, and only 5% of the books sold each year fall into the category of best seller. bn.com supports online bookclubs moderated by authors. Important for publishers to add content to the book listing. Cover image will increase sales by 60%.

Amazon. Yes, it’s true, just as you suspected. Amazon is the world’s largest online selection of books. Amazon starts with the customer and builds backwards with the four pillars of Amazon: Price, Selection, Availability, Convenience & Discovery.  Publishers were strongly urged to add content such as Youtube snippets, an about the author segment, search inside, reviews, and always make sure info is correct information. As with Google, Amazon’s search inside program allows no right mouse function, and all images are low res. Amazon has a POD partner, Booksurge, and will print & ship books for delivery through the CAP or Content Acquistion Program. Would liked to have heard more about this as well as mobipocket, the Amazon subsidiary that produces ebooks. Note of interest: Amazon has partnered with FedEx for reduced shipping cost for Advantage program publishers.

Class #4 Q&A with Booksense, Ingram, Baker & Taylor and Regional Wholesalers. This session was dominated by Ingram. Speaker from B&T was not present, and there was a pitch-hitter for regional wholesalers. Points covered by Ingram — Ingram does not work with any account that does not net $20,000 in sales over a period of two years. The rule that to be part of the IBG a publisher must have 10 titles holds because Ingram figures that 10 titles should result in $20K in sales. Ingram’s biggest frustration with publishers is that so many come to Ingram without a marketing plan. Set up fee for new publishers is $750. Booksense is a marketing program for independent bookstores. They offer a low-cost advanced access program offering galleys to stores. I understood there is a discount for the advanced access program extended to PMA members. Check it out at the PMA site www.pma-online.org.

Manhattenhenge

While on our visit to New York, we were able to take in the celestial phenomenon known as Manhattenhenge.

Twice each year, the setting sun aligns perfectly with the city’s east-west grid.  Best views are had by walking east to 1st or 2nd Avenue and looking west down the canyon. We were on 42nd Street standing on the Tudor City overpass.

Neill deGrasse Tyson, director of the Haydon Planetarium, coined the term ‘Manhattenhenge’ in Natural History magazine in 1996.  Wonder how future archaologists will opine about the layout of the city? Surely the grid has astronomical significance, as we have assumed for Stonehenge. 

The two occurences are on either side of the summer solstice. We viewed the May 30, 2007; the next event is in July.

Turns out we were not the only ones looking at sun setting over New Jersey.

PMA Tuesday

PMA University 2007 kicked off on Tuesday, May 29 at the Park Central Hotel. 

Learning more about PMA was beneficial. I’ve been a member for years, but did not fully realize the many benefits of membership www.pma-online.org. The board is involved and helpful. Carlene Sippola is chair of affiliate programs (there are 25 of us!). Robin Bartlett gave hints on how to make the most of the PMA-U and BEA. I can’t imagine the hours these folks give to the org.

Dating Your Distributor was worth the efforts of travel. Representatives from IPG, NGN, Biblio, PGW, and more explained how and why to place books with them. PGW seemed as vigorous as ever in spite of the bankruptcy. They did not stop shipping for even one day during the recent financial turmoil.  

Truly Effective PR. Antoinette Kuritz and Joanne McCall. Horror stories of the ill-prepared author appearences in major media. Lesson: Local media are likely to be more interested in your author and local media is great training. Even the most polished speaker will not come across on tv without at least some training.

Budget Basics. Turns out that cash flow will make or break a company. Who Knew???

Dinner!!! A fun time with members of the PMA Board. They are ALL so very nice. PMA treated all scholarship recipients to a lovely time and meal. My companions were from Penn., Montana, New Hampshire, and Santa Fe.

TO NYC

Filter Press staff is camped out in midtown Manhattan, one block off Times Square, and ready for PMA University and BEA.  Lovely weather here in NY and lovely stroll and dinner in twilight lit bistro.

Tomorrow : PMA U courses Speed Dating Your Distributor, “The Deal” (selling literary properties), and Making Bucks Outside the Bookstore” with Brian Jud.

Later…..

CIPA Makes College Fun

Joyce Lohse attended the Colorado Independent Publishers’ Association CIPA College for the first time last month and had these thoughts. (This was the first time the CIPA awards annual banquet was scheduled to follow college sessions that day, a good and effective change.)

I had a blast at CIPA College, and at the banquet that followed. It helped that my book, published by Filter Press, Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story, was selected as a CIPA Award Finalist receiving 2^nd place in the Juvenile division. Beyond that, I spent a most worthwhile day, soaking up information and networking with some great people in the book world.

I have been a serious author for more than a decade, a pre-press and graphics professional for a quarter of a century, and a writer all my cognitive life. Although I’m fairly road-tested by now, I don’t presume to know it all, nor even know a good portion of it all. From that standpoint, much of what I saw and heard was already familiar, but there were plenty of ideas and bits of wisdom I was pleased to learn and to add to my arsenal.

My biggest thrill was meeting John Kremer. This is THE marketing guru who wrote the book I picked up some 25 years ago entitled, 101 Ways To Market Your Books. The book and Kremer are still going strong, and his latest version is called 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. I am trying to catch up on my reading so I can study the other 900 ways to market my books. CIPA College’s rotating roundtable format allowed me to talk one-on-one with The Man himself. Wow. I hope my rock-star hero worship wasn’t too apparent.

At any rate, I consider my day at CIPA College a huge success and an injection of inspiration, especially in my weak areas of marketing. I appreciate the folks who brought together these professionals so that we could benefit from them. And thanks to them for the recognition of our work with a much appreciated CIPA EVVY finalist award!