Author, school visitor, book lover, & librarian!

I’ve been neglecting this blog terribly the past several months – it’s as if after quitting my Day Job I’ve put everything on hold ’til I’m finally outta there! Not really; I’ve been doing other things, notably, thinking about ways to get the news out there about The Forever Friends Club: the great little easy-reader chapter book my little press has just produced!

The book’s gotten fantastic reviews. Adoptive Families magazine called it “a delight,” and Motherhood Later said it was “ a wonderful twist to the adoption tale.” Plus, it has tons of free downloads, including a complete educators guide as well as a printable kit so kids can start their own club for forever friends!

I love this little book and I know that once adoptive families (and all families!) get their hands on it they’ll love it, too!

If you want to be eligible for one of 3 copies of this well-reviewed, well-written, and beautifully illustrated book about a group of kids who put the friendly in friendship, please comment below this blog entry and answer this question by May 30:

What makes a good friend?

“Farmer Hoggett knew little ideas that tickled and nagged and refused to go away, should never be ignored; for in them lie the seeds of destiny.”
Babe.

I used to write a blog called “Idea Girl.” I moved a lot of the posts over here when I started this blog, and although the name “Idea Girl” is a little bit childish (for I am certainly no “girl” – at least, not any more), it is really apt. I am a person who is FULL of ideas. Ideas that don’t get acted on very often, for I am no fool, but many ideas nonetheless.

I used to think everyone experienced this, but now I know differently. I like to think of myself as creative, but others might just think I’m flaky. Or over-opinionated. It’s possibly a symptom of a pathology, or at least a character trait that puts me in one of the lesser-known Meyers Briggs personality categories.

Anyway, Farmer Hoggett and me – we have something in common.

Well, folks – spring has sprung! And I only have 9 weeks left of work at my Day Job until I’m free! Free of the Day Job, that is. I’ve been working for my family business quite a bit – that, plus my press and my cataloging business (plus my kids, of course, and the little one’s plethora of dr. visits these past few months) have been keeping me busy and will continue to do so forever!
Here’s a quick update on what else has been going on with moi:

• My small press’s newest title, The Forever Friends Club, is puttering along. Sales are off to a slowish start but then again, marketing’s been off to a slowish start, too. As with all my other titles, I don’t get too concerned about the book’s first month’s sales. That’s the luxury of being a micropress. I’m in it for the long haul. The book’s gotten some fantastic, well-deserved reviews. Next stop: blog tour!
• I’m really excited about a new writing project: retold ghost tales of the Carolinas! Not sure what my plan is when they’re done – to produce them myself or to find another publisher – but they’re super fun to write.
• We’ve extended the deadline for submissions to Bless Your Heart, the anthology I’m co-editing with Kay Marner about parenting children ‘easy to love, hard to raise’ to June. Kay’s offered some advice on her blog to people interested in submitting.
• On Easter Monday we’re doing a give-away of The Big Fun Guide to Tar Heel Country through our Facebook page. Fan us to enter.
• On May 8 I’m teaching a workshop at Central Carolina Community College on self-publishing. That will be an adventure! How to cram seven years’ worth of what I know into 5 hours?
• I’m enjoying writing a blog and newspaper columns about energy efficiency as a way to educate people about the benefits of energy audits and weatherization.
• I’m rewriting the novel I wrote a couple years ago for a small publisher in California. They accepted it (after 4 rewrites) and had a publication date…which passed, was reset, was passed again…and I’ve come to believe they won’t ever publish it. It’s a decent enough story, however, and worth a 2nd look. That’s a big part of my summer’s plans.
• I need to write teacher’s guides for Mishka and When I Met You before I do a big mailing in the fall. The reception for the Teacher’s Guide for The Forever Friends Club has been really good; I think it’s a great, useful tool for teachers, guidance counselors, and parents who want to use the books in the classroom. Plus, it is a marketing tool! You know how I love marketing tools!

But first, finish the Day Job!

My friend Kay, who is a blogger for ADDitude magazine and also a frequent contributor to Adoptive Families, wrote a wonderful review of my small press’s most recent title, The Forever Friends Club, for Adoptive Families magazine. It’s out this month! Woo hoo!

Only problem is, they chopped it into teeny tiny pieces. This month’s book review section is about 1/4 what it usually is.

Bummer!

But here’s the FULL REVIEW, for your reading pleasure:

Every once in awhile, when I take my daughter Natalie to the park, I experience a secret delight.  As I take an accounting of the kids who are there, I realize–there are more kids who are adopted than otherwise!  How cool!  Natalie (Russia) and her best friend Harry (US Foster/Adopt) are there with me.   Kim (Korea) is shooting hoops with a group of boys.  And then, Hannah and Sergei (both Russia), appear out of the trees.  Let’s see, that’s one, two, three… out of….one, two…yes!  I love it!

A similar scenario is at the heart of a new very early chapter book, The Forever Friends Club, which features themes of friendship, problem solving, diversity, and adoption. In this story, Sam has no one to play with–until three families with kids move into his neighborhood.  Madison, the creative one, is adopted from Wisconsin. Nick, who never stops moving, is from Russia. (Natalie, excitedly: “He’s from Russia, like me?  And he rocks, like me?”) And Isabel, who remembers being adopted at age four from Guatemala, is the take charge type. That leaves Sam–he’s the only one who isn’t adopted, and he feels left out.  Find out how, in a clever twist of the “forever families” concept, the kids solve their problem and form “The Forever Friends Club”.

The book is graced with the lyrical writing style that is the hallmark of the best books at this reading level; the bridge between beginning readers and chapter books. Co-author Sue Gainor is the national chairperson of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA).

Wonderful, expertly developed free extras—guidelines for forming a Forever Friends Club, puzzles, stickers and more fun stuff for kids; information and learning tools for parents, teachers, and librarians—is provided on the publisher’s website, drtpress.com.

Read The Forever Friends Club with your child, adopted or otherwise.  Share in the delight!

Kay Marner, freelance writer/frequent contributor to Adoptive Families magazine/ founding member Iowa Chapter, Gift of Adoption Fund

I just re-found an interview that The Kool-Aid Mom did with me a couple of years ago over at her blog, In the Shadow of Mt. TBR.

I had completely forgotten it existed!

It’s so funny to re-read it, because the more things change…the more things stay the same. I still have no balance in my life!

If you are an author I want to be sure you know about the usefulness of Google Alerts for tracking reviews, mentions of you, results of PR activities, or whatever it is you’re interested in following on the web. I won’t get into the hows of creating a Google Alert for oneself- Google it! – but suffice it to say it is very useful, particularly when trying to keep track of ones promotional efforts.

I have Google Alerts set up for me, the titles of my books, the titles of books my publishing company has published, and the authors who have published with my company. Come to think of it, it would behoove me to set up a Google Alert for my company, too. That’s only logical.

It’s because I have a Google Alert set up for my books that I recently came across a brand-new book review for Mishka: An Adoption Tale. Mishka came out in 2007 – not that long ago in people years, but ages ago in book years. Most of the reviews for that book came out in late 2007, early 2008. A couple of bloggers reviewed it last year, but that was it the result of a little blog-tour experiment by yours-truly. But this review, sitting smack-dab in the middle of a website devoted to International Adoption, was completely unsolicited and unexpected. The very best kind of review a book could get!

I’ve been talking to someone who wants me to come visit the South Carolina Lowcountry area ( Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties), probably in the fall. One cool thing about that section of SC is that I have relatives who live on Daufuskie, so as long as the school’s schedule jives with their schedule (they’re busy, traveling, retired grandparent types) I wouldn’t have to charge for a hotel stay.

The person who wants me to visit is not a school system employee, simply a friend of a friend, but she’s mentioned that she doesn’t think the school she’s connected to has any discretionary funds for an author visit.

This is what I’ve told her: in 15 years of working in schools, and many, many visits by authors and storytellers, I never used any school funds for an author visit! I always wrote grants to pay for visitors at my school. 

To help her out, I did a quick search for grant possibilities to fund author visits in Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties, SC. I found many possibilities:

Just read a couple of articles that I found very interesting.

1. Presto Book O – Why I went ahead and self-published.

2. Room for Debate: Do School Libraries Still Need Books?

#1 showcases a guy with a good attitude and a good plan. Self-publishing the way it should be done. And a business model and marketing plan that makes sense for him.

#2 bums me out. Even though most of the experts they queried said yes, books are still needed, I think it’s worth noting that with the exception of one school librarian and the headmaster of that private school that threw out its entire library collection, all the rest are experts on new technology. So I guess that makes it all that more meaningful that they think books are still needed. I did find it very odd that the people in the debate were the aforementioned technology experts and 2 people who work for private high schools. Why didn’t they talk to to the people who work with the rest of the world - i.e. the majority? Why only exclusive private schools where you can assume the kids all have access to technology 24-7? The rest of the world isn’t like that. The digital divide actually exists, folks. But maybe not to the readers of the NYTimes…

I’m a little bit embarrassed about what happened yesterday, mostly because it could have been avoided by simply THINKING about the ramifications of accepting a shipment of books at a storage facility with no loading dock or overhang whilst it was pouring rain (and paying a small fee for the shipping co. to keep the boxes over the weekend)…but these are the results:

The cardboard boxes got wet. Very wet. To prevent the water wicking into the books (which, for the first time in my little adventures as a publisher I didn’t have shrinkwrapped in plastic) we brought all the books home and unpacked them from the boxes.

Books are fine.

Boxes are trashed.

Husband still annoyed.

Next on the agenda: repacking the whole mess when the new boxes I ordered arrive.

Does Random House have problems like this?

If you have read any of the “Me, Myself, and I” portions this blog, or any of my previous blog, idea-girl, you’ll  that I have been struggling with work-life balance for the past several years – essentially, since winter of 2006, when I took a full-time school librarian job after 7 1/2 years working part time, raising my children, and starting my little publishing company, not to mention writing and helping my husband with his business (most intensely in the past year).

And even though I did a job-share this year and so cut my hours in half, I’ve had a lot on my plate. As those hours dropped, my work for our family’s business increased. We’ve also been struggling with my younger son’s medical-behavioral issues, which takes up a tremendous amount of energy, time, and patience.

Because of all of this – combined with the growth of my husband’s Home Performance business – we’ve had to make some hard decisions around here. We decided that I would quit my job.

Yesterday I gave notice – 5 months in advance, as I’m planning on finishing out the school year – but notice all the same.

I feel relieved. I feel guilty (if you’ve ever worked as a teacher I think you’ll know why). I will miss the kids and the people I work with and the books.

I also feel like I want it to be over with now, but I’m scared of relying only on a start-up business for our income. And despite the fact that my husband is 100% supportive and probably more on board with the whole idea than I am…I also worry about the stresses ahead.

I am trying to get to the part where I feel free. Where I finally have time to work in a little exercise and regular house-cleaning and WRITING into my day…as well as to be available to take my kids to whatever activities they want.

It’ll happen. Right?