Von and Moggy's Livejournal Feed

Two things!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:38:56 GMT

First, I've set-up a specific site for the road to god knows.... The domain right now is at http://the-road-to-god-knows.blogspot.com/ but that should redirect to a specific subdomain on my own site in the very near future. The big question right now is whether I've covered all my bases or if I'm missing a piece of information - especially pertinent if you've never heard of me or the book before and would like to learn more. So, should I add anything?

Second, Mare Biddle posted some extremely lovely comments about my book over on her blog. Go take a look if you get a chance, ok?

Von

Tony Shenton!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:16:36 GMT

Bumped by Moggy AGAIN: This is a huge deal for Von (and for me!). Tony is a wonderful guy and we feel very lucky to have him on our side!

We'll be editing (and bumping) this post as other retailers pick up the book...meantime, thank you to everyone who has supported us up to this point (and for all the nice comments on this post). (Re-posts of this entry would be appreciated, of course...just comment here so that we know.)

---------------------------

I just wanted to announce (oh.....formal!) that Tony Shenton will be representing the road to god knows... (and me, too!) starting right now. Yay!

(Yours truly and Mr. Shenton.)

If you don't know, Tony represents a number of small press publishers to comic shops and other stores primarily in the United States. He and I have chatted for quite some time so it's really nice that he's willing to take my bookie on. Things will roll out slowly over the next little while, but I can say that the following comic book stores will have stock of road in the next week or so:

Jim Hanley's Universe in New York City

Cosmic Comics, also in New York City

Cosmic Monkey Comics in Portland, Oregon

I do want to point out that these stores are all taking a shot on me here, putting their money on the line and placing an order for me, primarily an unknown creator with an unknown book. This is basically based on Tony's reputation and persuasiveness. If you happen to know anyone who might be willing to give it a shot ($12.95 US for 148 pages, folks!), please let them know, ok?

Von

Ottawa Theatre Network

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:33:23 GMT

My friend Sterling has submitted a funding proposal to the Aviva Community Fund. In an effort to help spread the word, I'm cross-posting his recent blog post about it here. Please give it a read, ok?

As most of you probably know, I am trying to drum up support for a joint Great Canadian Theatre Company and Ottawa Theatre Network funding proposal that has been submitted to the Aviva Community Fund.

If the proposal manages to make it through the various hoops it will mean, among other things, valuable seed money for the Ottawa Theatre Network — an organization that I am helping to boot-strap into existence and that many people in the community think is needed to help boot-strap Ottawa professional theatre to the next level.

If you want to help me help the Ottawa Theatre Network and Ottawa professional theatre, it is very easy to do. Go to the Aviva proposal, register to vote (in seconds), and then vote. Return the next day, repeat. And so on. Also please tell friends to do the same. It’s easy peasy. NB: it doesn’t matter where in the world you are. Just vote.

Now, what might not be immediately obvious is why I am supporting this campaign. Some very reasonable folks have expressed some very reasonable concerns about the whole idea of pitting worthy groups-in-need against each other in a de facto popularity contest. So, if I think those concerns are reasonable, why am I pushing the campaign?

I’d say, there are two reasons.

First, this campaign is an incredibly easy way to engage people and create an opportunity for people to get caught up in the story of the Ottawa Theatre Network. It’s a publicity home-run.

People want to help. People want to participate. People will help and participate, if the entry costs are low and the project understandable. Voting, finding voters, and spreading the word is a game we can all easily understand and enjoy. Even the idea of the game is easy to transmit: help, vote now, please! Moreover, because it happens on-line, it is fairly effortless for everyone.

Once that almost effortless effort is made, people will be that much more involved — however tiny –with the Ottawa Theatre Network’s story. If we make it to the next round or win, it will be a publicity grand slam and those people who helped — even if with only one vote — will take pride and ownership in the organization.

Even if we don’t make it to the next round, as a bare minimum, the Ottawa Theatre Network will have been on the lips and minds of key stakeholders for several days — even weeks — and they will feel more involved in our story. They will be involved as participants, rather than mere observers. Even the critics are getting caught up in the story.

Second, it is a great way for me to figure out what kind of buy-in we can generate for the Ottawa Theatre Network via a social media, grassroots, word-of-mouth campaign. On Day 1, we had zero votes, three days later, we have x number votes. I can even track who and how people are talking about it. It’s a very useful and easy arts marketing experiment.

Along the same lines, it also provides the opportunity for social media experiments like the one you are currently living simply by reading this post — a bunch of us are blogging about this proposal today (Friday) in one shape or form. It may be enough to cause a critical groundswell. Or maybe not. At least, we will know one way or the other.

So, yes, there are legitimate concerns and the Aviva funding scheme is by no means perfect. There are, however, good reasons to jump in, participate, and see what we can make of it. I am fairly confident we can turn this funding zombie into a funding blow-job. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to practice looking for reasons for action instead of looking for reasons not to act. And that is always a good thing.

There ya be!

Von

Gar-Halloween-Field

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:39:47 GMT

God, I'm so glad we own this on DVD!

Von

Sony Reader question

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:50:50 GMT

Does anyone reading this happen to have a Sony Reader? And if so, are you willing to help me experiment a little bit? I'm trying to make "the road to god knows..." readable on it but, since I don't have one myself, it's a smidgen tricky to verify the screen quality. So, I need a little help. Any takers?

Thanks!

Von

the road to god knows... trailer (3rd pass)

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:11:49 GMT

Ok, here's the third pass for the road to god knows... trailer. I know it won't please everyone, but feedback is definitely appreciated.

Thanks!

Von

Kickstarter, Poorcraft and an interesting idea by Spike

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:32:27 GMT

I've just come across a site called Kickstarter.com and, no surprise, Spike (of Templar, AZ) fame is already doing something with it. What do you guys think of this type of idea?

Von

Blogs I like (...or how I learned to love non-LJ blogs)

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:02:06 GMT

Yup, it's true. I read blogs of all sorts and these are some recent ones I've enjoyed for a variety of reasons!

Sterling Lynch's blog on the arts (great sample post right here). Great writer, great guy, and I'm not in the least bit biased even though I've known him since 1982.

Ottawa actor Kris Joseph has a fascinating blog, and this recent one on Shakespeare is a great example of it. Kris is local to Ottawa and while we haven't met, I'm looking forward to the time we will. And he knows his stuff (see the above Shakespeare entry). Sickening, ain't it?!

And last but not least, Nadine Thornhill is another Ottawa actor with an awesome blog that has, by far, one of the coolest names I've ever come across - "Adorkable Thespian." AND she's on Livejournal, too, as dramaqueen_23. I haven't met her formally yet, but I have seen her perform in her very own play, Oreo. It is rare for me to walk out of something like this being jealous of the writer, but it's actually true. She's got talent. (I hear you asking, "Von, were you jealous of her acting?" Well, no, but that has nothing to do with her acting. Rather, it has everything to do with that the fact that I can't act my way out of a bag. As a result, I ain't jealous of no actor - I acknowledge that they blow me out of the water and move on. I only cry on the inside, just a little).

Go, read, comment! I'm sure they'd all love to hear from you!

Von

Quick comics question - Indy Comic Book Week

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:05:14 GMT

Giving this a bump just because I think it's interesting and one of the founders swung by and added his thoughts! (Von)

Slowly but surely, the news about Indy Comic Book Week is making the rounds. I don't know the organizers but I'm debating getting involved. If you don't know, the general idea is that Diamond will not be shipping new comics to comic book shops on December 30th. They are experimenting with a street date for DC's Blackest Night series, but that's technically shipping the week before and should not go on sale 'til December 30th. Either way, that date marks an interesting opportunity for small press titles.

From the site:

We challenge writers and artists to self publish new material for this week, and offer it to their local stores. We ask for retailers to take this as an opportunity to showcase local independent talent on the new release shelves. We encourage fans to break from their buying habits and try something new.

So, what do you guys think of this idea in general? And should I get involved in it? If I did, it would most likely only be on the local level (since the reason Diamond is missing December 30th is that shipping in general is tricky that week), but still...

Von

P.S. tip of the hat to kaolinfire to pointing the whole thing out to me.

It is spreading just like a zombie plague!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:39:31 GMT

BUMP-BUMPED BY MOGGY! Because this is awesome. :)

----------------------------------------

Or something like that. But yes, the road to god knows... is now available for ordering on Amazon.ca, too! Yay!

Von

Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - Agents' Day Part Two

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:41:04 GMT

Ok! Here's the 2nd part of my coverage of Agents' Day at the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators in Ottawa on September 26th. Part 1 covered Mark McVeigh's comments while this one covers Edward Necarsulmer IV of McIntosh and Otis. As I mentioned previously, I was typing frantically while each agent was speaking. I've tried to cover what they were saying as best I could, but I apologize for any errors up front.

(picture gronked from http://www.corinnedemas.com/contact.htm)

Here goes!

He started off contrasting his agency with that of Mark McVeigh's. McIntosh and Otis larger and far more established while the McVeigh Agency is a start-up and, as a result, is small. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but he did point out that larger agencies have a bit more leverage – it's not always true, but it helps. The two do know each other and he mentioned that McVeigh helped him when he was first starting out (I believe McVeigh was at Penguin at the time). Interestingly, Necarsulmer IV added that he is a philosophy major.

His mentor was Marilyn Marlow, who died in 2003. She discovered titles like

The Chocolate Wars

and

The Outsiders

. When she was first entering into the publishing business, she was told there wasn't a place for women in publishing. She later represented, at one point, 8 out of the top 10 authors on one bestseller list. It was very clear that he's still touched by her life. Marlow said, “agenting is like learning a foreign language.” In other words, the art of agenting is match-making.

He felt that the conundrum of children's publishing is that those involved (be they writers, editors or agents) are trying to connect to an audience that they have outgrown. He added that reading is the only thing a child has ownership over. This is especially true for teenagers.

He gets approximately 150 (unsolicited?) manuscripts per week and he does read each and every one of them (see below). However, this reading is done in his “spare” time - at night or on weekends while he's at home. During office hours he's actually doing other work and doesn't have time to read. He's on the phone all day, negotiating contracts. As a result, it can take a little time for him to get back to authors. He aims for a reply in 6-8 weeks, but sometimes it's more. He doesn't mind a follow-up email as long as it's polite. He stressed that one should never be angry or grumpy or nasty. He also mentioned that publishers are taking fewer and fewer unagented submissions and this is also something that McVeigh stressed. He doesn't mind multiple submissions, but he thinks it's appropriate that you let him know up front. He was actually burned a couple of times by authors who did not mention this – he was just about to contact them with an offer when it turns out they signed with a different agent instead.

Unlike McVeigh, he finds query letters useless. He prefers to get right to the writing and doesn't mind seeing two or three pages of your own writing rather than a formal contact letter. He wants to learn about your own voice as much as possible. He did stress that with this approach your first couple of lines need to be very, very strong. Ideally, the process would work as follows: he reads and enjoys the first two or three pages and then contacts you for a longer excerpt – say around 30 pages. If he likes that, he'll want to see the entire manuscript.

He described finding a book is like falling in love. He never takes on something that he can't absolutely love. He might ask a co-worker to read it, too, just to make sure he's not crazy. When he's read the manuscript, he should see two or three editors in his mind that would fit your book. The days of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks are over. He does feel, though, that children's publishing is more resilient to downturns. It has two channels, retail and institutional, and that makes it strong.

Once he's decided he likes your manuscript, he'll pick up the phone and call you. He'll ask to be your agent. He'll tell you what editors he wants to pitch to. You may or may not want to be more involved at this point. Some agents do multiple submissions at this point, pitching your work to a variety of editors all at the same time. Some do exclusive submission to a single editor. I didn't get a real sense of where he stands on this front, but regardless, if he gets rejections back from editors with suggestions, he'll want to talk with you about it before he sends out the manuscript again. He also stressed just how subjective the entire process is. Mark McVeigh, having been an editor, has passed on books that have become bestsellers. It happens to everyone. And agents deal with rejections, too.

He considers himself a “best offer” agent and not a “highest offer” agent. There's a lot to cover in agenting (including things like foreign rights, film rights, audio rights and whatnot). The offer is then negotiated (including adding clauses that “protect for success” - there wasn't a lot of additional information on this, but I took him to mean having clauses in the publishing contract if the book does phenomenally well). Any good editor will generally hold on to film rights and audio rights (all multimedia rights) so I gather this can lead to some tricky negotiations. He's not an editor so he views his job as more of a “broadstroke one.” The editor's favourite word is “no” so his job is to minimize the chance of being told that (through revisions) as much as possible.

He feels that when looking for an agent you should be looking for someone to help manage your career. “Authors not books” is the mantra he uses. Thinking strategically about one's career and growing one's career. When you pick him, you've picked him. He wants to grow old and grey with his clients. He believes that what an author should want is a book that earns out its advances and leaves everyone happy. He pointed out that the real money is in the royalties. If he oversells or drives up the price and the book doesn't earn out, the publishing house won't want it. They'll look at your numbers, do some data crunching, and then decline your subsequent book. Yes, he'll take your book to another publisher, but it's a small world and their first question will be “why didn't your old publishing house want it?” You have to realize that everyone knows everyone in publishing and, as a result, you can't bluff anyone. Plus, they all have access to Bookscan numbers and other sales data about you and your books. There's no way other publishers, agents and editors don't know how you're doing.

He added that once the book has landed an editor, the hard part begins (scary!). He also mentioned that agents are “professional voyeurs” (he's cc'd on everything between the editor and the author) and also the “professional bad guys” – they're the ones that pester for publicity and all the other nitty gritty type work. They are their clients advocates. On any given day, he's monitoring “20 or 30” conversations that are going on at one time. He also spends a lot of time getting to know the editors at various publishing houses. Editors will often say, “I wish we had a book on apples” and he can say, “oh, I actually have one.” He can also help you navigate editors that he might know better than you. You decide that you want him to pitch to editor “X” but he may know someone better than you that's probably a better fit.

He doesn't do agency agreements. He feels they benefit the agency and not the author. He works on a handshake basis. Of course, if there's any concerns he's happy to write you a letter covering “X, Y and Z,” but no agency agreements. He added that agents should be members of aaronline.org. Its code of conduct includes: no reading fees, you're paid within 10 days of the agent receiving any monies, and other odds and ends. He strongly urged writers and artists to pass on any agent that's not a member. AAR members have done legitimate deals with legitimate contracts. He also passed out a handout that, amongst other things, included words that should raise a red flag, such as abridgement, forever, perpetuity, universe, now and hereinafter devised, and derivative works.

On the publicity front, he feels that it's still all word of mouth. Kids to kids. Parents to parents. Librarians to librarians. Authors need to show a willingness to self-promote.

He mentioned the importance of attending conferences. He discovered three debut authors at conferences including, I believe, Holly Cupala's “Tell Me A Secret.”

And that's that. I really enjoyed both talks and I learned quite a bit from both Mark McVeigh and Edward Necarsulmer IV. Hopefully you did, too!

Von

Lookie, Lookie, I have Bookie!

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:37:08 GMT

Ok! Links are starting to show up on the various ordering sites! The cover

should be up shortly on these sites

is now up on these sites and the ordering links are good to go!

Road can be ordered on Amazon.com right here!

Here's the Barnes & Noble link!

Canadian links and more will follow as the book slowly enters into various databases. I'm not going to do any type of media push until all that happens, but getting things rolling didn't seem like a bad idea.

Yay!

Von

P.S.: full disclosure: we do earn a few cents if you use those Amazon.com links I've listed. You don't need to do anything special and there's no extra cost to you at all. Just to be clear!

Music Sales and the Long Tail

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:28:25 GMT

Some of you may recall that I quoted a piece from The Book Standard (the main url is gone but this is a mirror site) a few years ago on how few ISBNs actual sell in a given year. That quote is as follows:

The statistic...highlighted first, and subsequently brought up by the rest of the panelists, was the fact that 93 percent of ISBNs sold fewer than 1,000 units in 2004, according to Nielsen BookScan. These books accounted for only 13 percent of sales. On the other hand, 7 percent of ISBNs sold more than 1,000 units and made up the remaining 87 percent of sales.

Interestingly, some data on music sales is coming out that echoes this. From the New York Times:

A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs.

And a bit more from The Guardian:

Page is the chief economist at the MCPS-PRS Alliance, a not-for-profit royalty collection agency. According to his and Bud's research, 80% of all revenue came from about 52,000 tracks – the "hits" that powered the music industry. Broken down by album, only 173,000 of the 1.23m available albums were ever purchased – leaving 85% without a single copy sold.

It's tough out there, folks. Not impossible, but tough, tough, tough.

Von

P.S.: I owe a few of you emails and I still need to do my follow-up SCBWI post. Soon, damn it!

Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - Agents' Day

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:33:13 GMT

Ok, so I just got back from the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - Canada East (that's a mouthful - SCBWI CE for short) Agents' Day here in Ottawa. Two agents were there giving speeches, looking at portfolios and manuscripts, and generally chatting about the ins and outs of getting published. I had actually hoped to do a Twitter live blog on all of the talks, but the internet at Library and Archives Canada wasn't working, despite the fact that I had requested and had been given a user name and password. Annoying, but such is life.

In this post I'm going to cover Mark McVeigh's comments. While a longtime editor (at Harper Collins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster amongst others), he's new to the agent game and his McVeigh Agency is only about 6 months old. The other agent, Edward Necarsulmer IV of McIntosh and Otis, will be covered in a follow-up post. No favouritism - I'm just going with who happened to speak first.

(picture gronked from http://www.hungermtn.org/interview-with-agent-mark-mcveigh/ - I did not have a camera with me)

Now, these things are a little tricky, so this is going to be a fairly broad overview of what he was discussing. I'm basically cribbing from the notes I took, so hopefully it makes sense. Also note that I'm running on about 5 hours sleep! I don't want to speak for him so I doubt I'll be able to elaborate all that much, but let me know if you have questions. There was a Q&A that followed both talks and I'll try to cover those a little later on, too. Some interesting stuff, there.

He led off with indicating that this is one of the worst times in publishing history – editors are getting fired for books that don't sell. He mentioned that only 1 in 10 books is a "success" (though I admittedly wasn't clear on what metric he was using to qualify this. Is a "success" a NY Times best seller or just a book that's earned back it's advance?). Even though his agency is only 6 months old, he's already receiving about 100 emails a day - on a slow day! With just him and a subsidiary assistant agent, that's a lot of email to go through. Being professional, succinct and to the point in any type of query is critical - he does not have the time to go through long, convoluted and/or unprofessional emails.

When dealing with an editor in person, treat them like a human being. Ask them what they like to read. Talk to them about their favourite books and not just books they represent. Ask them questions they may not expect, not to catch them off-guard but to engage in conversation like you would with anyone else.

He noted that non-fiction books are a very tough sell right now. It helps if there's something you can tie it to; if the subject is being covered on a 4th grade curriculum, for example, that will help the sales potential for the book. He noted that it's easier for illustrated and picture books from this point of view - subsidiary rights can be sold to create calendars, post card books and the like. Non-fiction in particular is tricky, but they might be able to get a chapter excerpted in a text book or some such.

In terms of a writer's background, he encouraged everyone not to be judgemental. He used genre fiction as an example. He doesn't care if someone has written Scooby Doo novels and he himself has written a number of Spider-man novelizations. It's all writing and this type of writing, since it's fast and deadline driven, shows that you are dependable and can hit deadlines. So if you meet another writer who does this type of writing, never look down on them. He also believes that writers should join critique groups, but you should be picky about which critique group you actually join. Similar things went for illustrators and he mentioned that Maurice Sendak's early work were things like a Captain Kangaroo book. It took quite a while for him to get the ok to do Where The Wild Things Are. He mentioned another artist's first book was a Rambo colouring book (possibly this one, but I didn't catch the name and the names listed here don't sound quite right).

Query Letters: keep it business-like and professional. One page maximum. Treat the query letter as if you were writing to your lawyer or your accountant. Formal as possible, mainly because you don't know very much about the person you're writing to. Some agents will take offence to overly familiar query letters. Avoid being long or convoluted. Basically, he's looking for any reason to tell you “no.” Do everything you can to not give him that opportunity - but do it succinctly! He believes that it helps if you show you're expertise in the field – tell him why you are qualified to write the book. His example here was Martin Luthor King Jr. and the Black Panther movement. If you're a teacher and you've been teaching a section specifically focused on this subject and THEN you propose a book on it, that goes a lot further than someone else having a more casual interest. It helps to be very objective: if your book is similar to something else, something with a high profile (like a bestseller), it's ok to mention that. Of course, telling him how your book is different, too, goes without saying. This applies to both YA books and picture books. He believes very strongly in the pithy one sentence summation. Can you describe your story in a single sentence? This is important because he (and your future editor) will be engaging with sales reps and other marketing people and it really, really helps to have that one sentence description in their back pocket. While it's ok to send out queries to multiple agents, it's important to let him know that you've done this. He later added that he didn't just want submissions going to him - he's backlogged so much that it's not fair to you to keep you waiting. He prefers email submissions to snail mail and he made very clear that he wants a query letter first. He doesn't want to see an author's work until he's agreed to it via the query letter. Interestingly, much of his thoughts and feels on query letters are something that Edward Necarsulmer IV had differing points of view on. I'll come back to that in the next post.

He believes very strongly that writers (and illustrators?) should have blogs, even more so than websites. What's important is to keep the content positive and somewhat oblique. If you've been rejected from a publisher, it's ok to talk about that, mainly because you're writing to your peers. But it's NOT ok to name names and be pissy about it. In addition, talking about recent publishing news is a very positive thing as well as positive reviews of books you like and enjoy. The idea is to keep building a platform. He feels that if you have positively reviewed other works you'll have that returned when your own book is published - assuming the reviewer likes your book.

He also noted that agents and editors roles are blurring a bit. Agents are helping copy-edit the manuscript before sending it on to any editor. And then there will be more editing after that.

Lastly, he expressed hope that better funding to schools and libraries will lead to more growth in kids lit and young adult novels in general. He added that what a librarian likes and what a 14 year old likes are often two very different things.

So, there you have it. Having run a bookstore and the fact that I'm married to an editor means some of this I was pretty familiar with, but there's something interesting ground covered and I'm certainly glad I attended it. I'm also beat so I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I'll be back soon with part 2.

Oh, and he's into tattoos, too!

Von

How lucky am I, you ask?

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:43:01 GMT

This lucky:

Von is a keeper, yes?

*preens*

Webcomics: a question about scrolling

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:02:47 GMT

In a nutshell: does scrolling matter? Especially for dramatic or other longer form webcomics*? (quick edit: I'm specifically talking about vertical scrolling here - horizontal scrolling is bad). I've been going back and forth about this. A part of me is arguing that it does and that I should make sure my formatting for the comic pages are about 800px by 600px. But I work in regular comic book format so my pages are all vertically aligned. To make a comic fit that horizontal dimension means that I need to reformat things. Sometimes that's easy (a grid of 6+ panels can be rearranged pretty easily) and sometimes it's hard (splash pages and other large images require some thought and image tweaking). 'Course, when you factor in a nice header, navigation buttons and the like, readers may still have to scroll down to read the comic itself. But once they get there, the comic won't need to be scrolled.

Recent, Brigid Alverson brought back up the old Scott McCloud saw that page geometry matters and that webcomics, no matter their subject matter, should be arranged horizontally.

Me? I'm torn. I'm starting to put thoughts together on what I want a Stargazer webcomic site to look like and this is a big consideration. Webcomics like Girl Genius force readers to scroll without any inherent issues. Webcomic sites like the various Zuda comics are arranged for horizontal screens, but suffer from hideous (from where I sit) flash interfaces that turn me right off. Mr. Lynch thinks scrolling sucks while Ms. Biddle thinks smart readers ain't afraid of no mouse.

So, what do you think? Which way should I go? Simple poll question!

View Poll: Webcomics - to scroll or not to scroll

* I do think it matters for gag and humour strips. Scrolling in that case, particularly for a 3 or 4 panel strip, doesn't seem like a good idea on the face of it.

Von

Stargazer Poster - Colour version

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:25:38 GMT

Moggy and I are both getting over the flu and a few other ailments. Weeeee, what fun! La Casa Von and Moggy has been pretty low key of late as a result. Anyway, this is the colour version of the poster design that I put up a little while ago. I don't know if Stargazer will be a colour work yet, so this kinda thing is really just giving me a chance to play and experiment. 'Cuz, y'know, that's fun.

Von

Copyright (c) 2009 Eric Allan Julien

Stargazer Poster - Lineart

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:13:38 GMT

This is just the lineart. I'm working on a colour version, too.

Von

Art!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:24:57 GMT

Yes, it's been too long. I've actually had a pile collecting that I just wasn't scanning in. I'm starting to fix that and here's where it starts. Plus working on Stargazer, of course.

Von

Copyright © 2009 Eric Allan Julien

Brilliant!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:05:37 GMT

Oh, god, I love this. Brad Meltzer did a beautiful comeback to negative reviews of his latest book. This, folks, is how it's done:

And don't forget about the always awesome Black Books short that tackles it from a different point of view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS1NOXWVWgo

Von

Today's Shelf Awareness...

Mon, 11 May 2009 15:31:03 GMT

...had some fascinating data about books, bookstores, publishers, marketing and reading. Things like:

"The younger crowd are larger supporters of large chain bookstores."

Book clubs are still significant sales channels for reaching older readers.

The fiction market is predominantly female. The one area of fiction in which men predominate is science fiction, where 55% of buyers are male.

Stephen King's audience is "middle market." Sue Grafton appeals to an older, low income audience. Stephenie Meyer appeals mostly to younger, higher-income readers.

67% of book buyers who were influenced by book reviews read them online, and 32% did so in print. Overall online ads were the "first level" of book awareness in 2008--54.1% of buyers of a book became aware of the book through online ads, including banner ads, Google ads and publishers' websites. (And likely e-mail newsletters, too!)

Readers first hear about books most often from "store displays" (44.4%). The second-biggest "awareness driver" already is online (including online ads and e-mails from retailers).

I thought the online marketing bit a little surprising, though I suspect further data would help clarify exactly where these ads are running. Is it on big sites? Small sites? Book-specific sites?

Von

Marketing, Comic Books and the Direct Market

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:34:55 GMT

I've been watching the marketing efforts of Ken Marcus, creator and writer of Super Human Resources for the past few months. Marcus seems like a pretty savvy guy, having an active profile on various message boards including the Comic Book Industry Alliance, active interviews all over the place, and not to mention that he's an associate creative director at an unnamed (though I think it's the Martin Agency) advertising company.

Not only that, but he also sent out a nifty press kit to a number of stores (this pic posted by James Sime of Isotope Comics in San Francisco):

As he explains, "...the whole mailer cost me a little under a grand. A 10 page preview printed from Ka-Blam, 5 postcards, a poster and a color letter. To about 280 indie friendly stores." Lastly, he also wrote a marketing piece over at Robot 6 at tail-end of February '09, covering a lot of what he did (and well worth a look, too).

So, he's active, experienced, passionate and spent money. How did that, especially in light of Diamond Distribution's changes to their Purchase Order Minimums, effect initial orders on the first issue? Well, ICV2.com recently published their March 2009 numbers and the answer is not that great. Super Human Resources did place in the top 300, at #298, for an estimated total sales of 2,052 copies. At $3.50 US, that's a total retail order of $7,182.00, $932.00 over the new minimum of $6,250.00. Knock off Diamond's 60% cut of retail, the cost of printing a full-colour book, whatever small cut Ape Entertainment (the publisher) takes, and there would be precious little left over for the creators involved. Knock off the "little under a grand" that Marcus spent on the press kit and the first issue, at least, is most likely well short of being profitable. Worse, if orders drop by 20% for issue 2 (from 2,052 to, say 1,642), the book would be under Diamond's Purchase Order Benchmark (since 1,642 * $3.50 is only $5,747.00) and orders would probably be canceled (unless Diamond really believes in the book, of course).

It's tough out there, folks.

Von

TV Interview - complete!

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:10:40 GMT

Alright, here is the complete TV Interview I did for Talk Ottawa last June. This is a big file so I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up on our server (and many thanks to kevdead for that, of course). As long as I can, anyway.

For those who have watched the 15 minute part, you should be able to skip to that point fairly easily. I think. Ahem. I'm a little new to this whole video editing thing. :)

So just hit the little "Play" button at the bottom left and it should go!

And a snapshot from the interview (all official like!):

Let me know what you think!

Von

(edited to add that I gave it a wee bump)

Bookstores and Data

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:21:32 GMT

One of the reason why I'm so pleased that Mike Shatzkin has finally started a blog is there's some very juicy historical tidbits that people like me really enjoy. One is how Point of Sales data began being collected by bookstores (innovated by Dalton) back in the mid-70s. Now I'm familiar with this story but it's still quite nifty if you're new to it.

"Dalton was particularly innovative. They assigned each book an SKU number. When the purchase order for the book was issued, which would be for many or all of the hundreds of stores, the requisite number of stickers with the correct SKU would go to the stores. When the books arrived, they’d get the stickers, which could be read (by the cashier, not by the cash register). The punched-in numbers, usually correct, created a record. For the first time, buyers in a far-flung book operation knew exactly what was selling. (Or almost exactly, there were more than a few holes in the system.)

If memory serves, when there were about 300 Dalton stores, the sale of 6 copies a week constituted a “hot list” book and 6 copies a month was “warm list.” This was my first lesson in how few books sell enough to create statistical significance in any one store. That’s a critical thing to understand. (Von's emphasis added)

Soon, Dalton had established the concept of “model stock”, books that were automatically reordered based on sales. Smart sales reps learned quickly that getting a model was more important than getting a big quantity buy to the sales health of most books."

Data, data, data. I'm a massive believer that the 80/20 rule applies to both books and comics. Since most books turn so slowly, having accurate data to control re-ordering is very important. Having accurate data to better track "like" books (i.e.: if I sell X of Title A I may be able to sell X of Title Y because they share similar subjects, authors, or whatnot) is very important. And knowing where category strength is helps guide purchasing where there's no other data to be had (i.e.: I sell mysteries like gangbusters so I can take a chance at an unknown author with a brand new detective inspector character. I can't sell romances at all, so almost any romance title will get a hearty "pass" from me when I order).

This is so self-evident to me and yet I'm amazed with how many retail stores don't collect this data or simply don't collect it well (one day I need to tell you all about my three months at a local pet food co-op last fall). And comic shops (the Direct Market) are only now moving to an integrated Point of Sale system (though I still think it's somewhat alarming that some stores are going with Diamond's system rather than an independent one. I generally don't think it's a great idea for a retailer to be so tied to their (often) sole distributor).

The Dalton anecdote above is really amazing when you consider this was the early days of this kind of analysis. And how so many things have changed (barcodes! the interweb!) since then.

Neat.

Von

Filed By Author

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:06:13 GMT

Filed By Author has now gone into full beta. Co-founded by Mike Shatzkin (while I've never met him, I have a great deal of respect for both him and his late father Leonard Shatzkin), this is a free site that any author can use as long as you have an ISBN associated with your name.

So, jmward14, I'm looking at you.

Same goes for savageknight - right over here.

And coppervale thisaway.

Von

(yes, I've been quiet of late. Very busy and a little anti-social - now get off my lawn! :) )