News on Four Topics

Painting

I finished these two oil paintings, to be held in reserve for when the Mural Gallery in Exeter needs to be resupplied with citrus paintings.

Navels on the Tree I, 6×6″, $65
Navels on the Tree II, 4×6″, $45

Mineral King

The Mineral King road and recreation restrictions were scheduled to be lifted on Saturday, September 21. By now people who need to know will know for sure if that has happened.

This is how Mineral King looked in September of 2023. At the time of composing this blog post, I hadn’t been up there in almost 3 weeks.

The Book About TB

The TB book index problem is not repaired but we now have a plan. Instead of an index that can adjust itself to repagination, we will have a static index. This means that after the manuscript is formatted, I get to go through the index word-by-word and make sure the right page numbers are listed.

This is my favorite photo in the upcoming book. (Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2022.4.6. (Courtesy of the Trudeau Institute)

2025 Calendar

Is it a good idea to show you the calendar now? They have arrived, are now for sale, and here is the part I am unsure of: they are a sneak peek into my upcoming show, Simply Home, which opens on October 19, a month from now. Wait, this isn’t truly a “spoiler”, because I have been showing you the progression of paintings for almost a year now!

2025 Calendar Front Cover — Simply Home, $25

The Mineral King road and recreation restrictions were lifted at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 21.

This, That, and the Other Thing

This. . .

. . . is the current status of the latest oil painting. More branches, twigs, leaves, and some wildflowers remain. I might even draw a few more blades of grass. I like long grass.

That. . .

. . . book with which I have been helping a doctor-turned-author, Dr. William Winn, for almost seven years is now at the publisher! Tales of TB: White Plague of the North, should be in our hands in about 2-3 months.

After such a big project, I feel like lying in the long grass with Tucker.

and the Other Thing. . .

. . . I am now helping another author-friend, Louise Jackson, with a book, this time a novel. We worked together on The Visalia Electric Railroad and Trail of Promises, both now out of print. It is a privilege to use my editing skills to help folks, honed through about 60 years with my nose in a book.

Two bird stories

Bird Story #1

I am working on a book, doing the transcribing, editing, and book design. This is for a friend of a friend, and the book will only have 25 copies, distributed to the friend’s friends. The friend of a friend’s friends.

Never mind.

The book is a collection of stories over ten decades of an extraordinary life. The writer and I have only spoken on the phone once, after I published her first book. By “published”, I mean everything: transcribing, arranging the stories into an order, editing, choosing photos and editing them with Photoshop, proofreading, helping someone to write a foreword, formatting the interior, designing a cover, writing the synopsis (“blurb”) for the back cover, sending it to the printer, proofing it for the umpteenth time, getting it printed. It was fun!

She doesn’t email or text, so when I have questions, I write her a letter, and then wait for the response. This is a slow but good way to communicate, because if one forgets what was asked or answered, the information can be found on a tangible piece of paper.

There are a few references to birds, and a poem about birds is included. So, as a surprise for the writer when she receives her book, I am including a drawing of a bird above the poem. Why not? I love to draw!

The process of shepherding a book from typewritten pages to an actual book is complicated, challenging, and very rewarding. It is a privilege to be able to do this kind of work, especially for such a remarkable person.

Bird Story #2

The title of this post is “Two birds”, so here is the second bird story (no photos).

Pippin was carrying a scrub jay in his mouth while another one was squawking overhead. I grabbed little Mr. Orange Bob Square Pants, shook him, and the bird fell out of his mouth and flew away. Sorry, Buddy. Birds, no. Rodents, yes.

Sometimes I am a Non-Profit Company

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Some days it is a real struggle to find time to paint because of all the non-art-making tasks associated with being a professional artist, a one-woman show, a solo act, a Jana of all trades, and small potatoes.


This is what filled my day a few weeks ago, most work related, and none of it actually for profit. 

  1. Someone sent me an email wondering if an artist’s proof from a reproduction run of Farewell Gap prints was worth anything. Yeppers, it is worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for it. This required a bit of rooting around to see how many prints I made, some guesswork about when I did it, and a lot of thought in a couple of emails. (And I had to blog about it, because it was both mildly interesting and informative.)
  2. I got a handwritten letter in the real mail about a place called the Green Hotel in a small town in Kern County. This is because neither my email nor my phone would give me my messages from the correspondent. The letter turned into a series of phone calls and emails, with me instructing the folks what would be necessary to reproduce notecards when the original has vanished. (This might warrant its own blog post.)
  3. The gallery/museum where I teach drawing lessons (CACHE) has applied for a grant. Because it will be a possible source of money for murals inside the museum, and because I am a Typo Psycho, I helped with editing and proofreading. Our highly esteemed president of CACHE put zillions of hours into this, with an understanding of how to write appealing content for grants, and I concluded that if CACHE doesn’t receive the grant, the judges are stupid, biased, or there is just a great deal of tomfoolery involved. (What, me biased??)
  4. My colored pencil artist friend Carrie Lewis puts out a weekly newsletter, a free publication with helpful information for colored pencil artists. Because no one can proof her own writing and because she is overloaded with many other tasks, I proofread this weekly for her.
  5. The upcoming big murals at the largest Catholic church in North America have been on hold. Finally, the project manager said I might be able to begin soon. This meant rewriting the contract, checking prices that have risen since we began the process in October, updating terms based on new information. 
  6. Finally, on a day that much of this was happening, we had an electrical problem. When the electricity went out, I had to go to the neighbor’s house to wait for the electrician to call me on the cell phone. We don’t have cell service at home; use of the cell requires using wifi, which requires electricity. So, with all this work to do, I took my knitting over to my friend’s house and sat in the sunshine.That was a busy day, lots of work, all of it not-for-profit. But sometimes an artist has got to do what she’s got to do.

 

Writing, Editing, Publishing, Chapter Four

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. . .Selling

Selling is the most difficult part of writing a book. There are entire blogs and websites devoted to this topic, and it is as individual as the stories and the authors. I have no answers, no tricks, no proven method. A friend told me (in reference to The Cabins of Wilsonia) “The worn spot in the sink was made drip by drip by drip”.

Here is a list of You Cans:

  1. Ask some place to host a book signing, such as a local book shop or gift shop or museum or gallery.
  2. Host your own book signing at your house or a friend’s house or your church or your service club.
  3. Use the Book of Faces or other (anti)social media.
  4. Send a press release to your local paper (if there is one).
  5. Keep books with you at all times.
  6. Write a newsletter about the book and send it to everyone you know.
  7. Send emails to everyone you know.
  8. Give a book every time someone asks for a donation to a fundraiser.
  9. Look for local businesses to sell the book.
  10. Pay your publisher to list the book on their site.
  11. Pay the publisher to list the book on that big online store.
  12. Start a blog and do all the publicity ideas above to get the word out.

There are many other ways to sell, but this is enough for now.

Indeed. I believe our Reading Rabbit has expired from exhaustion.

Writing, Editing, Publishing, Chapter Three

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As promised yesterday, today we continue The List of tasks in writing a book. (This ought to be numbers 15-29, but I can’t get the blog to obey me.)

Today’s list begins with finding someone to write the foreword. IT IS NOT A “FORWARD”. Got that? One of the quickest ways to tell if a book is self-published by someone without experience (or money to hire experience) is if their word at the front of the book (FOREWORD) is self-written and is titled “Forward”. This is what my old friend Jennifer referred to as “loving hands at home”, and it was not a compliment.

Shall we proceed?

  1. Find someone to write the foreword (optional).
  2. Write a conclusion or an afterword (optional).
  3. Decide who to dedicate the book to (optional).
  4. Decide what type of publisher you need: full service, printing only, or a choose-your-own combination of services.
  5. Decide if you want hardcover, softcover, e-book, Print-On-Demand, or a combination.
  6. Hire a formatter (or use the publisher’s formatter).
  7. Proofread again.
  8. Find an indexer (if your book would be enhanced by an index).
  9. Proofread the index.
  10. Send the index to the formatter to add to the book.
  11. Get the cover designed.
  12. Buy an ISBN and a bar code (unless you choose that service from the publishing company).
  13. Decide how many books you want.
  14. Keep writing lots of checks.
  15. FINALLY, when you have the book in hand, start the hardest part which is. . .

. . . to be continued tomorrow

As Solomon wrote “. . .Of making many books there is no end. . .” Ecclesiastes 11:10

Writing, Editing, Publishing, Chapter Two

 

As promised yesterday, today we begin the list of tasks involved in writing a book. Brace yourself!

The List

  1. Write the book.
  2. Hire an editor.
  3. Rewrite the book.
  4. Title the chapters.
  5. Proofread.
  6. Choose a title.
  7. Find the illustrations.
  8. Get permission to use the illustrations.
  9. Have the illustrations prepared for printing.
  10. Caption the illustrations.
  11. Write the back blurb.
  12. Get a a photo of yourself.
  13. Write your short biography.
  14. Write the acknowledgements (optional).

Tomorrow, we shall continue The List. Reading Rabbit is raring to go.

 

 

Writing, Editing, Publishing, Chapter One

Today’s blog post contains an experiment. If you receive these posts in email, and read the email on your iPhone or iPad, and if the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. Then PLEASE let me know what happens, because this is a mystery I would like to solve.

Books

Writing, editing, and publishing are skills I have learned and practiced through the years. It began with The Cabins of Mineral King, under the guidance of my cabin neighbor, Jane Coughran. Many years passed before I took on The Cabins of Wilsonia. During those years of 1998-2011, everything about the publishing process changed.

This time I did all the book design myself, which is called “formatting”. I had to buy a laptop, a scanner, Photoshop, and InDesign, and learn to use them all. I hired an editor, hired a publishing consultant, recruited several proofreaders, and found a printer. It took four years.

That process taught me skills that I used for other books, some mine, some other people’s: Trail of Promises, The Visalia Electric Railroad, Mineral King Wildflowers, Adventures in Boy Scouting, Oil Town Teacher, six coloring books, and currently, White Plague: When TB was Called Consumption (the working title).

Who Cares?

You might care, especially if you or someone you know has written or plans to write a book. Let this serve as a short tutorial (or perhaps a warning).

Writing the book is only one tiny little piece of the process.

Tomorrow, I will begin The List.

 

 

Two Drawings, Mine and Someone Else’s

Hers

A drawing student brought in a photo she had taken, a challenging choice for a beginner. I tell my students, “Pick something you love, because you will be looking at it for a long time”. She loves this scene and worked very diligently. 

This is the result of her labors, and I think she did a wonderful job! (I removed her name because she didn’t ask to be on the World Wide Web, and I didn’t ask her permission.)

This is how it looks after I’ve photoshopped it for reproduction purposes, in case my student wants to have copies or cards printed.

Mine

For about five years, I have been working with a writer on a book about tuberculosis. It began as a local story about the TB hospital in Springville (here in Tulare County). When he started researching, the story grew into a different book, a massive project. Through it I have learned much more than I ever expected about “the white plague”, as opposed to “the black plague” (both of which refer to skin color associated with the disease, not race, so no need to get your knickers in a twist.)

The author came to me initially for some drawings for the Springville book, and upon further discussion, hired me to edit for him. We are finally reaching the end of the main text and are now gathering appropriate illustrations.

He couldn’t find a good photo of Virginia Poe (wife of Edgar), so he asked me to draw her from a rather gruesome photo (or painting?) taken shortly after she assumed room temperature.

Are you properly horrified? This fits with Edgar Allan Poe’s writings, doesn’t it? I haven’t read his work, but I learned plenty about him through the process of assisting with the writing of this book. I’ll stick with modern writers for my fiction.

Meanwhile, I think the background needs a little bit more work.

Okay, all better now. I also remembered to sign the drawing. 

 

 

P.S. Adventures in Boy Scouting

The book “blurb” (certainly there must be a better word for this) is the brief summary on the back of a book. Here is what is on the back of Adventures in Boy Scouting: Tales Told by the Old Scoutmaster.

It’s the third weekend of the month. Where did everyone go?

Start reading and find out. Maybe Boy Scout Troop 323 is kayaking of Point Lobos, scuba diving off Big Sur, camping on Case Mountain, or maybe even at Kirks Creek searching for their inner selves in the “seven pools of enlightenment”. You know wherever these intrepid scouts are, another adventure is sure to follow. 

What is so glorious about sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag during a thunderstorm or a blizzard? You’d have to be there to know, or you can skip the discomfort and read this book to bring the adventure to life.

Do you know this old scoutmaster and newly published author? If you see him, congratulate him, hand him $25, and be the happy owner of the fun new book, Adventures in Boy Scouting: Tales Told by the Old Scoutmaster. 

P.S. Max the dog will be in the back seat of his pickup, along with Jasmine and Violet.