Ten Things Learned in February

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February is my favorite month, especially when it has rained and snowed around here. Orchards begin blooming, yard flowers and wildflowers are out (I saw some poppies across Lake Kaweah on February 21), the air is clean, and the weather is exciting. So few days, so much to learn.

  1. The Dream is a podcast with a series about multi-level marketing companies, and another about the wellness industry. The main lessons are A. Multi-level marketing is a useless exercise in trying to earn a living; B. There are 13 vitamins—A, C, D, E, K, and 8 different B; C. Supplements are not vitamins and are not regulated by the FDA.
  2. Remember when I told you what those scribbly squares are called? They are QR codes, and now I am participating in them. An upcoming show in Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery (now called CACHE) will have recordings with the art so that you can hear artists tell you about each piece if you scan the code with your smartphone (and I think you are supposed to bring ear dealies).
  3. Ever heard of a “sweetheart table“? This is a fad with brides and grooms: they sit at their own table at the head of the wedding reception. You ask, “Who cares?” So glad you asked. Trail Guy and I care enough about a couple getting married in April to build their sweetheart table for them. This involves more learning than you care to read about today.
  4. I learned what our average monthly propane use is. This is helpful information when one’s gauge doesn’t work, although I am pretty good at guessing by feeling the tank. (The delivery man pooh-poohed that method until he saw that I was right.)
  5. We tried a new coffee supplier: Community Coffee Company. It was part of my feeble attempt to stop using the giant A, to buy American, and to stay stocked up. They didn’t have a lot of choices, which made things easy. (There are many American coffee supply companies; no need to use the big A or drive down the hill.)
  6. A friend (Hi CK!) told me her favorite tea is Rooibus. Excuse me? It is pronounced “ROY-buss”, it is herbal (no caffeine), and it is hard for me to find any discernible flavor, so I like the version with vanilla from Celestial Seasonings, which is described here: Rooibus  (they don’t offer it any more!)
  7. I bought a huge pair of overalls (made in China, sigh) and converted them to a jumper! (Phooey, bought them from the big A).
  8. Eggs are “only” $3/dozen (fall down laughing) at Costco. My neighbor has kindly brought some to me for that bargain price.
  9. Gas was “only” $4.13/gallon at a Sinclair station in Tulare. I don’t make it a habit of driving 45 miles to save money on gas, but I certainly don’t pass up a good price when it appears.
  10. Occasionally tightening the screws on a roof of heavy gauge metal is a good plan if you like to keep your roof intact and attached. Three of our neighbors plus our church lost pieces of roofing in February storms.

Pippin isn’t too interested in learning anything other than how to sneak into the house, shove me out of this chair, and spend as much time as possible near the woodstove.

Three Rivers Weather Report

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Several friends asked if we got snow last week. We hadn’t on Friday when I sent out a newsletter stating no snow.

Then, it snowed on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Not very much (we are at 1000′), but it stayed cold all day so the parts that weren’t dissolved by rain stayed around.

Pippin wasn’t interested in being an outdoor cat on Saturday.

On Sunday, snow was still visible on the foothills around our house.

Because it was a little bit sunny, we took a short walk. All the little drainages were flowing.

I was thinking about flowers and cold: flowers are kept in refrigerators at florist shops, so this can’t be too bad. These daffodils will probably bounce back. 

The rosemary is certainly flourishing.

More snow and rain is coming. 

Don’t you just love wet winters in California??

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.

 

 

Things Artists Have to Figure Out

I recently agreed to submit 5 pieces to an upcoming show in the Exeter Courthouse Gallery, now called CACHE. (Can’t remember what it stands for). The show is called “Locals Only”, and although I have never lived in Exeter, my studio was there for 9 years, so I qualify as a local.

This means I have to figure out what to submit. There are many things to take into consideration:

  1. Who will the audience be?
  2. Shall I submit oil, pencil, or both?
  3. Do I have any new oil paintings that I haven’t already shown at this gallery?
  4. Are they scanned or photographed, titled, and varnished?
  5. Do I have any new pencil pieces?
  6. How many are new? Oops, that means unframed.
  7. Do I have any frames and mats that will fit the new pencil pieces?
  8. Shall I unframe older pieces that haven’t sold and use those frames and mats for the new pieces?
  9. What shall I say about these pieces for the QR code that will allow a viewer to learn about them?
  10. Can I make the voice recording work?
  11. How will I sound like a knowledgeable confident artist rather than a silly newbie?
  12. How does one send a voice recording?
  13. How many of my current obsession (orange groves with foothills and the Sierra) is too many in the same show?
  14. What shall I title these pieces that all look similar? (Did Monet or Van Gogh or whoever it was just say “Haystack # Forty-eleven” or “Water Lilies # umpty-umpt”?)

These are drying in the sun; sure hope nothing natural befalls them. I’d better move them inside.

An artist could need a nap after all these difficult decisions.

 

Various and Sundry Calendar Thoughts

Matilija Poppies, 5×7″, NFS*

What does “sundry” mean? Various, miscellaneous, separate, diverse. Its use is redundant in the title of this post, but a longer title seems to please the search engines. Maybe I should use all four words. . . but maybe I should just get on with it here.

  1. I took a calendar to a friend in a convalescent hospital, along with a wrapped book. She received the book, but the unscrupulous front desk did not deliver the calendar. When I called to ask about it, my inquiry was met with surly and suspicious defensiveness. Ugh. My friend was scheduled for release last week, so I saved the final calendar for her return home.
  2. A customer in North Carolina ordered a calendar, and it was never received. First Class Large Envelopes don’t have tracking through the USPS.
  3. Since the calendars are sold out, I looked into reordering. The smallest quantity is 10 calendars, which would cost me $23 each. Nope. I told the North Carolina customer that I’d send her a refund check.
  4. Something told me to verify the North Carolina address before sending the check. Sure enough, she had given me the wrong one, and she told me to forget the refund.
  5. If the calendar makes its way back to me, I will mail to her at the right address.
  6. The List of Calendar Ideas now contains nine different suggestions. Maybe I can design for nine years ahead. 

 

*NFS means Not For Sale

 

Waiting Around, Chapter Three

While waiting around to get permission to begin painting at the new Catholic church in Visalia, I hung out in the yard a little bit, between rainstorms.

Pippin and Tucker wondered why I was jerking their salad out of the ground. (Humans call it “pulling weeds”.)

Trail Guy and I talked about this old bird bath. Cowboy Bert made it for me out of 2 discs and a pipe, added an auger-tip to the top, and I did a tile mosaic. Because of the auger tip, it continually rusted until all the tiles fell off. Then I just moved it to our Someday pile.

Trail Guy thought we could figure out how to turn it into a bird feeder, and I said yes, we can, by flipping it over so the auger tip goes into the ground and the base becomes the top. I wanted to sand it some and then cover it with several coats of Rustoleum.

However, Trail Guy was eager to get those birds situated, so the painting will have to wait. He also did some sort of man-powertool-stuff so the pipe won’t fill up with water.

While Pippin and Tucker participated in our outdoor activities, Jackson took a nap indoors in the sunshine. He is more sedentary and introverted than Brother Pippin and Uncle Tuck.

I also spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Apple, cleaned out some cupboards, knit, read, did the yearend bookkeeping, polished the headlights on Fernando (that is my car), worked on the book about TB which is a long story that began here, here, and here. Someday, when we finish the project, I will tell you the whole story. Of course if this waiting time continues and I run out of other topics for posting, I may tell you before the project is finished.

Thus we conclude Chapter Three of While I Was Waiting.

Waiting Around, Chapter Two

While waiting around for permission to begin painting two murals in Visalia, I remembered that I needed to finish a small painting. When it rains, it is dark and cold in the painting workshop. So, I haven’t painted in about a month. Good grief, will I remember how??

Do you remember this little painting? It needs work.

Instead of painting in the cold painting workshop, I carried everything outside.

It is too wet to scan and too wet to photograph properly, but you can definitely see that it is improved from the first photo.

What a fine place to paint. I remembered what to do with oil paints, no problemo.

Thus we conclude today’s chapter of What I Did While Waiting Around.