Since my last post more than five weeks ago, not much has changed.  Lisa and I are still waiting and doing our best to be patient through additional problems and delays in the publication of our book. 

The most significant hurdle was the physical proof, which we expected to be [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

Since my last post more than five weeks ago, not much has changed.  Lisa and I are still waiting and doing our best to be patient through additional problems and delays in the publication of our book. 

The most significant hurdle was the physical proof, which we expected to be the last step before the books went to print.  Since Mill City’s electronic proof looked good, we didn’t anticipate any problems.  But when the physical proof arrived from the printer, all of Lisa’s soft, watercolor illustrations had somehow become bold, harsh and tinted with green.  To resolve the problem, we printed hard copies of the scans of Lisa’s original paintings and sent them to Mill City with a request that they work with the printer on “color matching.”  We then had to wait for a second physical proof.  Thankfully, this time around they got it right.

Finally, we received our publication date from Mill City.  To determine this date, they allow 20 to 30 days for printing and then one to two additional weeks for retailers to stock the book.  The date they gave us was our biggest disappointment so far:  January 1, 2013.

The moral to all aspiring children’s book writers following our blog:  It will always take longer than you think.

Our spirits were lifted, at least somewhat, when we received the following Kirkus review for our book.  Now, if we could just get Jimmy Finds His Voice into stores.

In this touching autobiographical picture book, a young boy discovers that enthusiasm can trump his speech impediment.

First-grader Jimmy interchanges some of his consonants, so that he doesn’t say his “worbs wight.” Opening with a letter from the author describing his experiences with bullying as a child, this charming tale centers on how he learns to overcome his fear of speaking around his peers. Both his mother and his teacher, Mrs. Lyons, are sympathetic, and they do their best to help Jimmy cope. When Mrs. Lyons tells the students they’ll be performing in a play, Jimmy is horrified; the other kids are sure he won’t be able to manage his lines. Eventually, Mrs. Lyons convinces Jimmy, the earnest young hero, that if he can say his lines with “verve,” his pronunciation won’t get in the way of delivering the message. Once he realizes how delivery can impact how words are heard, he finds the courage to stand on stage and say his lines—and finds himself accepted by his classmates. Doti (A Christmas Adventure in Little Italy, 2010) also includes a recipe for meat pies, as cooked by Jimmy’s nonna. Though the text is lengthy for a first-grade picture book, and there’s a distracting shift from present to past tense as Mrs. Lyons shares the story behind the play, the illustrations by Mertins are wholly appealing. Their soft, watercolor tones capture both Jimmy’s fears and his eventual triumph. In a comforting color palette, Doti’s childhood school is happily depicted as populated by a variety of ethnicities, despite the 1950s era implied by the children’s clothing. Notwithstanding the presence of school bullies, there’s little here that will make readers feel threatened. Although the story doesn’t deal with Jimmy overcoming the teasing, his discovery of self-confidence is a valuable lesson on its own and one that young readers will appreciate. Parents may find this book useful for discussing issues of shyness or speech problems with their own children.

A charming story with delightful pictures ideal for reading together.

If you’ve been wondering where Lisa and I have been since our last entries in July, we’ve been waiting.  And Tom Petty wasn’t kidding when he sang, “Waiting is the Hardest Part.”

With all of the components of the book in Mill City’s hands, we first waited to see the [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

If you’ve been wondering where Lisa and I have been since our last entries in July, we’ve been waiting.  And Tom Petty wasn’t kidding when he sang, “Waiting is the Hardest Part.”

With all of the components of the book in Mill City’s hands, we first waited to see the electronic proof of the fully assembled book.  It took several weeks before the proof was available online, and we had our next-to-last opportunity to request changes to the book. 

Now we’re waiting for the printer’s proof.  This will be a physical proof of the actual printed covers (hard and paper) and interior pages.  This proof will be important, especially to Lisa, because it will give her the opportunity to fine-tune the colors in her illustrations.  It was a real learning experience for me when the printer’s proof for A Christmas Adventure arrived and I saw that Lisa was able to request color corrections to even the smallest segment of an image.  For example, I recall her changing the blue color in the winter scarf Jimmy was wearing.  This step helped to assure that the printed illustrations were exactly what Lisa envisioned.  And the raves she received for A Christmas Adventure made clear that it was worth all of the painstaking care she poured into the book.

After the printer’s proof is approved, it will take about a month for the books to be printed and shipped to distributors.  So it now looks like it will be early November when the books are finally in our hands and in stores.  While that’s a bit later than I was hoping for, it will still be in time for holiday sales.

While we wait, Ann and I have been getting a head start on the promotion of Jimmy Finds His Voice.  We created print ads and placed them with local media for publication in October and November.  With a little Googling, we came across an online magazine targeted to parents of children with special needs as well as a magazine published by the California Speech and Hearing Association.  Both provided a good target audience at an affordable cost.

We also designed and ordered a free-standing display banner that I will take with me to book signings.  For this, I went to Vail Dunlap, a marketing and promotional goods company headquartered in Irvine.  They made me a similar display piece for A Christmas Adventure.   Colorful and almost 7-feet tall, it helped draw attention to me in bookstores crowded with eye-catching displays.

Another hand-me-down idea from A Christmas Adventure was to create promotional bookmarks.  In addition to giving Jimmy Finds His Voice bookmarks out at bookstore signings, they will be placed in the “swag” bags given to more than 2,000 runners and walkers who take part in our annual Chapman University Toyota of Orange 5K Run/Walk.

All of this activity is helping to keep us focused on Jimmy Finds His Voice while we anxiously wait to hold it in our hands.

Although Mill City’s services include writing and designing the back cover, I wanted to maintain control so I could insure that the style and format is similar to A Christmas Adventure in Little Italy.

One difference, though, is the opportunity that Jimmy Finds His Voice gives to promote A Christmas [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

Although Mill City’s services include writing and designing the back cover, I wanted to maintain control so I could insure that the style and format is similar to A Christmas Adventure in Little Italy.

One difference, though, is the opportunity that Jimmy Finds His Voice gives to promote A Christmas Adventure.  When that book went to a second printing, we included on the back cover some of the book reviewers’ comments.  We can use those comments again on the back cover of Jimmy Finds His Voice. 

Ann gave me several back cover designs to consider.  I chose the one shown here, because the plates from each book provide symmetry and balance.

The back cover design process includes the inside flaps on the paper cover.  Mill City provided a draft synopsis of the book that would go on the front cover flap.  I liked their version; but when Ann formatted it in the available space, we could see that it looked too cramped.  With a few cuts here and there, we got a better fit.

The back cover flap was designated for Lisa’s and my bios, as well as a statement that all proceeds of the book will be donated to the Communication Sciences and Disorders program in our College of Educational Studies at Chapman University.  We already had a head start on this, since Lisa and I had written relevant bios for this blog.  We made just a few minor edits to fit the space on the cover flap.  As for the proceeds statement, Ann had the idea to use an image created for the blog, where little Blackie adds a special touch.

With the back cover done, our job is just about finished.  We now need to wait for Mill City to send back the eProof of the entire book for our review.  That will be followed up by a physical proof from the printer.  Then, we wait for the books to arrive.

While conceptualizing, I went back often to the photos Jim sent of Reinberg School. My favorite is above. It looks like this classroom hasn’t been updated since the time when Jimmy attended!

I used the lamps and the door style and when it came to fixing the continuity problem that Jim [...]]]> By Illustrator Lisa Mertins

While conceptualizing, I went back often to the photos Jim sent of Reinberg School. My favorite is above. It looks like this classroom hasn’t been updated since the time when Jimmy attended!

I used the lamps and the door style and when it came to fixing the continuity problem that Jim mentions in the previous post, I went back to that photo to save the Up/Down poster I had found in a Flickr set online. It was easy to add another chalkboard and I love the vintage vibe of the Up Down kids.

Vintage school poster

This is also a good opportunity to show how images found online can be an inspiration. I haven’t looked at the poster since I found it months ago. I surprised myself to see how I interpreted it. I thought I’d almost copied the poster instead of using it for a jumping off point (good old brain!).

Lisa and I worked very closely with my associate, Ann Cameron, who combined the text with the illustrations and created a fully assembled book.  While this is work that typically would be done by Mill City Press, it gave Lisa and me the opportunity to see how everything fit together [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti 

Lisa and I worked very closely with my associate, Ann Cameron, who combined the text with the illustrations and created a fully assembled book.  While this is work that typically would be done by Mill City Press, it gave Lisa and me the opportunity to see how everything fit together and enabled us to see additional revisions and edits we needed to make.  By making these changes now, rather than later, we saved time we would have lost had it been necessary for Mill City to make corrections to their formatted interior.  Given our goal to get delivery of the books for the holiday season, every day counts.

One of the more significant changes involved a continuity error that had somehow escaped our notice until now.  Lisa’s first illustration of Mrs. Lyons and the students in the classroom includes a blackboard with two roll-down panels attached at the top.  The panel at the left, showing a map of the State of Illinois, is rolled down over the blackboard.

Over the next several pages, Lisa illustrates “The Elves and the Shoemaker” as Mrs. Lyons reads the story to the class.  As she finishes reading, the scene returns to the classroom.  But the map is now rolled up and the panel to its right, demonstrating “Up” and “Down,” is rolled down.  This makes no sense, since nothing transpired in the classroom other than the telling of the story.

One simple option, of course, would be to remove the “Up-Down” panel in the second illustration.  But I loved it, and so did Lisa.

So she came up with a different solution:  She removed the “Up-Down” panel and included a small portion of the map of Illinois.  Then she added a second blackboard, where a small part of the “Up-Down” panel appears.

All of this may sound like overkill.  I have found, though, that children have very strong powers of observation, and some would be likely to catch this error in continuity.  Our fix here is a sign of respect for our young readers.

Another change involved an illustration where Mrs. Lyons is seated at her desk while talking with Jimmy.  To fit all the text I had written, Ann had to place one paragraph over the side of the desk.

Squeezing the text within an illustration is something that troubled Ann and me ever since she initially laid out the copy.  But now that we were coming down to the fine points, Ann noticed that with some judicious cutting, we could free up enough space to remove the text from the side of the desk.  Since getting rid of extraneous words tightens up the narrative text, I wasn’t surprised that the edited page not only looked better but read better as well.

Finally, Lisa and I came up with our dedications.  Both of us thought it best to tie these dedications to the theme of the book.

Dedicated with respect and gratitude to Mrs. Lyons
and all the teachers who helped me find my voice.
J.D.

 To the children that talk, walk, think or do things differently,
I was once where you are now.  The best part is, I still am!
L.M.

After a few other minor changes, we sent the final version to Mill City for “Interior Formatting.”

The image featured above is the earliest sketch that Lisa gave me for the cover of our book.  But as I looked at all of her initial sketches for our book, there was another one—showing Jimmy on stage with his hand thrust upward—that I thought would make a great cover.    [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

The image featured above is the earliest sketch that Lisa gave me for the cover of our book.  But as I looked at all of her initial sketches for our book, there was another one—showing Jimmy on stage with his hand thrust upward—that I thought would make a great cover.    When I suggested the idea to Lisa, she felt strongly that placing this illustration on the cover would give away too much about the plot.  After all, she reminded me, “that’s the ‘aha’ moment when Jimmy truly finds his voice.  It would be wrong to telegraph that dramatic scene on the cover of the book.”  Needless to say, I found Lisa’s argument convincing.

So the next step was for Lisa to use the above pencil sketch as the basis for her painted illustration shown below:

Really cute!  But a problem with this latest is that it’s not clear that the elf is on stage.  That begs the question:  “What does an elf have to do with An Adventure on Stage?”  As a result, I asked Lisa to add curtains and an audience to show more clearly that Jimmy the elf is on stage.

As Lisa described in her May 30 post “Speaking of Drawing Boards,” she used PhotoShop to make these changes to her original painting.  We then added the title and other elements to complete a draft cover design:

I loved it… except for one thing.  Regular readers of this blog will know that the title has been the most significant hurdle we’ve faced with this book.   As I wrote in “Revisiting the Title Redux” (May 18), I hoped the matter was settled for good.  When I saw it on the cover, though, the two-part title troubled me.  Not only was it inconsistent with the title and cover design for A Christmas Adventure in Little Italy, it seemed to me that the “lead” title, An Adventure on Stage, detracted from the subtitle, How Jimmy Finds His Voice.  Moreover, I had come to like the subtitle better than the lead.  How Jimmy Finds His Voice had really grown on me.

The solution???  Easy!  Get rid of An Adventure on Stage and make How Jimmy Finds His Voice the only title.  One final bit of fine-tuning was to delete the “How.”  That resulted in the following cover design, which we sent to Mill City in fulfillment of the “front cover design” requirement in their publication timetable:

Now that the book is nearing completion, we need to start giving more attention to the timing of its publication.  We want to make sure that it comes out in time for the holidays, and possibly even in time for a September 14-16 Orange County Book Fair being held at Chapman [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

Now that the book is nearing completion, we need to start giving more attention to the timing of its publication.  We want to make sure that it comes out in time for the holidays, and possibly even in time for a September 14-16 Orange County Book Fair being held at Chapman University.  So we have to be mindful of Mill City’s timeline for accomplishing the following tasks, which need to be done sequentially: 

Task and Number of Business Days to Complete:
Front cover design:  7-10 days
Interior formatting:  15-20 days
Back cover design:  5-7 days
eProof:  10-15 days
Physical proof:  7-10 days
First print run:  21 days
Total:  65-83 days 

Mill City emphasizes that these are rough estimates that include only their initial work.  Every time we submit revisions, they need another 5 to 7 days to make those changes.

All together, it looks like it will take about three months, at the earliest, before we have a published book, and that’s if we can have the materials for each task ready to send to Mill City when they need them.

Our first task, then, is the front cover.  More on that in next week’s blog.

I love Lisa’s depiction of Jimmy and his mom in her “hat room.”  The second scene in this room is of critical importance to the book, since Jimmy came up with the idea of raising his arm during the play by observing and copying his mom’s actions.  To make the [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

I love Lisa’s depiction of Jimmy and his mom in her “hat room.”  The second scene in this room is of critical importance to the book, since Jimmy came up with the idea of raising his arm during the play by observing and copying his mom’s actions.  To make the scene more interesting, Lisa shows Jimmy’s mom working on a blue hat.  That shouldn’t go unnoticed in the text.  So I added:  “As Jimmy’s mom listens, she works on adding a blue bow to decorate a hat she is finishing up.”

For his first attempt at using verve on stage, Lisa depicts Jimmy stretching his arms out from his sides as he says his line, “Now that’s a goob idea.”  The stage setting Lisa designed includes a stove with a fire in the hearth.  Since Jimmy’s hand appears to be close to the burning stove, I felt it was necessary to add text to remind young readers that it wasn’t a real fire:  “She is stirring a pot of pretend soup on top of a stove that has flames painted on it to look like a real fire.”

The last full illustration celebrating the success of the play at Jimmy’s home is priceless.  Lisa definitely did her homework and showed some classic 50s-style furniture and paintings.  I told Lisa that I could even see the pulsation in her rendering of a Mark Rothko painting.

There is a lot of action going on in this scene.  I asked Lisa to add steam coming up from the meat pies that Nonna is carrying into the room to match the text’s “…Nonna carrying a platter piled high with piping hot meat pies.”

The last sentence in the story connects little Blackie with the festivities, “Yipping happily, little Blackie sings right along.”

Lisa’s original illustration showed Blackie off to the side.  I felt that Blackie should be more prominent to add to the overall festive spirit.  That’s when Lisa came up with the ingenious idea of placing a dancing Blackie right in the middle of the circle of dancing and singing elves.

The final letter “From Jimmy to You” did not originally have any illustration.  There was also a closing letter “From Jimmy to You” in A Christmas Adventure that was not illustrated.

But as I read the opening line in this book’s letter, “There they are—those big scary doors,” I felt that the reader was signaled to look for those doors.  That’s why Lisa added an image of the doors above the letter.

Jim remembers those school doors as massive, and my first sketches weren’t nailing that feeling. I struggled with keeping the doors in perspective while giving them a looming presence.

In hindsight, I could have eliminated the door surroundings to make them feel bigger but I wanted those details too. We’re [...]]]> By Lisa Mertins, the Illustrator

Jim remembers those school doors as massive, and my first sketches weren’t nailing that feeling. I struggled with keeping the doors in perspective while giving them a looming presence.

In hindsight, I could have eliminated the door surroundings to make them feel bigger but I wanted those details too. We’re both happy with the results!

If you look carefully at Jimmy's hand, you can see where I sized him down in Photoshop before I sent this sketch.

I really had fun with the Roy Rogers lunch box and Jim remembers he had one as a kid!

One of Lisa Mertins’ special talents is her ability to capture the essence of the storyline in her illustrations.  This is critically important, since readers—especially children—often look at the illustrations to get a visual sense of the characters and storyline.  Indeed, it’s this interplay between the text and the illustrations [...]]]> By the author, Jim Doti

One of Lisa Mertins’ special talents is her ability to capture the essence of the storyline in her illustrations.  This is critically important, since readers—especially children—often look at the illustrations to get a visual sense of the characters and storyline.  Indeed, it’s this interplay between the text and the illustrations that explains why books like An Adventure on Stage are called “picture books.”

When I’ve read picture books to my kids and now my grandchildren, I’ve noticed how their eyes dart between the printed words and the pictures.  So it’s important for the story to match the text.  And now that I have all of Lisa’s wonderful evocative illustrations, I have the opportunity to make revisions to the text to bring them closer together.

For example, in the first illustration of Mrs. Lyons, Lisa shows her holding “The Elves and the Shoemaker” book in back of her.

That’s a really interesting touch, but there is nothing in the text that refers to it.  As a result, I changed the text from “…Jimmy notices that Mrs. Lyons is again wearing a string of white pearls around her neck” to “… Jimmy notices that she is holding a book behind her.”  That seems to me to be a more realistic observation for a first-grade boy to make.  The string of pearls is probably not even on Jimmy’s radar screen.

The charming home of the shoemaker and his wife that Lisa painted is not even mentioned in the story.  That’s because I didn’t know Lisa would include it in her illustrations.  But now that I know she did, I need to include something about it in the text.  I did that with the following:  “‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’ begins a long time ago in a two-storied gabled home where a shoemaker and his wife live and work.”

Lisa did an amazing illustration of Mrs. Lyons holding up the book to show the class the relevant picture as she tells the story of “The Elves and the Shoemaker.”  Lisa’s depiction of the scene is wonderfully inventive.  It’s an illustration within an illustration that perfectly reflects the story within a story in An Adventure on Stage.

To capture this scene in the text, I first found the part in the story where the shoemaker and his wife are peaking out from behind the door to observe the elves in action.  Then I added the following:  “Picking up the book to show the illustration, Mrs. Lyons continues.  ‘So later in the evening, they hid behind a door and peaked out to find out what was going on.’”

There were some instances where Lisa had to revise her paintings.  She wrote about this in her May 30 entry, “Speaking of Drawing Boards,” where she described the process of using Photoshop to make changes to her original paintings.  

For example, I wrote:  “As Jimmy tells his mom the story of ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker,’ Blackie is curled up in his bed, listening to every word.”

But Lisa shows Blackie sleeping.  While I could, of course, have changed to text to describe Blackie sleeping, I like the image of Blackie listening to the story.  It would help make Blackie more human-like and more interesting.  So Lisa kindly went back to the drawing boards to show an attentive Blackie.

Another example of this relates to Mrs. Lyons’ heart-to-heart discussion with Jimmy.  In this scene, Mrs. Lyons tells Jimmy that saw him greet his dog while watching from the classroom window.  That gave me the idea to show an image of Mrs. Lyons looking out of the window of the school in the illustration related to that scene.  Lisa ran with the idea and added a very subtle image of Mrs. Lyons looking out the window.  See if you can find her in the following illustration.

While only the very careful reader will make the connection, I still think it’s kind of neat to do things like this in a book.

Since these examples point to the critical connection between the writer and illustrator, I will continue this discussion next week.