Before I head to the studio, have a look outside.
HEY! CENTRAL CALIFORNIA ARTIST! AREN’T YOU GOING TO DO SOME WORK?
The goal is for this book, Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names, to be ready at the end of April for a book signing at the Three Rivers Historical Museum. I’ll keep you posted.
In my normally slow month of December, I finally had the chance to work on my upcoming book Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.
It seems to be cooking along just fine, and then something goes wackadoodle with InDesign or the template ceases to do its templatish magic or it takes hours and hours to resize all the photos to the same effective PPI (you’d really rather not know) or some of the photos get corrupted and I have to keep moving the flashdrive back and forth between the 2 laptops or I realize the title page simply says “MK Wildflowers” instead of Mineral King Wildflowers . . .
You get the idea.
One morning I worked about 10 minutes on it and suddenly it was lunchtime. Then I put in about another 1/2 hour and it was dark out. Then another 10 minutes and it was 9 p.m. So, you see this is an engrossing and enjoyable project.
The worst part will be writing the blurb on the back. Have you ever tried writing about yourself? Don’t, if you are able to avoid it.
The plan is to have it in hand in April so I can do a book signing in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum before the Redbud Festival when people are in a wildflower state of mind. (Have you ever been in a wildflower state of mind? It might just be an idiosyncratic trait of this Central California artist.)
Friday’s post left you with a teaser. . . new book coming!
Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names is in progress. This has been a 2 year process of gathering photos and names. I’ve struggled through many boring white flowers and a zillion yellow ones that all look alike. I’ve gone a little nutso over blue flowers and recognized that red ones aren’t very common.
While hiking, I’ve realized that wildflowers are one of the big magnets for me. Sure, scenery is great, exercise can be fun if with friends or on a trail (I’m looking at you, Off Trail Guy) and who wouldn’t want to be outside in Mineral King? But all my choices for hiking destinations seem to be based on where the flowers are.
With a stack of about 6 wildflower books, I’ve been able to find common names for most of the wildflowers in Mineral King. Why does it take that many? Why isn’t there a wildflower book for Mineral King?
“If it is to be, it’s up to me” – I don’t know who said that, but it seems to apply here.
The book will have photos taken mostly by Off Trail Guy and me; the cover will be a fabulous photo from a fabulous photographer, one of my treasured hiking friends whose phone takes better pictures than my little Elph camera. It also might have something to do with her superior photography skills. . .
There is still a pile of work ahead on the book – more writing, editing, proofing, trying harder to find names for those unknown whites and yellows, and finally, figuring how and where to get it printed. Add into that mix the difficulties of working with Adobe InDesign on an old laptop, and there are probably 2 months between now and actual publication.
Here is a peek at an early draft of a two-page spread:
Obviously there is some editing necessary. Obviously it is not a scientific botanical manual. Obviously.
I hope this is a helpful and fun book for people who hike in Mineral King and love wildflowers, with inquiring minds that just need to know.
Finally, finally, The Visalia Electric Railroad: Stories of the Early Years by Louise A. Jackson is a real book, both soft and hard cover, in our hands as of 1/19/2018.
The softcover book is for sale in several places.
But wait! How much?
The softcover is $21.50 including tax and shipping. Get it on this page, or by contacting me or Louise directly.
Is there a hardcover?
Yes. It is $26.50 including tax and shipping. Get it on this page, or by contacting me or Louise directly.
I already have this book!
Nope. You don’t. You might have the first edition, a saddle-stitched 8-1/2×11″ version, published in. . . I forget.
This is the 2nd edition, new and improved!, with twice as many photos that you can actually see and many never published before, AND the entire book has been edited, polished, rewritten. It is BEE-YOO-TI-FULLL!
But that is just my opinion as the editor, photo editor, book designer/formatter, proofreader, book shepherd and publisher. (Cabinart Books is a division of Cabinart. Doesn’t that sound big and official?)
What is a book shepherd?
One who guides or “shepherds” a book from an author’s idea to final printed version. If you have ever written a book, you might know that feeling of, “Now what am I supposed to do to get this published?” A book shepherd guides the author through the options and steps of ending up with a well-written and well-printed book.
My learning about book shepherding began with self-publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia. I was my own contractor, doing all the research, photography, drawings, book design, book formatting, computer work on the drawings, and finally finding a printer. I hired a self-publishing consultant, an editor for the written parts, and had 4 friends proofread for me. (NO ONE should EVER do a final edit on one’s own writing or EVER pretend to be able to proofread one’s own work – it parallels the saying “He who represents himself in court has a fool for a lawyer”.)
This experience woke up something inside of me that said “BE AN EDITOR – YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME ANYWAY!” (Yes, it shouted at me in bold and all capital letters.) IT is something that manifests as a Typo Psycho, and causes me to twitch whenever I read most self-published books, if I can even get through the first big error of “Forward” instead of “Foreword”. These self-publishers tend to be ignorant of the parts of a book; their books are full of redundancies, run-on sentences, unnecessary and boring topics, poor grammar, typos, and horrible formatting. They bring to mind a description from my friend Jennifer: “Loving hands at home”, not meant as a compliment.
People who have a story to write need help. There is so much more involved than writing! I want to help.
When I first heard “book shepherd”, I realized that I had done this already; even though it was just for myself, it counts. My experience allowed me to share my new-found knowledge with Louise Jackson on her book Trail of Promises. This book turned out so beautifully that Louise asked me to help her with The Visalia Electric Railroad. We are nearing completion and the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train book.)
There were more books I helped on along the way in various capacities, but this post is getting too long already. It probably needs a good editor.
You deserve a nice picture after wading through these thoughts. This is my favorite wildflower, Explorer’s Gentian.
I’ve been working on The Visalia Electric Railroad: Stories of the Early Years with Louise Jackson. Books take a ton of work AFTER the writing: a lot of talking, editing, tons of computer time, decisions, decisions, decisions, emails, phone calls, meetings, more editing, proofing, more decisions. And it is all very fun, especially when you get to work with people you love.
One of my tasks as Louise’s book shepherd is to gather photos and make them usable for the book – change all the mysterious computer things, clean up the fuzz and hairy stuff and tears and stains, resize them, and figure out where they belong in the book.
Yep, book shepherd is a real job, and it is what I did for her Trail of Promises book and am doing for The Visalia Electric Railroad. There is another book by another writer coming soon, but I won’t be telling you about that until January or so.
Time out for a quick commercial: Trail of Promises: Packing the Backbone of the Sierra is available here. Here is the entire cover as it would look if the design guidelines didn’t show, and if you smashed the book flat and open. (This is not recommended behavior.)
But I digress. Have a look at a photo that won’t be in The Visalia Electric Railroad. There will be a similar photo, but this is too precious to not show you.
Hi, Mom!
Problem? There is no problem. Why do you ask?
Oh. Because I’m not posting as regularly. Because today is Friday and there is nothing about Mineral King.
After Labor Day, my real life resumes. I don’t go to Mineral King as often, because there isn’t as strong a need to escape the heat. My workload picks up, and drawing lessons begin again. Or, maybe I just miss Samson and want to stay home more. (He’s not dead, just dead to the world).
I’ve been working on the railroad. . . sing along now!
Couldn’t help myself. Sorry.
I’ve been working on a book with Louise A. Jackson. It is The Visalia Electric Railroad: Stories of the Early Years.
This book was first published by the Tulare County Historical Society. When they ran out of inventory, they asked Louise if they could get it reprinted. She said yes, but she wanted to rewrite some of it, correct some things, have me do her editing, work with me on the photos (the previous printer did not do any justice to the old pictures), and have me do the formatting so we could print it as a proper paperback in 6×9″ instead of as an 8-1/2 x 11″ book with staples in the center.
So, we’ve been working on the railroad, and more will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Today’s post is a list of random thoughts, unrelated to art, things that one of my tens of readers might be interested in.
Designing coloring books involves drawing, my favorite thing. Coloring the pages is for other people to do.
But, I got curious. So, I gave it a try in the ag coloring book, Heart of Agriculture: Celebrating Tulare County Farm Bureau’s First 100 years.
This is as far as I got on the title page. I filled the letters in with blues, because there is very little blue in agriculture unless you drive a New Holland Tractor. (Cats are yellow, Massey-Ferguson are red, John Deere are green: I don’t know about Kubota or Mahindra or International Harvesters.) Couldn’t decide on the cow – dairy? beef? Reddish? Black Angus?
And this is the beginning of the citrus page, one of my favorite designs in the book. 
I don’t know why I started at the bottom of the page. Look – more blue! It makes the yellows and oranges look brighter.
This stuff is time-consuming. I think it is probably the most fun for people who don’t draw or paint (or knit). It would be a fun group activity – a bunch of friends sharing conversation, ideas and colored pencils or markers. A bowl of M&Ms would be appropriate too. . . dark chocolate, if I’m there.
You can get the Heart of Ag coloring book at the Three Rivers Mercantile, Rosemary & Thyme or the Mural Gallery in Exeter, or on my website here. And, of course, if you see me around somewhere, I almost always have some in the trunk of my car, along with many of the other books I’ve published. (coloring books and The Cabins of Wilsonia)
It used to be that self-published books were the poor cousin of traditionally published books. They looked and read as if they needed some serious editing and design help. My British friend has a phrase for such projects: “Loving hands at home”.
The quality and success of self-publishing depends on how much work the author wants to put into the process.
Louise A. Jackson and I want Trail of Promises to look completely professional. Completely. Our goal is perfection, or as close to perfection as we can get with our current level of skills and knowledge.
There is self-publishing and then there is assisted self-publishing.
The folks whose story Louise is telling planned to do assisted self-publishing. When I got involved, I suggested real (unassisted?) self-publishing so they would not have to pay for a package deal that cost an arm and a leg in addition to buying the books to sell.
In all this wrangling and deciding, we decided that I am the publisher!
So are they traditionally published by Cabinart Books? Or is it Louise who is getting traditionally published by Cabinart Books? Or are Louise and I self-publishing together?
Who cares? Trail of Promises promises to be a beautiful book that tells an intriguing story of 3 people who packed the John Muir Trail with mules. It didn’t turn out the way they planned.
I’m hoping the book will turn out the way we planned, as we continue awaiting the proof copy.
Coloring books will be available again on July 1, 2016. You may order, but it will involve a wait.