Wrestling The ABCs: 2008

DUE Dates!

Wow have there been a lot of due dates in our family this past month. We've had four new births in our family, which is so wonderful, and our book related due date is January 15, 2009. At least that is what our publisher has it listed as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. So...unless we hear anything different at our meeting with them...

Our graphic designer on our book project had so many neat cover and page layouts. This is most like the one (or similar) that will be the cover for the book (both the hard and soft copies). Things are moving along as scheduled, and if all goes as planned, Tom and I will be going on the road to a big college wrestling competition in Iowa...

This is just one of the page layout samples that were presented to us at our meeting last week. We will be getting the dust jacket and the interior front and back spreads to look at next week. How exciting. Our puppy beans is doing great. I'm getting a foster puppy tonight or tomorrow (just for a bit while it's "real" foster mom is on...

Font Conference

This is a super funny and clever video that one of my writing pals sent to me. It's about 2-3 minutes long, but so worth it! Here is the link: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:182376...

We met with our publisher and editor yesterday to go over some of the cover and interior layouts that the graphic designer had put together. We loved almost every page presented, so ended up piecemealing it all together to get a great layout. We also decided to postpone the release date from December 2008, to January 2009 in order to broaden...

Well, unfortunately, our meeting today was cancelled (our publisher is very sick). I do hope Marian is up and at 'em soon...

O.K. So this is supposed to be book related. Well... I just have to say, book related topics will be on hold for the next couple of weeks, as starting tomorrow, I am fostering a mama cat and her three babies, as well as five 2-3 week old abandoned kittens who need to be bottle fed, AND two foster puppies whom we hope to get adopted out...

We've added a new page on our main website, where kids can join our fanclub for free. That makes them a "Reading Referee" and they get a membership package which includes a sticker, tattoo, pencil, crayons, bookmark, reading log, coupon and certificate! It should be fun, and there are links for kids to send in artwork, book reviews, book...

Tom got a hold of this really awesome picture of him and Robert Lence together with the team. I think our publisher may use this on the back of our book also. I know Robert really wanted it to be on the book, so it probably will. There are some other familiar faces in the photo too, like Tom Canty, Tim Fagan, Bernie Knoblich, Steve Fraser...

We are on top of the world! We had a meeting with our publisher and editor today. They had a few last minute revisions for us to make, but we are still on schedule. Robert has finished all the final illustrations and is working on the hardcover two page spreads for front and back of book. So far, things are still on schedule for a December...

Things are moving along quite smoothly these days. Our illustrator is done with all the illustrations. He's finalizing the front cover and back cover (inside and outside) illustrations. We meet with the graphic layout designer next week. Hopefully then we will know how much longer before it goes to press. Robert Lence is amazing. His...

I know it has been absolutely AGES since my last post here, but that's what happens when you have a child that just graduated from college. You have parties to throw, college to prepare for, driving lessons, etc. So....anyway. Our head shots have been sent in to the publisher for the back of the book, the rest of the rough drawings have...

Everything is off to the proofer. We are awaiting Robert's final illustrations, which if submitted by July 31, we will have a release date of December 1, for the book. Whoo, hoo! I can't wait. That will be perfect timing too. The clubs will just be getting started, and it will be enough time for Christmas orders too. We'l keep our...

Well, here I am again, in my Vendor's Village booth at the Olympic Wrestling Trials in Vegas. It's about as boring as yesterday here, possibly even more so (although it's early yet). At any rate, yesterday was slow again, only sold about another 30 books. I really would be shocked if today was any better. But....our evenings (after the...

Yesterday was not as productive as I had hoped (we only sold 20 books). Tom doesn't seem to mind though (I think he really just wanted to come to Vegas!). We sure had a lot of fun though yesterday. Robert and his friend Emil came in late in the afternoon, so when our day ended here, everyone got together for dinner. Steve Fraser joined...

Our Activity Books were shipped here to our store yesterday. They look great! We are all packed and ready to hit Vegas! Let's hope our book is a big hit and we won't have to ship much back home. Our editor emailed me today and wants to meet when we get back to go over Robert's illustrations for the picture book. I just know Robert is...

Our “Wrestling The ABC’s” crayons have been delivered. Tom was surprised how much room 3,000 boxes of crayons took up. I told him just wait til the books come in!! Yikes..we'll need a new addition to our house. We’re getting pretty excited for our trip to Vegas, and, the activity book should be in late this week or early next! This...

WOW! Tom and I just found out that included in our Vendor's Village fee is a full color 1/2 page ad in the official program for the Olympic Wrestling Trials. I can't even believe it. And their fee is already extremely reasonable and includes tickets to the event for two people for all three days. They also put us on their website and...

We haven't received our activity books yet, but the anticipated release date is June 6, 2008. You can order the activity books on our Wrestling The ABCs website, or on our Davids Gold Medal Sports store website. Our store website is the best place to order, as you can place bulk orders for discounted prices, as well as receiving the shipping...

We just got home from Battle Creek. We’d been there since Friday afternoon, so I am whooped! We did get some book orders for our book though in addition to all of the great business we got for Davids Gold Medal Sports! The Activity book Volume One proof will be arriving tomorrow. Assuming all is good, we can get the Activity...

WOW!, so much has happened since last post. First of all, and most exciting of all too, is we received our book forward from Dan Gable. It is so awesome. It was well worth the wait. We also have received two more book reviews. One from Joe McFarland, the head wrestling coach at the University of Michigan, and the other from Bryan Van...

Well, although our "Wrestling The ABCs" isn't out yet, and we haven't even typed a rough draft of our "Wrestling, One, Two. Three," I have cleaned up and fine tuned the first manuscript of my "I Wanna Be A..." series. I have several in the works, and plan to market it as a series. A friend of ours who helped with our Wrestling The ABCs...

For our Activity Book that is. Title: Wrestling The ABC's Activity Book-Volume One!The activity book is ready to submit to our publisher and should be ready in about 5-6 weeks. Hopefully it will or else we won't have it to take to Vegas with us and that'd be a huge bummer! One of our friends is married to a German wrestler, they live...

This is the cover of one of the books my ROAR Writers wrote two years ago. I'm expecting more good stuff from my Recreation Writing Class this fall!Spoke with the recreation director yesterday at the Hazel Park Recreation Center, and they are setting me up with a class this fall (September sign up). I'll be teaching a writing class for...

Tom wants to start writing the next book, “1,2,3, Wrestle!” I’d rather not, but he’s already working on it. We also have the activity book almost ready to go to print. Haven’t talked to Robert for over a week (don’t want to bother him...we’re rushing him as it is!). Hope all is going good with his illustrations.Marian plans to take some...

Well, Tom and I have made our reservations for Vegas. Yup, we will be official vendors at the Vendor’s Village during the three day Wrestling Olympic Trials (June 13-15). Thousands of spectators, lots of shoppers, people there with money to burn...we should do really good at this event. Tom thinks we’ll sell several hundred copies. I...

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The AAU Folkstyle World Championships are going on down at Cobo this weekend. Frankie took a bunch of my book promo stuff and is working on sales for the book this weekend while she’s down there.We met with our editor on Thursday morning. Things are falling into place nicely, but still not sure of the publication date yet. She said the...

I'm so excited about Marian plugging our book at the 2008 Michigan Reading Association Conference this weekend. I wish I could be there! Unfortunately, I have to work at our final Underdog Tournament (State Finals). But that's O.K., because I will probably be able to sell more books to these wrestlers than Marian would at the conference....

Well, today couldn’t have started off on a better note. I got an email from our publisher, Marian, and our book is going to be represented at not one, but TWO big events this spring. The first one is at Cobo Hall, at the end of this month, the MRA. I’ve attended this event several times, and it is awesome. So many new books on display,...

What a looooong weekend! We left early Friday morning for Battle Creek for the high school team finals which took place all day Friday and Saturday. Sunday was a youth MYWAY wrestling State Finals tournament so we stayed for that as well.We got a lot of orders for our Wrestling The ABCs over the course of the wrestling weekend. And when...

A lot has happened since last post! Robert has sent us two more sets of cover art sketches-I love them all!! We met with our publisher again this past Thursday, and all is in order to go to the proofer. We’ve set up a conference call with Robert for our meeting on March 4th. Tom and I are submitting our bios. and dedication page this...

We met with our editor again yesterday. We are so lucky to be able to meet in person with our editors instead of doing everything via email and telephone. It feels so much more personal. Like we're not just a piece of paper or a computer screen to them. At any rate, the meeting went well. We had a few questions regarding some specific...

I talked to our publisher today. I was curious as to exactly when our book would get assigned its ISBN number. Unfortunately its not going to happen until we are a little closer to going to press. I just feel like having that magic number somehow makes us more official. I love Marian. Her reply was, “Don’t worry, you are official.”Spent...

Tom and a I met with our editor on Tuesday, and it was a breeze. She didn't want to change anything with our prose, just a few grammatical errors, and all should be in order for a final meeting on February 5th. Robert is working on an animation for us to use for our website, as well as revised cover art. Until then we will use the preliminary...

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