Wrestling The ABCs

Vegas Vendor's Village

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 think more. Heck, we’ve already sold almost a hundred copies on our website, and the book isn’t even out yet.

This brings up another topic that we’ve been debating about. How much do we want to promote our book. Tom feels that the book is going to pretty much sell itself (at the right venues of course), and that all the promotion in the world isn’t going to sell it at small random events (library visits for example). I’m thinking he’s probably right. I had planned on contacting at least our local library, but now, don’t think I will.

I do still plan on doing school visits (at least in Hazel Park). Those will be a guaranteed $300 per visit. The visit is free, but we require an advance order of at least 25 copies, so depending on what the teachers/students preorder, hard or soft, it will be at least a $300 visit. And close, so no travel expenses.

I’m not real keen on the idea of book store visits either. Those aren’t worth the time or effort most the time for a niche market book like ours. I say, tournaments, wrestling venues of any sort, a few school visits here and there, and that’s about it. It’s fun selling the book, but it’s not that big of a deal for us, just a fun project that is almost done, and where it goes, it goes.
Please see our order form in right margin

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 publisher did really well with sales at the MRA last weekend. She’s putting together some educator packs for our book. Those are big selling points at the MRA, and there’s another MRA conference coming up later in the summer that we’ll be able to attend.

Also I'll be setting up some book promo and order forms at the USGWA National Championships next weekend. It's the hugest girl's wrestling meet around, and it's a two day event (lots of moms, and moms buy books!).

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. I really think these tournament are going to be where we sell the most.

Speaking of selling our book. Tom and I are going to Las Vegas in June for the Olympic trials, and all the big players will be there, so hopefully our book will be done and we can sell it there!

Also, Tom said Asics will make all our posters. They always make them up for Tom for free for events and such, so we'll have them do all the posters we need for school visits, etc.

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, sneak previews (like for our book), pre-orders, freebies, etc. So Robert is working on something right now for Marian to display posters and such at the event. Yippee!!

The second event is the Ann Arbor Book Festival, which I have also attended in the past. In fact, that is where I met Cynthia Furlong Reynolds, who wrote grandma’s life story!
Again, for this event we will only be able to take pre-orders and give out fliers for school visits, bookmarks, etc. but it will be good advertising and a good way to get the word out.

On another good note, two coaches, one from the UP, one out of state, emailed me yesterday with team orders, both for 25 copies of the book. We are doing so well, especially considering the book isn’t even out yet!

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 we got home last night, I was pleasantly suprised when I checked my e-mails and discovered that I had received even more preorders while we were gone! How exciting is that?

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 week. Tom and I are brainstorming what we envision the illustrations to be like for each page and have to have that ready for our conference call meeting with Robert.

I’ve been busy putting together more promo stuff. I made some fun little kits that include a bumper sticker, stickers, tattoos and book marks. For now I’m giving them away at tourneys but will probably sell them for $2.00 eventually.

Lots of clubs and blogs have linked up to our book site-Awesome!!! You can see them on our friends/links page http:www.wrestlingtheabcs.com

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 grammar issues that she is taking up with the chief editor, but other than that, it is good. We are meeting again next week to discuss a few things, and after that we should be ready to have Robert get going on more illustrations.

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 an hour or two today getting our book site link added to about 30 youth wrestling clubs (some in-state, some out of state). Nobody said, “No”, so hey, tomorrow I’ll hit 30 more!

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 artwork he sent in December.

Our contract is signed, and we've met again with the publisher. Tom and I have a huge line up of book venues already! Our publishing agency really works hard with their authors and illustrators to sell the books. Of course whether we can do all the venues or not will depend on how fast Robert can illustrate. His bio is complete and we have sent it over to the publisher. We have a meeting with our editor again next week.

Well, in spite of our plans to self publish, we have stumbled upon a local publisher who has offered us a publishing deal way too good to pass up. We get all, yes, ALL the royalties for the first publishing, and 90 percent of the second and subsequent publishings.
We do have to pay the printing costs, but hey, we would have had to do that by self publishing anyway. We really lucked out. They are new and looking for authors, and I was fortunate enough to meet these folks at my last conference.
So now, it's just a matter of meeting with the editor, working out a few bumps in the book, and forwarding the final manuscript to Robert. He's already working on our cover art. So yes,... I guess all good things come to those who wait!
And the best part of it is, is that we own all rights to the book, so we can pull out of the contract anytime we want! The books will even be delivered to our doorstep. Look out wrestlers!

Got word from a publisher. I"ll fill everyone in on that soon. If and when we get a book deal going, we will keep everyone posted

"Wrestling The ABCs"
A Children's Picture Book for Wrestling Fans of All Ages

This past weekend was so relaxing. Izzy didn't have any games. The boys (well just Logan) had a meet Saturday morning out at Kensington, and after that we went out to Deidre's to visit with the cousins. Rem and Izzy decided to sleep over there, Logan had plans with a friend for the evening so he went back home with me. Sunday was Tom's Duathlon. He did great. He is getting so fit -it's very impressive. After the Duathlon I had a wedding shower to go to for one of our wrestlers who is getting married in December. I hate showers. Well, I sort of like baby showers, but that's it. After the shower Deidre brought Rem and Izzy home and that pretty much took care of the weekend.

I got asked to be the high school PTA President. I couldn't say no to that FAST ENOUGH! Doing the Reflections for Webster is more than enough PTA involvement for me thank you very much.

Speaking of PTA Reflections, our first workshop at Webster went very well. Two of my writers seem very promising. Gifted little rascals some of these kids.

Speaking of Webster, Izzy is so loved at Webster. All the teachers fight to have her help them after school. In fact, I never even have to pick her up. She usually stays with the teachers until at least 4:00, and then they bring her home. Plus, they all love Chewy and Lulu and like to visit with them when they bring Izzy home. It's fun being such a small community. We know every principal, most the teachers, and tons of the kids. I love it. Everywhere we go we see kids or someone that knows us. Very friendly and close-knit here. Even if I can't ever get to sleep because of our noisy neighbors, the good far outweighs the bad.

Rem had his bone scan Tuesday, and we're still waiting to hear from the doctor. I'm pretty sure it's fractured though, because as his skeletal system was appearing on the computer screen, I saw a large white area on his femur, and when Rem had a bone scan in 2005 (which also revealed a fracture), I saw the same type of image under his knee where the fracture was. So now as far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of waiting for the doctor to confirm what I am pretty confident I already know. So he's been off of it for almost two weeks now.

Logan came home with some of his cross country friends after practice yesterday, which was nice. It was perfect timing for them too, because I had just cooked a big turkey breast with roasted potatoes, corn, and some apple crumpets with whip cream for dessert. High school boys can eat A LOT!

I hate waiting! The two publishers that took copies of my "I Wanna Be..." series manuscripts at the conference I attended last month told me it could be weeks, or MONTHS before they get back to me regarding any interest. The one gal really seemed to like the idea that my ideas were directly generated from the students I work with everyday. She thinks that could make a bigger impact on marketability. The two manuscripts they took away with them were "I Wanna Be A Baseball Player", and "I Wanna Be A Rock Star". In progress are: "I Wanna Be The President", "I Wanna Be A Teacher", and "I Wanna Be An Artist". This is just the beginning! These kids are dumping ideas in my lap left and right! Every day I get a new idea. I simply have to determine which ones seem to be more popular with the kids, and Whammo!, new manuscript. It's fun, even if it goes nowhere. The hard part is trying to focus on just one at a time. I'm a tad ADD, and ideas are floating around in my head like crazy!

In regards to our ABC book, Tom and I are currently working an an activity book to market with the picture book. We have features such as: crossword puzzles, word searches, fill in the blanks, unscramble the words, what's missing in this picture, coloring pages, etc. All of the activities will in some way connect to the picture book, and will feature a "freebie" to win when the book is completed and turned in to Davids Gold Medal Sports!

Tom also started working on a Wrestling 1,2,3 book last week. I'm not so sure that one would sell as good at tournaments though. It seems like it would be more appropriate for the very young set, and we don't get a ton of kids in that age group at our tournaments. Maybe we can tweak it and turn it into more of a math type picture book. We'll see. That is at the bottom of my priority list right now.

Most of you should be getting these tomorrow or Saturday at the latest (I popped them in the mail today). Hope to see everyone there! We've yet to have a Halloween without hosting some sort or party. This year plans to be no exception. After the party, all the kids that want to spend the night are going over to Grandma Dodd's, and all the adults that want to party are welcome to stay here with us. We will be sending out separate "adult" invites in a day or so. And sorry grown ups, costumes ARE required. Tom and I are going to be "All That" (me), "And A Bag Of Chips" (tom). Watch for your invites!

Vegas Vendor's Village

ABCs set 3

More Venues

Viva..Las Vegas!!

Double Good News!!!

Yipee!! Book Orders Are Rollin' In!!!

Promo Packs

Is it ABC's, or ABCs?

Magic Numbers

Meet The Editor

Contract is Signed!

Oh Happy Day...We're Getting Published!!

Deal, or No Deal?

Lazy Weekend

The Waiting Game

Do The Mash...The Monster Mash!!

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