Shelley and I presenting Little Lions to Forest Creek Elementary

For Little Lions and our companion book to that, Harness Horses, Bucking Broncoes & Pit Ponies, we do a PowerPoint presentation about the writing and illustrating of a book. For Little Lions we use examples of the dog breeds to illustrate that process. Our two dogs, Baron and Millie, the inspiration for our book, make several appearance in the slide show as well. We include props such as an inflatable globe-of-dogs and life-sized Dalmation and Maltese to get the kids thinking and talking about the development of different breeds. After that, we show the students a slide of another dog breed from our book and have them write an expository paragraph about that breed, using us and the slide image as research. We usually end with Q & A with the kids, which usually deteriorates into every kid shouting out what breed of dog their pet is. Kids love dogs! We bring original paintings, sketches, thumbnails, and marked-up manuscripts to display for the students as they file out of the library. This presentation is geared toward third to sixth grades, as is our book.

Librarian, Ginna Wimmer, presenting me presenting Wiener Wolf at Sommer Elementary

For Wiener Wolf, I present the book to kindergarten through third grades, sometimes wearing a silly, dachshund-length WW sweater. I start with an intro to myself and to life with wiener dogs, starring our two dachshunds, Baron and Fritz. I then do a dramatic reading of my book. After that, I draw and explain what a story arc is and have the students apply it to Wiener Wolf and The Billy Goats Gruff. I then lead the kids in creating a sequel to Wiener Wolf using a story arc and I illustrate the story as they come up with it. The teachers get to keep the storyboard I made with the kids and everybody gets a bookmark!

Our presentations are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long. We spend down time signing copies of the books that the kids have purchased ahead of time and chatting with the librarians. They are very friendly, fun, and well-informed people who love talking about books, kids, and education. Librarians are the amazing people that make all of this happen. They invite us into their schools, get the kids excited about our books, introduce us to the audience, and take care of the set up and business end of the visit. They are also the ones that spread the word about our presentations to other librarians and get us more school visits! Shelley and I are already filling up the beginning of 2012 with more school visits around Texas. It will be a fun and busy year.

This past weekend, I participated in my first comic con. I had a table in the artists’ alley where I displayed not only my children’s books, but also my fantasy work that I’ve done over the years. I even had a few originals on exhibit that caught conventioneers’ interests. I thought I would share some of that work here.

I did this piece to have another sci-fi painting in my portfolio. The only other two are a Star Wars/Sistine Chapel illo I did for the Village Voice and a Star Trek first episode image I did for the River Front Times. For this painting, I thought I’d do a mash up of rockabilly and robots: robobilly.

This painting, titled “Afrika”, drew a lot of attention at the con, not just because of the imagery, but also because of the rusty nails I hammered into the sides of the canvas to create a frame.

I created this painting last year after attending the Illustration Master Class in Amherst. Jeremy Jarvis was one of the guest instructors and after speaking with him, thought I’d do a sample piece to get some work for Wizards of the Coast.

I painted this for the Illustration Master Class. One of the assignments was to illustrate “Beauty and the Beast”. I chose to put a twist on that title and make a fun book cover image.

This is a painting I did a few years back for promo purposes. I had the original on display at the Con and a lot of people recognized it from when it was published in Spectrum.

I did pretty well at the event, selling several books and prints and even an original painting. Best of all, I met a lot of really talented artists and made some good connections. I would like to take a wack at the San Diego con this year and check out that circus.

I have written and created sample illustrations for a new picture book called The Rockabilly Goats Gruff. It’s the story of three southern, rock’n roll goats trying to get across the bayou to a gig they’re playing at the Shimmy Shack. However, under the bridge lurks a grumpy old troll who doesn’t like the ruckus the goats make with their hotrods and instruments.

The above illustration is the first sample I did. My agent and my editor at Hyperion really liked the story and worked long and hard with me on getting the manuscript just right. They appreciated the image above but thought it was too busy, sophisticated, and overwrought for the young audience. They liked the simplicity of my little storyboard sketches and asked if I could try something similar to them.

The above is what I gave them. This is the kind of stylized work I did when I first graduated from college and was looking at Lane Smith and Steve Johnson’s illustrations. My agent and editor liked the addition of white space and the simplifying of shapes, but thought I needed to push further and leave my comfort zone.

So I left my comfort zone and acrylics behind and did this series of character studies of Billy Lee, the youngest goat. I started with the fully rendered, fully detailed, acrylic goat on the left and started using watercolors and simplifying. I tried  introducing non-local color by outlining the character. I was told close but not quite. At this point my editor, who fully supported the book, gently told me to shop it around elsewhere. He couldn’t convince the higher ups, art director, or marketing to acquire this project. I got the blues. It’s hard reinventing yourself mid-career especially with everything else in the industry changing. All of my newspaper and magazine clients have been scaling back or disappearing and all of my book publishing art directors keep leaving their positions. Wiener Wolf seems to be quite successful, but I need another kid’s book to get picked up, now!

Soldiering on, I went big. I broke out a large sheet of watercolor paper and watercolor crayons and got loose with them. This is the result. I’m happy with it and my agent thinks it is very fun and marketable. Now to find a publisher!

These are new character studies in the new style. I had fun with them, especially their body shapes. Billy Bob, Billy Joe, and Billy Lee sure are handsome fellas. And below, they are rocking out. Go, Daddy-O, go!

 Me with a Wiener Wolf fan. He intercepted me before my presentation. I wonder how he knew who I was.

“Gather round kiddies! I have a tale to tell…”

“…And a tail to draw!”

Mrs. Kayne’s delightful third grade class. They gave me a wienerific introduction at the beginning of my storytime. It is such a great idea to have students introduce the authors! The kids get involved in the books and the authors feel so welcomed to the festival.

Me signing copies of Wiener Wolf.

Mac Barnett and I sporting our facial hair. It was so fun to get to hang out with all of these amazing children’s book makers. Mac has a knack for getting his books illustrated by the best illustrators in the business. One day I hope to be so lucky as to do the art for one of his fantastic stories.

Shelley and Harper with the man in the moon, William Joyce! Shelley and I are long time fans of this legendary illustrator/author. He has taken storytelling to new realms and runs a mega multimedia studio at his lunar base in Shreveport, LA.

On Sunday, I participated in a storymaking duel pitting myself and rising star, Spelile Rivas against Bob Shea and Michelle Knudsen. We asked the kids to come up with a character and then, dividing the audience in half, created two different stories with the kids using that character. Michelle and Spelile did the writing and Bob and I did the illustrating. Bob is keen on trash talking, and soon it became personal. Dinosaur vs. Wiener Wolf. In the end, Bob prevailed with his giant markers and simple, funny characters. However, the kids were the real winners. Maybe.

Second book signing. Spelile, Bob and Michelle moving some merch!

The only full presentation that I saw was one of the last ones of the festival. It featured the illustrator and the designer of the festival’s posters, brochures and promo materials, Marc Burckhardt and DJ Stout. DJ, a renowned designer of Texas Monthly and Pentagram, introduced Marc. Marc is yet another amazing illustrator living here in Austin. He is the recipient of many awards including the Hamilton King Award, the highest honor an illustrator can receive. His work is beautiful and can be seen at the Shoal Creek Gallery in Austin starting November 11th. Marc is also the illustration instructor at Texas State University, where I will be teaching a couple of graphic design courses next spring.

The Capitol of Texas. A great place for a great festival. Thanks to all of the hard working people who put together this amazing event and included me in it!

Some of the kids and one of the minis. Both kids and horses were adorable and had loads of fun together.

A couple of the minis finishing off watermelon slices. These adorable equines were so little that two of them arrived in the back of a mini-van! The horses were brought to our event courtesy of Minis and Friends, a charitable organization that trains minis to be therapy animals and takes them to visit with special needs people. Our launch was also a fund raiser for them.

The arts and craft table. The kids could do horse themed activity sheets, draw horses from my Drawing Horses book, or… just draw the horses wandering around the table!

The minis weren’t for riding, so we brought our daughter’s animatronic pony out for the kids to sit on. It does everything but walk around.

Caramel apples, pumpkin cupcakes, and smores whoopie pies were some of the autumnal treats we had for our guests.

Shelley and I busy signing copies of our books. Our launch was a big success! Now to get started on that history of cat breeds book…

Signing books in Georgetown.

I had my second bookstore booksigning and it was at Hill Country Book Store in Georgetown a couple of weekends ago. It was for a National Dog Day event to raise money for the Georgetown Animal Shelter. Sarah and Preston, the store proprietors, were lovely hosts and did a great job promoting the event. I signed 44 copies of Wiener Wolf and 5 copies of Little Lions, way more than I thought would be bought. The shelter had some of their cute dogs on display and Evil Wiener had some of their hot dogs on display (delicious!).

Baron, the book, and I posing with the Evil Wiener mobile. It is evil, because you can't decide on just one choice from their menu!

I did a reading for the kids and there was a scavenger hunt. Baron even came with me to help sign books. Thanks, pen pal! Fun was had by all!

Baron and I reading to the kids.

My reading of Wiener Wolf to the crowd gathered for storytime.

The book release party at BookPeople was a smashing success. There was an amazing turnout for the reading and all of the store copies sold out. True, I had many family and friends there (some buying multiple copies) and there were all of the Austin SCBWI and Inklings members showing their wonderful support, but there were also kids and parents from near and far looking for some family fun. One mom and daughter that I signed a book for had come to Austin from Florida for a swim meet and they had gotten a Tweet about the book event. Gotta love the social media!

Wiener Wolf fans

And, as I had hoped for, it wasn’t just human children that I was signing books for. I made out more than one inscription to the likes of Roscoe, Franky, Otto, and LuLu. The wiener dog owners had come too! Some had traveled from as far as San Antonio.

The Wiener Dog, Granny, and Wolf cupcakes didn't last long.

The cupcakes and hot dogs were all eaten before I even started the reading. My wife, Shelley, and brother, Tim, were big hits as Granny and Wolf. They carried around our two wiener dogs, also in costume and posed for many photos. It was quite warm in BookPeople and Shelley and Tim really sweated it out in their costumes.

Shelley and Tim working up a sweat.

They weren’t the only ones in costume. Kids showed up dressed as dogs, vying for the prize in the best costume contest. There was an online competition, as well, for the best photo of a dog in a costume. Winners of both contests won a framed original drawing of Wiener Dog rendered by me.

The two winners of the kid costume contest.

Now that the party has passed, I am left with the less festive work promoting Wiener Wolf. I am targeting a FaceBook ad at dachshund lovers on the site, making Wiener Wolf merchandise on Zazzle, and trying to set up school visits and other events. But more on that later.

There’s so much to do to get ready for the event, as well as promoting WIENER WOLF in general, so I thought I’d make a checklist to see what I’ve done and still need to do.

√ Contact BookPeople to see if they would be willing to host my book release party.

√ Suggest having wiener dog balloon animals and hot dogs offered at the party and be delighted when the BookPeeps say “sure, we’ll arrange it.”

√ BookPeople rocks!

√ Have mom make WIENER WOLF sweaters for our two dachshunds, Baron and Fritz, to wear to the book release party.

Have Baron and Fritz try them on without Fritz biting me.

√ Check to see if dogs are even allowed into BookPeople.

√ Say YES! to BookPeople when they ask if I would like Central Texas Dachshund Rescue to be there with one of their adorable wiener dogs to adopt.

√ Make Zazzle t-shirts and bumper stickers promoting the book. Include a QR code in the designs.

√ Find out what a QR code is and how I can get one.

√ Send WIENER WOLF bookmarks to my agent, Scott Treimel, who requested them so when he takes Petey out for walkies, he can hand the bookmarks out to other dog owners. Is this the hardest working agent in the industry, or what?

√ Make book trailers for WIENER WOLF and post on YouTube

√ Find out what a book trailer is and how to make one

√ Borrow a microphone from fellow Armadillustrator, Erik Kuntz, and hassle him endlessly (without compensation) about how to make a book trailer.

√ Wrangle two wiener dogs and a four year old on a make-shift set in the backyard in 100 degree heat and try to record it on a broken camera without a tripod.

√ Take two.

√ Post WIENER WOLF book trailers on YouTube.

Be invited to go on Good Morning America once the book trailers go viral and are an internet sensation.

√ Respond to the six people who actually viewed and commented on the first book trailer.

√ Get Wolf and Granny costumes for Shelley and Harper to wear to the party so kids can have their pictures taken with them.

√ Jump out of my skin when Shelley comes to pick me up from my teaching gig, and pulls up in our Jeep dressed as Granny.

Make cupcakes for the event.

√  Make a test batch of cupcakes for the event.

√ Devour said test batch.

Practice reading WIENER WOLF out loud, for the storytime. Practice howling and annunciating. It’s all in the diaphram.

Look up how to spell “annunciating” and “diaphram”.

Practice signature and wiener dog drawings for the book signing. It’s a tube with legs and a tail, how much practice do I need?!

√ Create two drawings to be used as prizes for the two costume contests. One is for the photo of the best dog costume posted to BookPeople’s blog and the other is for the best costume worn by a kid to the party.

√  Go do “research” at FRANK, the Austin hot dog restaurant providing free hot dogs for the event.

√ Let marketing at my publisher, Disney Hyperion, know what a good job I’m doing at promoting my book and wouldn’t they like to get started on the sequel.

Take a nap.

√ Thank Shelley for all of the amazing work she’s done helping me to pull this all together and promote it.

√ Post a blog about promoting WIENER WOLF

"Welcome, Reader"

Just a few weeks earlier, I had been to the Texas Library Association annual conference. Since I failed to report on that in a timely manner, I decided I would just use my experience there to compare with the IRA. Both events are quite large. The Texas Library Association annual conference, held in Austin this year, is nearly as big as the national conferences, I’m told. Everything is big in Texas, including the power of the librarian! Despite it’s large size, the crowds weren’t huge. The Highlights crew, who invited Shelley and I to come sign copies of Upon Secrecy, said it was because of all of the school and municipal budget cutbacks. The IRA was a bit larger and more crowded. It was a national gathering. Once again, I was told attendance was diminished because of state budget deficits. Also, many attendees didn’t stick around after their lectures because of the seductive call of the nearby theme parks. Oh, Orlando!

Shelley and I with the sign that advertises our signing at the Boyds Mill Press booth at TLA

I obviously expected librarians to be the main attendees at the TLA. I didn’t know who to expect for the IRA. Turns out it is mostly reading educators- reading specialists and elementary school teachers. Who knew they had their own giant convention? The vendors were pretty similar at both events. All of the big book publishing houses and many of the little ones had booths, along with magazine and educational materials publishers. The TLA had vendors of information systems and library furniture plus a group of puppeteers who do library performances. The IRA had more of the teaching supplements and materials vendors.

Both conventions had a lot of big name authors and illustrators there signing books at their publisher’s booths. I got a book, YOKO, and poster signed by the renowned author/illustrator Rosemary Wells at the IRA. She was at the Hyperion-Disney booth, which I hope to be at next year signing Wiener Wolf. At the TLA, Shelley and I got to meet the multi-talented Dan Yaccarino. We also went to listen to a panel of illustrator and authors that he participated in. There weren’t any author or illustrator presentations at the IRA, as far as I could tell.

Shelley, Harper and I with Dan Yaccarino

Then there was the signing itself. At the TLA in April, Shelley and I were there just to sign purchased copies of Upon Secrecy. We managed to lure over a couple of buyers and hand out a handful of free promo bookmarks. Highlights/Boyds Mill Press had just two staff members there, Elizabeth Knight and Laura Frazier. They were both very nice and helpful and were very experienced at the whole convention thing. At the IRA, Highlights and Boyds Mill Press had their own separate booths along with two other booths for Stenhouse and one other branch of the Highlights company and about a dozen people to staff them all, including Elizabeth and Laura and editor in chief, Chris Cully. I signed nearly 400 posters over two days and maybe 20 copies of Upon Secrecy. Free signed posters are apparently a pretty big draw!

Here I am signing posters at the IRA for a couple of teachers.

Finally, there were all of the great people I got to meet. The staff at Highlights/Boyds Mill Press are one of the greatest groups of people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. At the TLA in Austin, I got to mingle with all of the local authors and illustrators that have made Shelley and I feel so welcome in our new home. And even though I had my head bent over a stack of posters for most of the time at the IRA, I did get to venture out and talk with a couple of people. There was Dina Sherman, who remembered me from TLA, at the Hyperion-Disney booth. She is very excited about Wiener Wolf and I look forward to working with her at future convention signings. I also ran into Lou Waryncia, the editorial director for Cobblestone Publishing. Shelley and I met the very friendly and generous Lou at a Highlights writing workshop at Chautauqua a few summers ago where we got to have lunch with him and show him our portfolios. I have since created many, many illustrations for Cobblestone magazines. It pays to leave the studio and go out to these wonderful conventions and workshops!

Lou Waryncia and me at the Cobblestone booth ath IRA.

Crosby (Little Lions, Bull Baiters, & Hunting Hounds) turns in a tight, polished performance in this story of a dachshund that answers the call of the wild (and then redials). Crosby’s paintings display a thorough understanding of his hero’s boredom–and sense of adventure. Wiener Dog lies belly up in his dog bed, watching as Granny slops another can of wet dog food into his bowl; one can almost hear him groan. So when he runs away and befriends a pack of wolves, life seems ideal. “He had a new backyard and a new water dish and new squeaky toys,” Crosby writes as Wiener Dog runs through the forest, drinks from a stream, and tussles with adorable wolf cubs. Ideal, that is, until the climax of the wolves’ hunt; it occurs offstage, but is clearly bloody. “Yikes!” says Wiener Dog. Crosby employs an array of techniques in his visual storytelling, from the way Wiener Dog appears to run right out of spot illustrations to the hilarious contrast between the turtleneck sweater–wearing dog and the slavering wolves. This wiener’s a winner. Ages 4–7. (July)

I got the fold and gathers for Wiener Wolf today. The book looks great! I’m really happy with how it has come out. Some of the last minute changes didn’t make it into this version, but  I have been assured they’ll be in the book. Tamson Weston, the editor who acquired my manuscript, left Hyperion at the beginning of the year. Best of luck to her in her future endeavors! Tamson, I hardly knew ye. Kevin Lewis, the new editor I’m working with, dove right into Wiener Wolf and is the one who suggested some of the last minute changes. He seems like a great editor, one that is not only involved in my latest project, but is interested in developing my career. I look forward to working with him on many more books!

Question of the day: Is it okay to be blogging about editors? (Obviously, you want to keep it positive, but still, should names be named?)

An image from my picture book, Wiener Wolf.

Wiener Wolf is being published by Hyperion and Harness Horses by Tundra Books. Tundra also published Shelley’s and my book, Little Lions, Bull Baiters & Hunting Hounds: A History of Dog Breeds.

The cover of Harness Horses.

I am represented by the go-getting literary agent Scott Treimel. He is currently shopping around my Rockabilly Goats Gruff manuscript and showing Wiener Winner, the sequel to Wiener Wolf, to Hyperion.

Illustration from The Rockabilly Goats Gruff

I also recently signed on with Nicole Tugeau, who will be repping my illustrations for the educational publishing market. She had work for me before our contract was even signed!

And there is also the sporadic work I do for children’s magazines. I paint illustrations for Highlights and for the Cobblestone group of periodicals, mainly Faces magazine.

I am also working on some new manuscripts and sending them through the critique group grinders. Shelley and I are founding members of an online group, Binders Online, that started out as a little in-person group in south Denver, the White Binders. Since moving to Austin, I have missed the face-to-face fun of a coffee shop group so have organized one with a couple of fellow Austin illustrator/authors. We’re tentatively titled the Armadillustrators.

So, that’s the jist of my current author/illustrator career. I hope to post soon to elaborate on each of the different aspects.

Thanks for tuning in!