Saving Bookstores One Store at a Time

As promised, during our drive down to Ward Pound Ridge Reservation on Saturday morning, Matt and I made a celebration of Saving Bookstores by stopping at two along our route. (It also forced us to take back roads down to the campsite, which not only meant no tolls, but also allowed us a gorgeous and quiet drive.) I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that #SaveBookstores wasn't a larger trend, but it seems the Facebook page was bursting with activity.

Blackwood & Brouwer - Kinderbrook, NY

Purchased:

                Divergent by Veronica Roth

This independent bookstore was small - yet quaint. In my mind, I had already chosen the books I'd hoped to purchase on this journey. However, the selection here was rather limited. Instead of being drawn to new titles on the shelf, I found that most of what they had on their shelves in terms of Fiction were titles I already owned (mind you, I own a lot of books, so this was probably my own damned fault.) My purchase of Divergent wasn't anything I got particularly excited about - it's a book I've been told to read by several people and hey - maybe I'll love it - I'm just not breaking out the band yet.

But, I'm not knocking this shop.  Instead, it's selection seemed to support local - local travel guides, history, lore, authors and artists. Which adds it's own charm - small town, small store, big heart. Matt and I were tempted into various corners to look through some of the pictorial histories of the area. The owner (it seemed to be a family operation, but I'm not entirely sure) was incredibly friendly. When I told her I was visiting because of this event and that I'd found her using Indiebound - she was ecstatic. The customers meandering around the store that morning seemed to know and love her well, taking time to chat with her by the counter as their kids picked out new books. All in all - if I lived in Kinderhook - I could see myself stopping by pretty frequently. 

The Book Cove - Pawling, NY

Purchased: 

                A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

                Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer 

What a gorgeous store in such a gorgeous town! I'm pretty sure I repeatedly murmured, "Wow," as we drove in. The store itself was pretty large and very well organized. After my customary browsing - drooling over the gorgeous shelves -  I ended up in the section that I'd been hoping to find, housing the two books I'd set my heart on. 

I'm not sure whether or not the woman I spoke with was the owner. I really - I'm so single minded sometimes that I forget to ask important questions. Like - nice to meet you, what's your name? Gosh - anyway SHE (all of the people in the blog post are pronouns. Not confusing at all.) was really excited to hear about Save the Bookstores and offered to take our picture outside of the store. It's too bad we couldn't fit the store's fun lime green bag in the photo. I did take  a picture of the books on my lap with the bag as a backdrop and then forgot to post that photo to Twitter: 

Thank you to Kelly Sonnack for starting this thing. It was a great event set to support something that is very near and dear to all of our hearts - books and the bookstores that sell them! 

Windpower 2012 - Atlanta, Georgia

Last week my Marketing Manager and I attended AWEA's 2012 Windpower Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a great show, though unfortunately - this year may have also been one of my last. The education element of the show is slowly but surely pulling away - leaving gigantic booths filled with mostly manufacturers and consultants. Last year it seemed a no brainer to participate in this show once we grew our Renewable Energy line a bit. This year... the idea no longer seemed so logical.

Still, our Tuesday at the show was well spent. Since we didn't have a booth for the show, we put together some guerrilla marketing tactics (coined by someone who saw what we were doing and was impressed). We had shirts made up as well as little social media cards - one of us was in charge of leading people to Twitter, the other Facebook. (BTW - follow or like us if you're the environmentally friendly type.)

               
Cool, right?

We started the day off with the general session. Karl Rove and Robert Gibbs sat down to discuss the bipartisan support of wind energy. That was one of those awesome, once in a lifetime experiences.

Deciding to live tweet that event was really beneficial to us, mainly because others had decided to do it as well. We got the bulk of our followers, RTs and mentions during that hour. Unfortunately, that left us with rather high hopes for the rest of the day, which weren't met once all of that attention started to trail off. 

The cards definitely paid off - our number of followers is still pretty low, considering - but it's more than it had been. And we've attracted just as many followers since the show as when we were there. What we're not sure of is how successful our shirts were. They were meant to get people curious and allow them to scan from a distance without actually needing to talk to us. It may have hooked a few people, but for the most part - it was just really nice that we matched. And we overheard at least one group of people say, "Look at how cute their shirts are!" 

Other than that - the main excitement of the day was Maine Wind Pavilion's public unveiling of our newest textbook, by Northern Maine Community College instructor, Wayne Kilcollins. It drew a lot of guests and they were also able to raffle off a signed copy of the book. 

Wayne seemed excited, proud and honored to be recognized in this way by his state - as were we. He did an amazing job on this book and I can't wait to monitor its performance over the coming years.

Oh, the Places You'll Go - Employee Spotlight

Our internal company newsletter decided to feature me and my climb up that turbine in Oklahoma this month. The author did a really incredibly job writing it up. Makes me feel all important and famous. Thought I'd share - hope you can read it!

From Instructor to Author - A Magic Show

My absence - especially after such an amazing run of day-by-day activity in March - is due entirely to the fact that I've only seen 3 days at home this month. The rest of my time has been spent on the road. Alabama came first at the beginning of the month. And I'm currently sitting in Bismark Airport in North Dakota at the end of my trip here.

I was invited by a department at the University of North Dakota to come speak about what the publishing process is like for an instructor who is interested in becoming an author. The presentation went really well, I do have to say - the department responded well to it and I think I may have gotten more than one lead.

How does it work, then? How does one go from teaching in front of a classroom to penning a textbook?

The Idea: The idea part is pretty crucial. Most of my travel time is spent talking to people, poking my nose in their daily teaching life, trying to find the weaknesses in hopes that I can come up with an idea to help fill a need. During the presentation I asked, on a show of hands, how many instructors feel as though they'd already written a book, given the amount of information/materials they'd had to collect and/or write themselves to supplement, or sometimes even lead, classroom learning. The response was overwhelming. And so - from this weakness, this need - an idea is born.

Proposal: Some proposals come unsolicited, which is - amazing.  Unfortunately - in my disciplines - this is rarely the case. Instead, I'm usually doing a search for my authors. LinkedIn has proved INCREDIBLY useful. As has Twitter, actually - where I've been able to carry on conversations with both industry and education. Anyway - whatever means I use to come by talented and enthusiastic authors, a proposal - or a formal outline and explanation of your project - is absolutely needed. We provide would-be authors with a document on How to Prepare a Textbook Proposal.

Reviews: Your proposal gives me the opportunity to do some market research. Seek out other schools that might be in need of the same subject - find out what the competition has done and how they've done it. Reviews are crucial - done by subject matter experts at schools around the country, they give me the feedback I need to truly determine if the book is going to make an impact.

Party: Just kidding - we don't have a party. But once everything has been reviewed and approved, we agree to make you an author an move on to the real writing stages of your project.

Manuscript: I try to give new authors about a year and a half to two years to write. It seems like such a long time, but believe me... it goes rather quickly! And we try to make it clear, especially with my disciplines - write as you teach, not as you think a Pulitzer Prize winning author for literature might. We have copy editors who can help with the grammar.

Development/Production: At this stage, the book gets all sorted. A design layout is placed and the book is sent off to print.

Abracadabra! You're now an author!

My disciplines are: Welding, Mechanical Technology, Process Technology and Aviation. Use LinkedIn or Twitter to contact me for more information.

I Been Everywhere - Oklahoma

This month's travel brought me to Oklahoma - Tulsa and Woodward, to be exact!

Sunday: Inspired by this post - I'm a Guest Blogger - on fellow blogger Hanna's blog... well, actually. It was more like reading this post alerted me to the fact that Hanna lives in Tulsa! Where I was going to be! Hanna and I met through the interwebs when we both agreed to write for the ill-fated Pretty Little YA Books. Though the website failed, the wonderful world of blogging and facebook kept us in contact. And so I got to meet her! Sunday, after I landed, I met Hanna for dinner. She's even more awesome than I'd imagined - we talked about books and writing and Harry Potter. We mostly talked about Harry Potter.

Monday: Two schools to visit - Oklahoma State Unversity in Tulsa, except this girl drove an HOUR out of her way to Stillwater, OK only to find out I was at the wrong OSU campus. Wonderful. Drove back, had my meeting and another before meeting Hanna again for lunch. Where we... can you guess? Talked about Harry Potter some more. I may have also gotten some pretty awesome gifts.

After leaving Hanna, I drove 3.5 hours to Woodward. It was probably one of the most amazing drives I've ever taken. Oklahoma is a beautiful state. I passed through the Painted Desert. I tried to take pictures with my Blackberry as I was driving, but that thing sucks. Here they are anyway. I recommend Googling the desert.

Somehow, the clearest shot was through the rear view mirror

Tuesday: Met with some amazing instructors at High Plains Technology Center. I met the Director and lead instructor on a flight last year on the way back from an Energy Conference. They invited me to come out to Oklahoma and climb their campus wind turbine. That's not something you say no to. Who, besides wind technicians, gets to climb a wind turbine? 

On the "small" side, their turbine stands 125ft tall. I got a safety lesson and then suited up in my harness and was hooked up to 30lbs worth of safety equipment. Then the climb. It was - terrifying and incredibly hard. With each step I thought - What the heck am I doing? But I did it and it was definitely worth it. 

 View from the top of the turbine

Me, terrified at the top of the turbine

Straight down the turbine. NOT taken by me

 Wednesday: Really, that was all the fun stuff. Except for the dinner that the instructor's cooked for me. It was a great time - and I got some business done too. Wednesday morning, I woke up incredibly early to make it back to Tulsa for a 9am appointment, which only last 30 minutes. Allowed me six wonderful hours at the airport! Yaaay....

Scott Westerfeld Answered Me - and Why Twitter Brings People Closer Together

I'm a bit behind writing this post and I'm going to blame all the travel. Indiana (ugh) followed closely by Texas (awesome).

While I was bored out of my mind in Indiana and sad because my rental car had been towed the night before and then I got stood up for a professional lunch (which later turned out to just be a misunderstanding, but at THIS point, I thought I couldn't even complete my ONE GOAL in traveling to Indiana and so I was feeling pretty sorry for myself). So, I took to Twitter. I take to Twitter a lot while I'm traveling.

Scott Westerfeld had tweeted that he was doing a book signing in San Francisco.

Since I was feeling really sorry for myself, and wishing I was anywhere but Indiana, I decided to reply.

And then he answered me!

I was pretty excited. I've tweeted at several authors, Meg Cabot for one. I've even tweeted furiously at Levar Burton. But - Scott Westerfeld was the first to answer me. The Uglies series is one of my favorite YA/Teen series as evidenced by this photo:

Where I proudly rock my "I'm an Ugly" t-shirt and shock little old ladies into shouting - "Why would you wear a shirt like that!?" So you can imagine the sort of dance I did when I saw this wonderful author's response to sad and dejected tweet.

I know everyone is really terrified of everything digital these days. It's the death of the book, which I really don't think it is. It's the death of communication - which. I think I communicate MORE with people from all over than I ever did when there was just a telephone, or handwritten letters. Because I hate the phone and handwritten letters are awesome and romantic before they get tedious and boring. And what is better than the ability to connect and communicate with your favorite authors?

Looking at Mr. Westerfeld's account, I can see that he very often responds to fans. And I think that's pretty awesome of him to take the time to do that. I hope that he knows he's truly brightening people's days/evenings. And, by being so accessible, probably keeping all those social network junked up kids reading real books.

Do you use Twitter? Have you ever gotten a response from an author or an actor that really made your day?

Packing & Unpacking

Hey guys, remember me? I used to blog here?

I mean, I still do. And I'm hoping the posting will become more frequent as I settle in to the job, the apartment, the life. All I've been reading - or re-reading - is the Song of Ice and Fire series in preparation for Dances with Dragons due out next month! NEXT MONTH!!! And I've been reading it verrrrrrrrrrrry slowlllyyyyyyyyy....

Part of the reason for the career change was the fact that my new position allows for a decent amount of travel. That excites me - I've always wanted to travel. But - so far - I feel like all I've done is travel. Not that I'm really complaining. But since we moved into the apartment, I feel as though all I've really done there is pack (my new & fabulous pink Vera Bradley duffel!) and unpack.

In May/early June:

On top of having to go to Long Island two or three times and up to Canton once, I went to:

Pennsylvania: To visit two of my authors and some machining and welding programs in the area. It was my first trip by myself, but luckily the area sales rep offered to pick me up from the airport and show me around. It was also my first business dinner and I was nervous as all hell. But the rep said I did a good job and that it seemed like my authors really took to me. I hope so. I'm seeing one of them again soon ... tomorrow in fact!

Anaheim, CA: For the WINDPOWER conference. Again, I met up with two of my authors (different authors than the first time). This time I was completely on my own, but I had a great time. And I learned that connections can be made ANYWHERE around a conference. So, some simple rules I intend to follow when in a conference city from now on:

1) Always look professional and presentable. Not necessarily in a suit, but shouldn't look like a piece of junk.
2) Always behave as though the president of your company is in the room. So... professionally?
3) Always strike up a conversation. Ask - What do you do? & Are you here for the conference?

I made two really great connections this trip and BOTH were outside the conference hall. One was in the hotel bar (yes, but - they wouldn't let me check into my room and I had to go SOMEWHERE! I did work and ate food. For real.) The second was on the plane on the way home. That one became a reviewer for us and invited me climb a wind turbine in Oklahoma next spring. I'm SO going.


LA: This one was self-inflicted. But the boy's movie premiered in LA and I realized - I had to be there. Even if it meant flying to California twice in the matter of days.


Up next:

Kansas City, MO: For the Skills USA conference. I leave early tomorrow morning.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Back in September (oh eight), I attended the Eric Carle Benefit Dinner, where the famed children’s book author and illustrator raised money for his Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. This was my first rather large publishing event. Being only a few tables away from Mr. Carle and very nearly introducing myself to The Polar Express author Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Very Hungry Caterpillar Thank-You Cards and Invitations, a Very Hungry Caterpillar Drawing Pad and a great poster from the Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection of Children’s Illustration of Alice in Wonderland characters from the July-October exhibit.

The poster has since been hanging above my desk at work and I’ve been staring at it, longingly staring at it, for months.

In the immortal words of Tina Fey’s daughter – “I want to go to there.”

In January, I mentioned wanting to go see The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
Two months later he said, “I want to get out of New York. Do you want to go see that museum?”
He being a guy I should probably keep around, even if just for remembering how badly I wanted to go to there.

So April 24th, we went to there. Okay, enough of that.

Happy 40th, Very Hungry CaterpillarFirst envisioned as A Week with Willie the Worm, the first gallery we entered was a complete homage to the work of Eric Carle and most specifically – The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Thankfully for us readers, his (agent?) suggested using a caterpillar rather than a worm for the book. To which he exclaimed, “Butterfly!”

That’s it.
One word.
Butterfly!

You should now need no explanation for why I love this genius of a children’s book author.

In the gallery:
- Original spreads from A Week with Willie the Worm, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and 10 Little Rubber Ducks.
- A wonderful self-portrait of Eric Carle and the Very Hungry Caterpillar, buddying it up.
- A wall-o-Eric Carle with photographs of his childhood, his wife, Bill Martin and including a video telling the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. My favorite photograph on this wall was one of Mr. Carle in his studio, holding a paintbrush, and using his left arm to clean his brush! The picture to the right isn't the one from the museum, but you can see his messy arm!
- Butterflies contributed by various famous illustrators, including a lovely, lovely original from Arnold Lobel’s Frog reaching out towards a pretty butterfly.

Preview the exhibit here.


Virginia Lee Burton
I’m completely passing over the exhibit in the middle room with original spreads from Lottie’s New Friend, donated by author and illustrator Petra Mathers. It wasn’t that it wasn’t gorgeous, or that I didn’t spend a really long time moving from spread to spread – but I don’t really know Lottie. I don’t really know Petra Mathers. At all. And I came for Eric Carle and for Virginia Lee Burton. So. I’m sorry.

The Little House has always been my favorite picture book. It was trumped at one point by The Jolly Postman, but this obsession came solely from the fact that the book was impossible to come by at my elementary school library. And I just… wanted… to… touch… it! I was seven. Forgive me. But, The Little House was beautiful, and the sad little house captured my little heart.

Author and illustrator of The Little House, Choo Choo, and Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and many others, Virginia Lee Burton was celebrated for her simple, yet extremely complex line art which perfectly depicted the growth of urbanization. The Little House, for example, is about a little pink country house sitting atop a hill. As the book progresses, the city grows and suddenly the house, with its peeling paint and boarded up windows, looks sad and small next to two new skyscrapers.

Amazing was how much she could accomplish, how much she could express, in just a few strokes. Her drawings are not complex, yet they somehow depict movement and emotion perfectly. The VLB gallery also included a print by Norman Rockwell. Compared to Virginia’s Gossip print, you can clearly see her genius. Though simpler, both works convey the same message and invoke the same feelings.

In the gallery:
- Original art from The Little House; Choo Choo; Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel; Katy and the Big Snow; Calico, the Wonder Horse; The Emperor’s New Clothes; Life Story; The Song of Robin Hood and others.
- Photographs from Virginia Lee Burton’s life. What a beautiful, amazing woman!

- Designs from her Folly Cove Designers, a group that Virginia founded herself in Massachusetts. They became famous for their linoleum prints on cloth. At first, they created prints for their own homes – table cloths, curtains, etc. But soon, everyone was clamoring for their prints. Gossips (above) is one of those prints. Sentimental (below) was probably my favorite viewing of the entire day.

Preview the exhibit here.

Though I didn’t partake in these other fun literature related activities, Amherst and the surrounding areas seem to be very lit friendly. Plan your own literary themed weekend!

Dr. Seuss Garden in Springfield.
Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst.