Now that most of The Imaginary Dragon is finished, we spent most of the past week working on small tasks that need to be done but aren’t especially exciting or gratifying. For example, I needed to actually design the liner notes for Drew’s album that we had sketched out earlier (you can see the discussion of that process HERE). You will see that my idea with the title “stacking” below the monster on the cover (as opposed to having one line of the title above the monster and one line below) won out. Even though winning isn’t everything, I like it when I win.
I had to do a few small illustrations (called “spots”) for the inside. Once they were done, I “laid it out” on the computer, which just means I arranged where the words go and where the pictures go:
Then I printed out a bunch of them and made Matthew fold them.
I also had to design the letter that is going to get sent along with the album, so first spent some time drawing Drew and his two boys rocking out, as a way of introducing them to club members. If you don’t already know Drew, well, here’s your introduction:
If you do already know Drew, well, you already know he pretty much spends all day long leaping through fireworks with his kids.
I also had to draw a kiwi for the letter. A kiwi bird, that is. Kiwis look like this:
This kiwi is brokenhearted because he wasn’t included in Archipelago in spite of being from New Zealand (which was included). In fact, I had to draw this broken-hearted kiwi as a mea culpa for having suggested that a bunch of other marsupials that are native to Australia are also native to New Zealand. Wrong! The lesson is: do your research. The other lesson is: don’t believe everything you read in a book.
Once that letter was designed and printed, Matthew folded them as well.
There’s just something I love about repetition. I think that’s why I’ve always liked printmaking and illustration – there’s not just one drawing out there in the world, there are thousands of copies of that one drawing. For some reason I really like that. So I especially liked seeing those letters piled on top of one another:
and that tower of Drew heads just lining up in a gratifying stack. So many Drews!
Once all the letters were folded, we realized we had originally intended to send the CD out in a 5″x7″ envelope, since the CD measures 5″ x 5″. What we forgot is that the letter is too big for that size envelope unless it’s folded again. But a letter folded in quarters looks so sloppy unless you actually designed it to be folded in quarters. Argh! Luckily postage for 6″x9″ envelopes is the same as 5″x7″ envelopes, so we just had to decide what style envelope to get – giant triangle flap, side flap or end flap?
You see what I mean when I said we had to do some little things that aren’t very gratifying? It’s definitely one we spent way too much time on, but came to the conclusion that we should pick the end flap, so it felt more like a “package” and less like a “letter.” Ah, the psychology of letter-opening!
Up next is a website revamp. I hate doing web stuff, but it’s one of the things we have to do because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to sell anything ever. Our current landing page doesn’t have anything about any of the books we’ve actually made for Bobbledy Books, because when we started, we didn’t have any. Funny how that works. Now that we’ve completed a year’s worth of work, we can give people a better idea of what to expect in the future. So, a new landing page is in the works.
Here it is, partly completed:
Don’t worry – it’s not going to be all black. We’re just trying to figure out what image to put in all that black space.
We also were faced with the problem of our growing children. Most notably, August needs an update – he’s hardly recognizable here as a baby:
without his new signature ‘do:
So I had to make a few updates like that as well.
And then finally, last but not least, we had to spend some time being really, REALLY excited about getting our very first book that we’ve published with a big publishing company in the mail:
As much as we enjoy making our own books and sending them out to people, it’s so exciting to have a book published by a real publisher (Chronicle books!), printed in hardcover, that will be lining the bookshelves in real bookstores (not just our virtual bookstore) all over the country. Looking at the final version of the book was such a thrilling moment.
Matthew was so excited, he almost started to cry. Or pee his pants. I can’t tell.
All of this is to say that making books is extra super-duper amazingly great. We love it. Even if it means we spend a lot of time sometimes working on tasks that are small and unimportant and not very gratifying. Because for all of those little tasks, there are the giant, exciting, wonderful payoffs of seeing your book in print.
If you’re interested, you can pre-order Ten Thousand Stories from Chronicle. DO NOTE however, that it isn’t really a children’s book. It’s not not for children, mind you, there’s nothing particularly offensive in it, but there is some darkness and gloom that kids (or parents) might not like.