Book Order Success

I don’t guarantee a hassle-free shipping experience, but I just ordered the books!   10 copies of The Hog Hotel and 10 copies of From the Painted Stick.  Two weeks later, we should have them.  No confirmation receipt or anything of the sort.  It just seems to me, they should make it available for authors to order their books online.  Every other print-on-demand company does.  Oh well.  Just need to get them picked up by a major publisher….then it would be a moot point.

Texas in August

Gordon went out to the studio a couple of times this week, only to return thirty minutes later….it’s so very hot and dry.  Reach over to pick up your drink off the patio table and you break a sweat. 

I finished the artist’s statement and biography this week and sent that to C4.   An exhibit catalog is next….and it’s a fluid, evolving process that I’m sure I’ll be tweaking up until the final moments of leaving the house on Friday the 1st. 

I decided to furnish food for the show and I ironed out the details and prep list for the spread.  I have half a mind to elaborate the entire process, but it has little to do with art or promotion.  Most openings don’t really have a full spread here. It was quite expected in St. Louis art openings so maybe I got used to it.  I won’t go on too much, but because I don’t have any art photos today, I’ll show you food photos to give an idea of what I’m planning. By the way, the McNay does a fantastic job of catering for their openings.  Unbelievably good stuff.  I expect maybe one hundred people at the opening, so that’s what I’m planning for.  Though I will be preparing the food myself, I am thinking about hiring a freelance server just to top off drinks and walk with trays.  Somebody in black and whites.  I don’t really want to do that in a cocktail dress while I’m trying to meet Gordon’s clients and discuss the paintings. (I promised myself I would never use emoticons in this blog, but a smiley-winky really would be appropriate here)

Gordon hasn’t yet started on the pieces that accompany the carousel horse, and that should take a little time.  We have decided that drawing on Mylar would be best because they can been seen from both the massive front window and the interior space.  I suppose I should start looking for huge pieces of Mylar. 

Trafford has been completely unhelpful.  Someone contacted Gordon via email to let him know they had the wrong phone number.  Since then he has emailed them back at least twice and I have called.   We may just have to nix the book-selling piece of the book signing. 

Low tech

I don’t know what I was thinking over the weekend, but I ordered postcards for the show through Vistaprint.  I worked with their software to create an ‘okay’ double sided card….then I went on Picnik and created a great image. 

So, I’ll get the postcards (100) and we will use them to hand out and mail, but this looks like it will be the image for all other promotions. 

Now that’s done I have to put the finishing touches on Gordon’s Bio and a statement for the show.  Gordon has been so busy with his day job, he hasn’t been able to work on it, so I might have to do some brainstorming later. 

UPDATE:

1) No word from Trafford.  I’ll call them today.

2) One new member in the LinkIn group.  I would really like to host a cocktail reception and informal mixer on the 7th of September, but we will have to see how many members we have by the 1st.

Testing the power of LinkedIn

I have been a member of LinkedIn for a couple of years now.    Some of the best advice I have received about nonprofits has come from the Answers application on the site.  I have never before met such a knowledgeable and helpful group of strangers.  If you haven’t used that application, do it!  The next time you are unsure about a professional choice, direction or option, spill your guts and sit back.   It’s a very helpful community. 

Outside of that, I haven’t used LinkedIn to the extent I should.  It’s a great tool and I always have the feeling that I’m missing out on something really important. 

So today, after searching for a local art group we could join and realizing there are over 200 art professionals in San Antonio currently members of LinkedIn, I started the group San Antonio Artists and Art Professionals.  

I hope to get a large group together for cocktails, dinner, openings, nonprofit events and other celebrations.  The art and artists seem to be spread throughout the city with the only nexus really being Blue Star.  Sharing resources makes a truly great art community.  The strength of artists is always leveraged in groups.  ;-) 

I will update with how it’s going!

Hot Afternoon

Part of a new piece.  Ingredients: House siding and a band saw.   I think it’s absolutely beautiful.  Wait till it’s done!

 

Part of the wing…an addition to the second horse sculpture.  Part of the carousel series. 

 

Trafford Publishing

I just sent the fourth email request for information regarding ordering inventory for the book-signing.  I will give them till next week and then I have to call Canada, eh?

Trafford Publishing

Their tagline is “Publish your book with the experts”….I really shouldn’t be bitter, but they do sell the books too, right?

I will update when/if I hear word.  Too bad my blog doesn’t wield power.   But, I’m not quite Heather Armstrong. 

Promotion or Reckless Freebie?

It’s been some time since Google settled its case with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.  For the last six months or so the first half of every novel we have published is available for free and in sequence with no blocked pages.   At the time I wondered if I should do something…but then everything else caught up to me and I put it on the back burner. 

I’m trying to think of it like a library option, but honestly, I don’t know of any libraries that have purchased our books.  Go to your local library and request The Hog Hotel, From the Painted Stick and Put your hands here…. immediately.  We will send you a personal note of thanks.

  

The truth is, we would love for the books to have a wider audience, so the line of thinking which would suggest “all of this is promotion and reading the first half of the books will hook them for sure” is a temping one, but I don’t know.

Personally, it wouldn’t matter to me because I can’t read like that online.  Not for pleasure.  I want, nay, need to feel the pages and turn them, to hold the spine and feel the depth change  as I plow through from one side to the other.   I have on occasion, printed out online books, but printing out pages seems like a waste unless it’s a reference that I need for a class/program or project.

I’m wondering what others have experienced with Google Books.  Has the use/reading of a large chunk of a novel encouraged them to buy the book?  How many people even look at novels this way at all? 

I guess it’s a simple fix if we want to change it.  Contact Google via the button at the header…let them know to block one page of every 5 and only the first fifty…..I don’t know.    WWTFD?   What would Tim Ferriss do?

Technorati Tags: San Antonio,art,sculpture,The Hog Hotel,Google Books,Tim Ferriss,free books,promotion,marketing

Lari Gibbins, C4 and hard work in the studio

Both Gordon and I create in a loose and organic style.  We push and pull color, play with balance, turn things upside down, layer, scratch, cut, and push every material to it’s limit. 

Thursday night was another trip to Blue Star and a good little show by Lari Gibbins.  The last words that would come to mind when looking at her work are organic or loose, and though Gordon and I didn’t have much in common with her as an artist, we appreciated her approach to the spatially commanding piece on the wall.  Click here for a video on the installation. 

There wasn’t much of a crowd though and Gordon and I were soon enjoying calamari and stout at the brewery. 

Over the weekend, Gordon spent about 14 hours in his hot studio working on the second horse’s wings.  He has a brilliant system of connecting the wooden armature/paper wings to the sculpture and it’s currently going through trials. 

We were lucky to talk to Debbie Curtis, the co-owner of C4, on Friday night at the opening of Ernesto Olivo and Deanne Cuella’s new work.   I’m so happy there’s such a progressive and forward thinking collective in San Antonio.  C4 just keeps getting more and more impressive.  I wish we lived closer and I could keep up with all the happenings. 

So, now comes the pre-show prep.  I haven’t done it in a while and I really enjoy it, so there is a lot to look forward to.  First on the agenda is to settle on a name for the show.  There are so many things floating around my head, I hope Gordon can help me pick through later today. 

I have some contact information for local newspaper and online zine reporters for the arts and I will be in process of eliciting their attention all week.  I haven’t had much luck getting an indy bookstore to partner with us for the book-signing piece of it, so we may have to purchase the inventory ourselves.   There are pros and cons to that.  More profit in the short run; royalties for books sold through book sellers are under $1 each and if we purchase it’s better, but if we have any inventory left we are stuck with it and may have a loss at the end. 

I have to settle the book aspect of the show, order postcards to advertise it, print the exhibit list, contact the reporters and write press releases…. better get crack’n.