ALL THE PUBLISHERS!

The other big project I did last week was submit my book to ALL THE PUBLISHERS! Well, you know, maybe not ALL of them because most publishers don’t even take unsolicited submissions in the first place and I definitely still don’t have an agent yet…but I did submit my book to twenty publishers in total, and that is a lot!

That’s what the living room table looked like for a good week as I scrambled to put together the best-looking submission packages that I could come up with. I got info on about probably two-thirds of the publishing houses from The Book, the official guide to children’s book publishing that the SCBWI puts out every year. For the other third I just did some research on my own and Google searched the names of the publishers that I found on the dust jackets of the children’s books that I’ve bought recently (and yes, I am a childless adult that has regularly purchased children’s books my entire life, because this has always been the sort of thing that I am into!)

I mostly submitted to publishing houses in the USA, but I also submitted to a couple of UK publishers that I really admire. Every publisher has their own set of rules and preferences for how they would like their materials submitted. Luckily all of the UK houses that I submitted to were ok with email submissions, so I didn’t have to worry about figuring out international postage. As for the US publishers that required a physical submission in regular snail mail post, which were eight in total, I made sure to send them a couple of copies of my cards:

Also a printed dummy book, as pictured below with my first run of five submissions:

The first round looked similar to my initial test print copy that I made for the SCBWI Spring Conference, except the colors have since been tweaked a little by my editor, graphic designer, and husband Martyn Cooper to print brighter and truer to my original artwork. We also decided to opt for a clear covering on the back of the book that was just like the covering on the front, instead of just sticking to the default black back cover of the original print. It seems as though every time I get this dummy book reprinted it evolves in some positive way, because for the print round after this one I discovered that you can even get a clear plastic spiral binding instead of what I had thought to be the default black. The clear cover and clear spiral bound books looked so excellent that I still wish I had kept a copy for myself, especially since I don’t even have a picture of them because I had to mail them out while they were literally still hot off the press! Anyway, here’s that super exciting, shining moment when I was done packaging up that first round of five submissions at Office Depot:

Of course I remembered to include in every submission the full printed manuscript of my story and a personalized query or cover letter. Apparently query letters are meant to be really difficult and intimidating to write. Almost like you’re supposed to feel so threatened by this theoretical publisher that you are just crouched down in the fetal position, fearfully handing them this impossibly formal and clean document with a trembling hand while you defensively hold your other arm over your eyes. I dunno…although I do definitely understand wanting to follow certain guidelines to not come off as an ignorant tool and sabotage your chances, I also think that with such a wealth of completely contradicting information about “how to write the most perfect query letter” that can be found on the internet or otherwise, you probably gotta take all of this hullabaloo with a grain of salt. I did a lot of research on the subject, figured that I’m at least pretty ok at communicating with people in words, and that, come on, THEY’RE JUST PEOPLE…it’s not exactly like we’re dealing with those Sphinxes from The NeverEnding Story here! Life is too short for that level of anxiety. I just picked out what parts made the most sense to me out of a mountain of other example queries that I found online and came up with this basic format for my own query letter:

(Name and address of publisher.)                                                          (My name, address, contact                                                                                                        info, portfolio website, and this blog.)                                                                        

Proposal for Picture Book:

KRIS & KRAMPUS KRINGLE

Please find enclosed the complete manuscript and illustrated dummy for my children’s picture book entitled, “Kris & Krampus Kringle,” which I would like you to consider for publication.

Kris Kringle just wanted a normal little brother. Instead he ended up with the hairiest, smelliest, messiest, clumsiest, weirdest, rudest, and worst little brother in the whole wide world! If all of those things weren’t bad enough, Kris’s brother doesn’t even understand the most wonderful time of the year. Will Kris be able to stop him from ruining Christmas, or will his favorite holiday be wrecked forever?

“Kris & Krampus Kringle” is a 32 pages, 829 words, winter holiday tale about sibling relationships and tolerance. It is also a unique spin on age-old Christmas mythology from around the world. The character of Krampus was inspired by the yuletide monster from Alpine folklore, however my story is a re-imagining of both Krampus and Kris Kringle as brothers. The majority of the story takes place when Kris Kringle is about eight years old and Krampus Kringle is about five years old. Kris and Krampus Kringle’s mother, Mama Kringle, is the third and final character in the book and is also the only parent figure who is present in the story. “Kris & Krampus Kringle” was written to appeal to children of all ages as well as adults who may have a special affinity for Kris Kringle, Krampus, and stories about familial love and diversity.

I am both the author and the illustrator of “Kris & Krampus Kringle.” This is a simultaneous submission to see if this story garners any interest from traditional publishers, but if not I plan to move forward with a self-­publishing company in the late Fall/Winter of 2016. I even have some ideas for a future sequel story, which would take place about three years after the first book and include some other characters based on Christmas folklore from Alpine and Nordic mythology. I am an active member of the SCBWI and I also enjoy illustrating other stories besides my own. I am submitting to you as an author/illustrator for this book in particular, but also as just an illustrator for future projects. Thank you so much for your time and consideration!

Sincerely, Bailey Quillin Cooper (Except this was my actual signature signed in black ink.)

I customized this basic query letter format for each publisher that I wrote to, because odds are, the reason that I chose to submit my book to them in the first place was because I liked how they were doing things. I made sure to mention if they had published a specific book that I liked, or if they had ever published any books that contained similar general themes to mine: non-religious Christmas holiday, monsters and mythology, family, new sibling or sibling relationships, unusual friendships, diversity, tolerance, and acceptance. I know that it might be kind of a long shot to imagine that my very “out there” story might fit in enough with the subject matter in most traditional publishing houses that they would be interested in picking it up, but why not give it my best try anyway? At the very least, the publishers will hopefully see my book and remember my artwork and maybe, just maybe, even decide that they want me to illustrate for them on another project someday down the line. We can only hope!

So now that I’ve submitted my book to enough publishers that I can legitimately cause a flood of rejection letters (even though most people don’t even send those anymore), you might want to know what’s next on the agenda for Kris & Krampus Kringle. Well, I’m totally stoked to report that a couple of days ago we placed an order for the first hardcover proof of my book from the self-publishing company, bookbaby! Let’s just say that I’ve been waiting for this moment for…quite a while!

Hell yes!

It was such a good feeling to finally get the ball rolling on after nearly a year and a half of working on this! Once I receive and approve of the hardback copy from bookbaby in two weeks, I will be setting up a Kickstarter page to fund the publication, ISBN number and print on demand/online distribution service, and printing of the first run of 100 books! I’m going to have to raise a lot of money to fund this…maybe something in the neighborhood of $2,500 to start with, but fingers crossed everything will continue to run smoothly and my book will be ready to purchase by November-something of this year! I will continue to keep all of you guys posted on the fundraising and publishing process on this blog, so be sure to check back in every week or so!

Edit: To follow up with my last post, Sarah got the Advance Reader’s Copies of Beyond The Bramble back from Lulu and they turned out amazing!

And they even match her nails…CUTE!

 

I’m Back/Recap 1: Illustration Portfolio

Dang, it’s been a whole month since I last posted! Although I don’t have any particularly earth-shattering progress to share this time, I will make this one a two-parter just to cover the amount of time that’s passed since my last entry. I believe that I left off right before I went to the SCBWI Spring Conference in Wilsonville, Oregon. Up until that point I was scrambling to get my first test dummy book printed and my portfolio and up to snuff for the juried art show that I had signed up for at the conference, and also for my portfolio review with Kevan Attebery. I chose Kevan to be my reviewer because he’s a Seattle illustrator that primarily draws monsters. He also invented Clippy, that annoying paperclip dude from Microsoft Word! I thought that was pretty cool. Kevan was very supportive of my work and gave me a really thoughtful and useful critique, and he was also an all-around nice guy.

The conference itself was cool and pretty informative, although I do kind of wish it had been more geared towards children’s books and children’s book illustration…well, specifically picture books. Something that I guess I knew but never really thought about before is that the children’s book publishing world also includes novels and young adult books. It seemed to me like LOT of the panels at the conference were more helpful to authors, especially YA authors writing coming of age type stories, historical fiction/fantasy, and teen romance. It was kind of neat to hear about how the publishing process from different perspectives, but I do hope that next year there will be more offered in the realm of picture books. Since there will be multiple smaller conferences instead of one big one next time, it’s probably also within the realm of possibility.

Anyway, here’s my illustration portfolio as you see it now on my website. It’s pretty much the same as I had printed for my physical portfolio but with maybe two-three extra pieces. They were very strict about the number of pieces you included at the conference, so I was pretty ruthless with what I chucked out!

At the conference I got the strongest reactions to the portrait of Mama Kringle, the four paneled illustration of Kris Kringle looking for Krampus in the snow, and the illustration of Lucia in the meadow. I still want to chuck a few of the older ones out and replace them with some illustrations that I have not yet finished or even started, so you’ll have that to look forward to.

I also met some really cool people at the conference, namely a fellow children’s book illustrator named Brittany Harris. Martyn and I started talking to her at the after party, and then we all decided that the party was a little too stuffy (and also over) so we decided to check out the crazy Blues band playing at the Holiday Inn bar and play some pool…badly! We were all so awful that we even had an old man wearing American flag shorts heckling us. It was hilarious, and so much fun that it made the day that much more worth it.

Brittany told us that she lived in Ashland but was about to move to Montana because her husband Josh just got a sweet new job. Ashland was one of those “places to visit in Oregon on my bucket list” so we vowed to visit them before they left…and we did! The weekend after the conference some friends of ours from Colorado were visiting Portland (Chris and Sarah Bacavis; love those guys!) We spent that weekend showing them around town, and then the weekend after that we took a day trip to Ashland to see Brittany and Josh. We had so much fun bar hopping, seeing the sights, and then dealing with our hangovers the following day by eating delicious breakfast food and floating in a scenic lake next to an old cemetery. It’s a shame that they’re moving away, but I think that we really made a lasting friendship through this conference thing so I’ve gotta give it credit for that!

So yeah, the past couple of weeks have been pretty much been spent having fun with friends, cooking out with the neighbors in the yard, celebrating everyone’s birthday (Martyn’s 29th just happened on the 14th and my 30th is coming up quick on the 30th), and celebrating the Midsummer Solstice. Work is pretty much the same as usual, with the occasional flying salad monster.

Meanwhile, Vine Gogh is working hard as ever to open the new Tigard studio with a bang. In the not-so-distant future I’m gonna be teaching some “Twisted Tuesday” classes where we’ll get to do all the weird, fun, and more experimental art projects! Jenny wants me to come up with some new fairy-themed paintings, and she also loves my ideas to teach some watercolor and polymer clay/mixed media sculpture classes. I’m really looking forward to seeing where all of this is going just around the corner!

Well sorry if this has been just another boring recap post, but since so much time has escaped me since my last one I just felt that it was necessary. In my next post I promise that I’ll dive right into the new art stuff that I’ve been working on in all this time!

 

 

 

Lucia Illustration Colored

Just as a quick follow up from my last post, here is that illustration of Lucia colored and finished. Now I’ve just gotta save all of my portfolio images and hope for the best when I go to get them printed. Wish me luck!

 

 

Book First Print!

Guess who got the first test print of her book from back from Office Depot yesterday?

Martyn up finished formatting the text on Sunday and we made some last final edits just before it went to the printer. Although it’s just a test print dummy from an office supply store (note the spiral binding instead of what will eventually be a real hardback cover) the pages still look absolutely beautiful and quality! The text and the layout also worked out perfectly, including some of the trickier pages that had multiple spot illustrations or double-page spreads. At first I was a little bummed out and worried when I found out that I wouldn’t be able get my first printed copy from bookbaby in time for the SCBWI Spring Conference this weekend, but now I’m just glad that this test print ended up working out so well. It’ll definitely be more than good enough to show off my vision for the book at the conference!

Here’s a close-up of the cover. The protective sheet of laminate makes it near impossible to photograph but hopefully you get the idea.

If you are someone who gets to see me in person on a regular basis I’d be more than happy to show you the first print of the book. It represents about a year and three months of hard work. If that thing was a human baby it would be six months old already!

Besides finishing up this first not-so-dummy copy of my book over the weekend, I also have been working on one last final piece for my portfolio. It’s another illustration of Lucia because she’s pretty, and because I wanted to have more examples of my illustration style besides just the artwork from my book. I know I posted this on my Facebook/Instragram already, but here was the line drawing before I began any of the coloring:

I’m almost finished with the coloring now and I hope to be all done with it by the end of the night. I’ll post the completed illustration tomorrow if I can!

So yeah, this weekend I finished the test print of my book, almost finished the last illustration for my portfolio, and I even remembered to vote!

I feel very productive. I also might have even had two job interviews lined up for this week, but I’m not even going to tell you about that. You’ll just have to guess if that’s true or not till next time. Bye!

 

A Portrait of Lucia and the Witches Castle

Martyn and I went to the coast over the weekend to celebrate our “ten-iversary” because we have now been an official couple for ten years since May 1st/Beltane! Here’s the only picture I have from our first date on Tybee Island Beach in Savannah one decade ago:

What a weirdo…and what was with that shirt, anyway?!

Our “ten-iversary” trip to the coast was only one night away but it was still so nice to have some real time off from everything and recharge our mental batteries. Plus we got to stay at the Sou’wester, a lodge/campground on Long Beach that has restored vintage RVs for rent…and it was sooo cool! But anyway, before we left for our trip I finished up a drawing that I had had made for an art swap event that a friend of mine had invited me to on Saturday night. The event ended up being cancelled but at least I ended up with a nice pencil study of Lucia, the albino faun character that I made at the Toby Froud rod puppet workshop (see my previous posts.) I think I might even use this as a portfolio piece when I go to the SCBWI Spring Conference at the end of this month.

I used two shades of deep red pencil and a white pencil on rose toned paper. I was going for the look of a classic Leonardo da Vinci pencil study but something about it makes me think of a vintage beauty add instead. Either way, I ended up really liking this one and it has inspired me to perhaps make some similar work in the future.

So ever since we got back from our mini vacation on Monday night it’s been back to business. I’m supposed to meet with Jenny at Vine Gogh on Thursday night to learn a new painting so I figured I would get some of my ideas for future classes together to discuss with her while I’m at it. I’ve heard that the new studio in Tigard may even be open for business by the middle of this month so it’s about time I get crackin’ on this stuff! Last night I worked on my idea for what could be our first watercolor class, or at least that I am aware of. I flipped through all of the reference photos I took on Easter Sunday of the Witches Castle in Forest Park and landed on these three favorites:

I combined what I liked about the first and second picture and came up with this:

The painting is a little large–well about 11″ x 15″, which is a little big for your classic watercolor nature study but the same size as the illustrations I did for my children’s book because I just used the same paper. I’m not sure what size we’re most likely to use at Vine Gogh for the watercolor classes so I just stuck with what I had already. This painting took me around three hours from start to finish…which is WAY too long! The classes that I teach can last up to three hours, but I want to eventually come up with a painting that I know so well that I could paint it in just one hour if I had to. This first time around just took me a while because I was essentially teaching it to myself; remembering each step to the best of my ability and deciding on the best order to paint each layer when I have to someday teach it to somebody else. I also took a few progress pictures while I was working on it to help me figure out a nice sane step-by-step for next time.

And here is the final painting once again:

So yeah, I’ve still got to work on simplifying the whole thing into a few easy and defined steps but I’ve got a feeling that it will probably just come naturally to me when I paint this a second time. In analyzing my own work and trying to expedite the process, I expect a natural abstraction/simplification is bound to occur…well here’s to hoping!

I might later try doing another painting based on my third photo of the Witches Castle, the one that was taken from this alternate angle:

I personally love that picture, especially with the little pink flower bud in the extreme foreground, but I wonder if it might be a little too complicated for a beginning painter. If I decide that it is I guess I could still use it as reference for my own work in the future. We shall see.

In addition to all of this I’ve got a few more ideas for watercolor painting classes AND some ideas for polymer clay sculpture classes. I’m gonna be working through all of them in the nearish future, so just be sure to stay tuned as always!

 

More Book Progress and Upcoming Excitments

It’s been a couple weeks since I last posted and a lot of things have happened. I want to get back into my one post a week routine, so this one is just going to be a fairly brief written summary with mostly photo explantations in an attempt to catch up.

So what have I been up to? Making new friends:

Photo taken on Valentine’s Day at Lovecraft Bar during my husband Martyn’s Glam Rock D.J. night, Whips and Furs. In the picture is Mike Wilcox, our new friend who we met at the Bowie Sendoff at in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and Monika Wolf, another new friend who we met that very night. She ended up becoming our official stagehand and backup dancer. Well, more like the best dancer in the whole joint who got a lot of other people to get up and dance by the end of the night.

She’s a lot of fun, and perhaps a little accident prone.

We still to this day have no idea how she cut her hand and got blood all over the place. She still made the most of it, I suppose.

Whips and Furs was such a success that Martyn is now on the permanent roster for the Lovecraft event calendar, so his Glam night is now going to become a monthly event!

What else have I been up to? Saw a couple of movies–The VVitch and Deadpool in the same weekend. Was so pleasantly surprised by both, and both were so refreshing for the overblown, overdone genres that they represent. The VVitch was hands down the best and most visually inspiring straight horror film that I have seen in a very long time. As a former strange child who spent a good portion of her middle school years in the library poring over every book on the Salem Witch Trials, The Occult, and American Folklore that was available to me, I can also give my full endorsement that the director got everything so right and as accurate as possible!

I also was finally given the opportunity to finish up a few more long-awaited projects for Trader Joe’s. Behold the belated frozen chocolate banana slices sign for Chinese New Year, Year of the Monkey, based off of some traditional Chinese paper cutout decorations that I had researched:

He looks particularly cool whenever the light shines though him.

Also at long last I finished the last permanent illustration for the backs of the new chalkboard endcaps. The King, trapped behind the soulless and terrifying brown paper mask of Trader Joe:

Here’s a close up shot:

And here it is pictured next to the endcap back that I finished before it, more monkey art coincidentally:

I got the idea to draw an Elvis chalkboard because I had already had to do this very same private label end cap concept a few years ago at my old store back in Atlanta. The last board I designed for the subject matter was Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe:

I was proud of how that one turned out, even though it was a little tedious hand drawing the same face twice in a row. Anyway I didn’t really know to follow that one so I figured, what else goes with Marilyn? Oh yeah, Elvis. Sometimes when your job is to literally make the same boring things over and over again you’ve just got to find new ways to entertain yourself.

Speaking of which, yesterday I had to make a sign for Shaved Brussels Sprouts so this is what I came up with:

The funny thing is that’s like the fourth time I’ve drawn that anthropomorphic Brussels Sprout. I guess he’s kind of a reoccurring character.

While I was doing all this other stuff I’ve still been teaching my painting classes at Vine Gogh and making progress on my children’s book. The new Vine Gogh Tigard studio, Vincent’s Loft, is still a work in progress as they finish up the last few details of the construction, but it should be finished very, very, soon. Once that’s done I’m going to be able to start designing my own classes. I work in a lot of other mediums besides just acrylic painting, so it looks like I’m gonna be the one to come up with some of the crazier and more experimental classes…stuff that nobody else is teaching at any other artist bar type places right now. I think I can see classes in illustration, cartooning and caricature, and polymer clay/mixed media sculpture in my near future!

As for my book, I’ve been just plugging away at the illustrations in an attempt to put it all together and get an initial first test copy printed by the end of May. The reason for that particular timing is because that is when I will be attending the annual SCBWI Oregon Spring Conference, Between the Pages, and I would like to have something a little more polished and comprehensive than a super rough dummy book to show potential publishers and agents. I plan to use crowd funding to self-publish the book regardless, but just in case any traditional publishers are interested I’d like to present something nice for them to look at. If nothing else, maybe an attractive debut piece might catch the eye of an agent that would want to work with me on other freelance illustration projects in the future. I’d really love for either of those things to happen and I know that the best thing I can do is to just work hard, go to these events, and keep trying!

So here’s a couple of work-in-progress photos I snapped of page number 27 of 32…the pencil sketch:

The inked line drawing:

My dog Grendel yawning and being bored as I try my best to ignore him and get some more work done at my art desk:

Grendel and Miss Loon, The Black Babies. They somehow can make doing what I love very difficult.

I have to make myself a super nutritious lunch to break their power over me…

Fishcakes, fishcakes, roly poly fishcakes…

…And back to work. Sometimes my coloring process somewhat resembles a printing press, with all of one color at once and then so on. Here it is with just red.

Then I started adding all the green.

I’ve done a lot more to it since that last photo…it’s not quite finished yet, but as soon as I get another minute to myself over the weekend I’ll have it knocked out in no time. I’ll post more pictures of my progress very soon, and I definitely won’t wait so long this time!

The last little bit of upcoming excitement that I will mention before heading off to bed tonight is that over the past week I was able to sign up for a now sold out Toby Froud rod puppet Workshop at The Fernie Brae in April!!! Some of Toby’s past creations to give you an idea of the kind of work he does:

The Frouds have been my number one artistic inspiration ever since I discovered my very first Faerie book in middle school. I can collectively credit Brian’s paintings, illustrations, and concept art, Wendy’s dolls and puppets, and their son Toby’s puppets, short films, and current work with Laika Studios for teaching me how to layer colors together, how to make flat two-dimensional paints appear to glow, how to draw and sculpt fantasy characters that still somehow tell the truth and appear believable, how to sculpt professional art dolls in polymer clay, and how to make the seemingly impossible dream of handcrafting puppets and movie magic akin to the Jim Henson fantasy film heyday in today’s time possible. Probably some other stuff too that I can’t even think about right now. Just know that going to this Toby Froud workshop is not only a dream come true and a big deal for me, but should also prove to be very important and inspiring for my future career. I’ll be sure to post more about that, as well as some other very potentially exciting news, very soon when I feel that the time is right. Until then…goodnight!