Celebrating The Brilliance...

I have been contemplating publicity over the last couple of days...in the light of the NZ Post children’s book awards shortlist coming out.

First there was The DomPost, Wellington’s newspaper only printing the Wellington finalists...how parochial is that...we should be celebrating our collective national brilliance...then there was The Herald, Auckland’s newspaper making a right hash of the shortlist putting the wrong illustrators with the wrong books and leaving poor Melinda out completely.

I have passed several bookshops lately none of them have the list displayed in the window...ok they are chain stores but come on....celebrate the brilliance people!

So feeling a little disheartened about it all I started looking on the web at my usual link sites for some inspiration and to feel better as I broke my toe on Wednesday....

The lovely Madeleine of The Buried Editor came to my rescue with a brilliant post on author publicity from an editor and publishers perspective. She has her own little imprint at Blooming Tree Press called CBAY (Children’s Brain’s Are Yummy.) Here is a little snippet of what she has to say.

Besides, your book will never be as important to your publisher as it is to you, especially with your first book. Your book is most likely the only one you have coming out that year. Even at the smallest of presses, this is unlikely to be the case. With the big houses, you could be literally one book out of dozens being produced that month, much less over the year. And even at the small houses where your editor may have read the manuscript dozens of times, he/she still has not put in the kind of time, effort, or love that you have. And the house publicist may not have read the book at all. You are the best advocate for your book. You should take this responsibility seriously.

So, here are some things you can do to market your book:

Go and read the rest of her post Here.

This morning I heard our esteemed patron and all round good keen man, Jack Lasenby, speaking on National Radio, the interviewer asked him only question about his book, Old Drumble. I thought to myself ‘huh DomPost, I bet you want that interview I did for you on Jack now....’ They didn’t run it because they didn’t have space last June when Old Drumble came out. But it was an attempt to celebrate the brilliance...

I thought that I would post the book trailer that Brian Falkner has made for The Tomorrow Code because I think it is brilliant and he is shortlisted and really just to celebrate the brilliance...

maureen

The Honour and The Glory

The short list is out!....and to all those who made it WELL DONE...and wonderful how you managed to keep your lips sealed for three weeks....

The amount of Wellingtonians on this list is incredible! (so what were those muttering s last year about Wellington being overrepresented in the judging panel....Just look at the short list this year!- it would be cheaper to fly the finalists down to Wellington...than the huge bill to fly all the Wellington people north...)

For the Spinning Gold Conference Team....hats off to the two finalists!!! And look how many of our speakers there are on that great list...Not to mention our own dear Patron of the Wellington Children’s Book Association-Jack Lasenby.

Judging the winners is going to be a tough job!

Go Here to see the New Zealand Post Children's Book Award shortlist for 2009

Congratulations Melinda (waving madly over the blogosphere)

My fingers are wearing out from the congratulations emails that I have been sending....

New Zealand should be celebrating the brilliance!!!

maureen

Pic is the Rugby World Cup Trophy....the William Webb Ellis trophy...ah if only the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards were as well known.....