It is August already, and it is a hot one here!

First, an update on what is going on behind the scenes:

- Calyx of Teversall’s library information just came in today. While not all the illustrations inside are finished, we are ready enough to get the book to the reviewers! We are sending the book tonight to the printers, and should have a preview copy before the end of the week, as we have found a local printer in Victoria who will make our turn-around time for preview copies much faster.
- Young Heroes is getting closer to completion — it is a very work-intensive book, but we plan on having a working copy to send to the printers by the end of the week.
- Drake’s Quest has finally been edited and re-edited, and we need only a little bit of polishing before having the text part done.
- As soon as Young Heroes is completed, production of Drake’s Quest and Books are for Reading, NOT Eating will restart, for a release date before the end of the year.
- Dahlia Jean the Jungle Queen is being illustrated by Kim Johnson, who will be doing her watercolor magic to bring this title to life: http://www.kimjohnsonillustration.com/new_illustration/home.html
- Our website is still not completed — but we have heard from Webacom that it should be ready soon. Yay!

As you can see, since we’ve been back from the construction zone late June, we have been very busy catching up with all the titles. There is a whole lot of real work involved in making each book title the very best it can be. It requires looking at each book as a living creature… I always imagine the book as if it were a loved, dear child which was entrusted to us. It is our duty to that child, and parents, to clean the child up, feed it with new ideas, clothe it in the finest garments we can possibly muster, and finally send it off into the world.

This summer has been really tense for us. While we have been financing everything ourselves, we have come to the conclusion that having some sort of financing from the government would really help us build an even stronger publishing house in a less stressful manner… but to accomplish that and make the government happy, we need to follow a certain set of rules. We have also come to the conclusion that we needed help in the promotion and marketing department — we have now hired the assistance of Katherine Melnyk, a book marketing and production specialist, who will be helping us in many projects along the way. All our worries about producing the books which are already on cue, finding financing, promoting our books which are already for sale and keeping it together in the process made us lose track a little bit of what is the most important thing about Brighter Books: Our mission. We were finally reminded of this when we hired Kim to be our illustrator, and she mentioned to us how great it was that we cared about certain things, and how we built our publishing house around these things. It made us stop, breathe and think of what really matters… and what really matters is, we are making something good. Something that will last, that will hopefully make a difference in people’s lives. A publishing house that will excite people, and fuel their minds with creativity.

Someone asked me last week, “why do you keep telling people everything that you are doing, and all this personal stuff you are going through? Other publishers don’t do that. It’s not professional.” All of a sudden, I felt really self-conscious… and embarrassed. Here I am, telling people step-by-step about the birth of this company that means the world to me… but at the same time, looking so human, with so many struggles, falls and even fails. And making the company itself look somehow less organized than other companies.

I have always tried to be professional on everything I do, but I guess blogging is not a conducive tool for that. It is very difficult to seem professional when you are dispersing personal information, and a fresh peek “behind the scenes.” But if you think about it, every creative art form has the same disarray behind the scenes — and not only in their beginning phases; just think about any Making-Of documentaries out there today.

Most people love to hear about how things get made. Watching a movie, all crisp and clean and perfect, may make you think that there is no way you could ever do something like that. How can you get something to look that crisp and clean? But a Making-Of helps everyone see that real people are behind the movie; real people wake up at ungodly hours, and struggle, and yell, and drink lots of coffee, and get cranky, but still show up every day. A Making-Of makes it seem possible to accomplish anything, if you really set your mind to it. If you have ever watched any “Making-Of” documentaries, then you know what I mean; all that disorder, and lack of coherency, and you are left thinking, how in the world can anything come out of this mess? And yet, there it is — out in the theaters, getting watched, receiving awards.

Of course, we as a publishing house are not the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster… more like the equivalent of an indie movie, produced by love, hard work and credit cards. In fact, we just finished watching the “Making Of” the movie Clerks, and it made us laugh at the similarities between the movie and our own story… the late nights, the lack of funding, all the struggles, and yet in the end, everything makes sense.

Then it hit me… the reason why I keep blogging and writing all that is happening: this is Brighter Books’ Making-Of. In thirty years, we won’t remember all the details and struggle we have gone through to get wherever it is we will be getting; all of our notes on our trials and errors will serve to remind us that it wasn’t always easy, and it wasn’t always perfect, but that we stuck by it and we made it work. And in the end, it was beautiful.

To all the creative people out there, I want to leave you with the link to my favorite video on Youtube — very inspirational: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KExoP97KUnY

Hi everyone!

Semi-techyish stuff below:

Since we are not very patient here… we continued to fiddle with the website until we found the issue: there were duplications on the database!!! The REAL books were not articles! Seems like originally the books were going to be set up as simple articles, but due to the need of having them easily accessible on a number of pages, they abandoned the original database and repeated everything on a second database…

So here I am, updating things and hoping to see them change on the mainscreen, and nothing!

At least I know I wasn’t going crazy. And, finally got Catalyst updated!

HURRAH!

Now, if I could figure out how to fix the shelf…

Hello everyone,

We have spent the day today updating the website– but as it turns out, Joomla is a different animal, and things won’t go live for some reason. Worse even, as soon as we touch something, it pops, crackles, fizzles and jumps out of the computer screen. We tried screaming, coaxing and quietly shooing the changes forward, but they won’t budge. I think they are just too fast for us.

Currently, Matti’s “Buy it now” button for Amazon is perched atop Josephine Gee’s “about me” page, and it just won’t come down — not even for cookies. The new cover for Catalyst is hiding under the bed, and every time I pass by, it growls. Scary stuff.

Maia Appleby’s page about Calyx of Teversall has decided to run out of the door, and last I saw it, it was happily collecting flowers on the neighbor’s yard. It sure flies fast.

Pat Croce’s page about Drake’s Quest has jumped onto the pond right in front of my window, and is currently trying to shoot at some of the wild animals — I heard some comment about “Kraken” but not sure what it means.

Annie Buckley’s book, The Breathing Bridge, has amazing capabilities — like a chameleon, it can blend with the background. I heard giggles on my backyard, but I can’t figure out where it comes from.

“Boycott”, by Kelley Dailey, was last seen going up a really large tree. My husband called and called, but no answer.

Basically, nothing is working out as it should, but at least it seems they are all having fun at our expense.

I have set an appointment with the web designer team, Webacom AKA “The Zookeepers” to help me get everyone behaving properly. Hopefully they have some time to meet with me and show me exactly what I am doing wrong…

Everyone, stay tuned for the updates!

Hi all,

Short note!

So, I am back for less than a week, and it feels great. This week, we finished a website for one of our authors (he was lost regarding websites, and boy, he really needed one!)His name is David Wick, and he is working on an uplifting children’s book called “Good-bye, Mr. C.” It is an amazing, sweet book written in a very different way. A real treat!

You can check the website we did for him here: www.wickwonders.com

It is still under construction, since we are still waiting on more of his fabulous artwork — but it is a good start.

Just so you authors know, if any of you want a website built for FREE to help sell your book once it is ready, give me a shout! I think that a decent-looking website is a win for everyone, and we don’t mind doing it at all.

I have been slowly but surely getting caught up on my emails, so if you have not heard from me yet, I AM COMING! 

Cheers and hugs on all of you!

I bet everyone is wondering what the heck happened to us here at Brighter Books. We have become so scarce, and even our website needs updating.

Well… as some of you may know, we have a second business which has been helping pay for the publishing house dream for the past couple of years; it is a small, independent tailoring and alterations shop, which was located at the busiest, biggest mall on the island. Despite the economy bump and mall rent escalations, we managed to stay afloat and more or less break even for the past couple of years.

October 2010 rolled around, and we received communication from the mall that when our lease came due on end of May 2011, we would be facing an increase which would put our rent way above breaking point (and this is not counting escalations, or the sneaky, no-good triple-net increases).

We started looking for somewhere new to move to.  The first place we found was perfect — a new strip mall with an independent bend and an upscale feel — but they did not want to commit to a new business wishing to move so many months in the future. We continued to look; places available were either too big, or too small, or too hot, or too cold… it seemed like every time we found the perfect place, something happened and it didn’t work out.

When February came along, we got a surprise email: the first place we had contacted called us and said that they wanted to reconsider us for the location, now that there were fewer months on the horizon. And that’s when things started getting really complicated.

Moving a store into an empty space requires many things: negotiating with the new landlord; making new designs and floorplans; finding the right working crew; and finally, financing.

We wanted the new location to be the best, brightest alterations shop around; the new spot has windows all around and incredible visibility, and we wanted to use this to our advantage. So, we hired a design team to help us sort through the daunting task of designing a store. Trusting a positive outcome, we moved forward with the design team without knowing how we were going to finance everything.

At the same time, we refurbished our business plan, and hit every financial institution in town. As the design team moved closer to completion, we had yet to secure financing; to make matters worse, we found that in order to build the store just as we wanted it to be, we would need two weeks to get a building permit, plus three weeks to build the store — putting our opening day in the middle of June, which would mean we would lose many of our clients.

It was May 14th, only two weeks before D-Day, and my husband and I still did not know how we were going to open the store on the first; no financing was available as of yet, and we had spent good part of our business savings on the design of the store. Still, I continued telling him, and all of our seamstresses, that everything was going to be OK; I promised them that we were going to open on the first of June, no matter what. Even if we had to open with only our machines and our attitude. I knew we had done our best so far, and when you do your very best, there is no way out other than up.

On that day, both my husband and I were working on the counter, and a couple of friends, David and Esther, who run one of the Lotto booths in the mall passed by and asked us how was the move going. We gave them a quick update — basically, we have two weeks and the store still looks the same. So, they told us they would build our store with us. David always jokes around a lot, and so we laughed and said, Ok, sure… but the next day, David had already spoken with a friend of his, James, and explained our predicament. They asked to meet at the new location, which looked like this:

The floor was cement, and the back wall had been badly damaged by the previous tenants. They asked us to get the design printed out and tape the floor to mask out the booths and all the walls, and so we did. They also gave us a long shopping list, with things like drywall sheets, screws and bolts, wood, flooring, underlay… And on the 23rd of May, they started building it!

As the days passed, the walls went up…

Some walls needed electricity, and so we contracted an electrician as well…

The beautiful wood laminate, and the back wall all fixed up…

The huge changing booths, just as we planned… (the paint on the trim is still on the works!)

We still need to get our logo from the signs place, but here is what the counter looks like right now:

A giant scissor I painted, which looks awesome from the road:

Inside, in the work area:

From outside:

On the first of June, at 10 in the morning, we were opened! Total building time: NINE DAYS.

Of course, every night we have been staying late putting together this and that… we had to rebuild our work table, mount a brand new carousel (which was too big for our store and required cutting the metal to size), build displays of items for sale, and of course hours and hours of final touches on the painting (which we will hopefully be done with this week!)

But… our business is open, people are finding us, and I can FINALLY focus on the publishing house again! Life is back to normal, finally! And so I am going to go back to work with everything I have.

For those of you who knew what was going on, thank you for your support and understanding — I am only one, and this was possibly the hardest six months of my life. With the launching of the publishing house in February, this was bad timing all around, but certainly a whole lot of amazing miracles.

For those who knew very little about all of this, hopefully this will help shed some light as to my disappearance. Please keep in mind that the new lease is good for seven years — so we have a long time of peaceful sailings (knock on wood!)

A deep, true thank-you to James from ArtFitterz and David and Esther — this could never have been done without you. Of all the things we have ever seen, this was spectacular, and truly magical.

I just peeked into my submission box… it is so full of new books, and it is hard to keep up with the new entries.

And we haven’t even launched yet — imagine when we do!

This brings me to the choices a new publisher has nowadays. It must be so easy to be a vanity publishing house; you get to say yes to virtually all books, you work very little on each one of them, you provide the author no marketing (unless he pays for the premium package)… in effect, their money comes pretty much 100% from the author’s wallets (or their friends and families).

They probably don’t edit a book as long as it takes to be perfect — even if it takes ten times (which is my limit! You know who you are!. . . Just kidding, you know I love your book! : D )

They probably don’t redo an illustration over and over because it doesn’t reflect a certain scene well enough.

They probably won’t read a pile of manuscripts trying to find the one which jumps out and screams, PICK ME! I HAVE MEANING!

They probably just don’t spend so much time worrying about every facet of every title.

While I am a little bit jealous of their easy-breezy lifestyle, the bottom line is… what exactly is their function?

Making books about everything, and selling them to nobody? Making no real impact in the world? If they are gone, who will really miss them?

It may seem easy for them to stick to this type of business plan, but for me, it turns out that it would be extremely hard. So, so hard, to care for so very little. While doing things this way, slow and steady, keeping the quality high… that is the easy part for me, as I don’t have to struggle inside.

I may be tired in the end of the day, but I sleep really well at night.

Eugh. Blogging is funny, isn’t it? You pour your heart out in such a matter-of-fact way, and of course, now it is available to everybody, everywhere. By now, you guys probably know me pretty well… that’s what I get for blogging so late at night every time.

The birth of Brighter Books is something I will always remember. I have a really good feeling about it. Stick around!

So, where were we?

After I finished college, I did try to get a big publisher to pick me as an Illustrator– but I was afraid I would get stuck in a project I didn’t really care for, and that I would have to work on it for a year, like one of my teachers. One year to make one book? I wanted to be responsible for many books! And I wanted all of them to have meaning!

So, I didn’t try very hard.

Then, I started to think — what if I put together an eBook store? I could write books and sell them, and all of them would be meaningful, and help people, specially kids. I thought of several subjects: making the right decisions; preparing to leave the nest; accepting people who are different; coping with loss and trauma; helping the environment; creating awareness regarding the current state of the food industry; and on and on and on. I spent a year and a half learning how to build an online business, how to market, how to sell eBooks; everything seemed to be moving forward, but still, I was not happy.

First, I still wanted to make real books — the books my father and I loved and shared — with real paper, real illustrations, and a real book smell.

Second, while I may want to make positive, helpful books available for young people, I don’t believe I am the best person to write them. The list of titles alone overwhelmed me. Again, I was left with the thought “By the time I get half of these done, I will be an old lady!”

And this was when I had an epiphany. Why was I so focused on doing all of this by myself? I am not alone; there are plenty of people in the world who are creative, excited about making a difference, who want to bring something really good into the world. So, I started looking… and boy, was I right about that. I found not only wonderful authors, but also artists, editors, and many other people who want to make something positive for the future.

At about the same time, I had a conversation with my father in law, who told me that if I started a publishing house, then maybe I could help change the world and the way things are going by focusing on books for adults, bringing them books on politics, the environment, important things; I told him that by the time you are an adult, it is often too late. “We must get them while they are young.”

This is why Brighter Book’s focus is to make books for kids and teens, either fiction or non fiction, that would make them better people.

I hope to see important books coming in for publication as we move forward into the future; books teaching kids about the environment, the world, living together and loving one another, and all the things that really matter in life. But fiction books, in my opinion, can be just as important.

A book character is like a friend for a child. For a period of time, it is even more intimate than a friend, because they go inside the child’s mind, demanding the child to be sympathetic to their choices. When a child reads about a character who is truly good and considerate, this has the same effect as if this child has a friend with those qualities. And if a child reads a book about a mean-spirited character, who doesn’t care about the Earth and is disrespectful to his parents. . . well, you get the picture.

A book can teach so many things in so many different ways. But don’t fool yourself — it always teaches something. So, how about making books that teach only positive things?

Ok, 2:16 AM — time to go to bed.    Sorry for any mistakes — I am not really careful when I blog!

So many people ask me the question, “How did Brighter Books get started?”

There is a very long answer to that question.

When I was little, my father and I shared a real love for books. No one in our family could understand, but we were really similar in that way — both of us adored reading above anything else. For me, a close second was trying to replicate the books I read — and so, I also loved creative writing and drawing pictures. . . but these really derived from my first love, the love for books.

My father and I went every Sunday to the only bookstore in our neighborhood, and spent the afternoon there. It was very small and quiet, air-conditioned (a bonus when you are right on the Equator) and it smelled better than buttered french bread.The cashier let us sit on the floor and read for hours, and in the end of the afternoon, we would pick a few books to take home.

When I tell this to some people, they are incredulous about the “EVERY Sunday” part. “Really, every Sunday?” “How many books did you have, then?” “It couldn’t possibly be every Sunday. For how long? A year?”

What they don’t understand is, this is what we loved. Not only we went every Sunday to the bookstore,we had to make a stop every Friday at the corner store to pick up magazines –  for me, comics, but also science magazines, and magazines about animals (which I collected). So, really, every Sunday.

As far as how many books I had. . . I can tell you how many pairs of shoes I had while growing up; usually two at any given time, one for school, one casual pair. I can also tell you how many pairs of pants; how many shirts; how many dresses I had. They were all very few; I didn’t care about those things, and so I never asked for anything to wear at all. Since I had no siblings, my parents never had to go through the “This is out of style!!!” “I want one of THOOOSE!” “I need money for CLOTHES!!!” that every parent has to go through when they have a teenage daughter (and yes, I am speaking from experience!!!)

But I would never be able to tell you how many books I had.I could probably tell you the volume they occupied in my room (which had to be redesigned to hold all of them) and how I cried every time mom gave away a few to make room for more.

I remember one day when I was asleep, and I heard some shuffling in my room — I opened my eyes and saw that along the walls of my room, standing on the ground, there were about fifteen new books. I remember looking at them and thinking, “What a wonderful dream!” and going back to sleep. The next morning, I woke up to find that they were real… and it wasn’t even my birthday. It’s one of the fondest memories I have of my father.

Our love of books and Sunday bookstore runs lasted from as far back as I can remember, until I was sixteen. One night, he left the house and never came back; the next morning, we found out he had been killed in an apparent robbery.

The floor was gone.

For a long time, I didn’t read and didn’t visit the bookstore anymore. I didn’t draw or write, either. But years passed, and my daughter grew to love books as well — maybe not as much as I did; maybe she picked up on my excitement every time I read for her, and asked me to read more and more. Either way, my love of books came back from dormancy after I started reading to my child. I started making up stories to tell her, and writing them down; I started drawing again as well. She loved my drawings.

I ended up studying Illustration and focusing on kid’s books; a few more years, and the book bug was back in full force. On my spare time, I was making storyboards for fun,  sketching characters and making up different stories.

Then, one day……………… (More on the next blog, otherwise it will be another mile-long one!)

Today, I went to the movie theater and watched David Suzuki’s “Force of Nature”. It was a depressing movie, filled with a mixture of either things I have researched in the past (I love reading anything related to the environment) and, well . . . basic common sense.

My “favorite” (as in, most interesting) parts were watching Mr. Suzuki tell the audience about his childhood and the discrimination suffered by the Japanese during the war; how his family got removed from B.C., Canada and sent to a concentration camp; how he had no friends in the camp, because as it turns out, he was second generation Canada native, and up to that point, saw himself as Canadian, including not knowing how to speak Japanese.

What a horrible thing war is; so huge, powerful, so destructive and just wrong. As I saw the black and white clips of bombs dropping onto cities and ships, I found myself opening my hand and stretching it toward the screen — my instinct was to try and stop the bombs before they hurt the people below. And I was watching a movie, for goodness’ sakes. I don’t understand, and will never understand, how someone who had the button on the bomb deploying equipment — and who could actually stop the bombs from falling — still pushes the buttons over and over, like there is nothing to it.

Some people who know me say I live inside my own head most of the time (hey, it’s colorful in here!) but I would never be so far inside my own head, that I could ever understand following such orders.

Back to the environment’s situation — It’s so sad to think of the different kinds of people that we have in the world today. We have the “Someone-has-got-to-do-something-about-this” folks, who basically complain about the current situation but expect someone else to fix Earth’s problems; the “I’ll-take-it-while-I-can” folks, who are fine with destroying the Earth’s resources, as long as they are the ones who gain something from it; the “Me-me-me” folks, who don’t care where the money comes from, as long as they come to their bank accounts; the “I’m-too-old” folks, who feel they are too old to make a difference, or worse, who feel they are “on their way out anyway” — so “why should they care”? And on and on and on — too young, too poor, too busy, too insignificant, too, too, too. Everyone has an excuse.

There are so many kinds of people, and from all of those people, very very few actually focus any time in doing something for the Earth, or to keep it for future generations.

Everyone is good at something. This something can be used to help the Earth last a little longer, to get other people motivated to make the world better, to start changing the tide. . . If you are reading this, as incoherent as it may sound (hey, Sunday is a busy day for me — I worked all day long and I am pooped now!) could you please do something for me?

Think of something you can do to make the world better, based on the things you are really good at.

Pick one thing. Then do it.

I have more to say, but I really should go to bed — tomorrow is the beginning of another “book week”and I really want to get a lot done! Brighter Books is my way of doing something, and I’m pretty committed! 

So, last Friday I was a bit bored and decided to do some sketches just for the fun of it. I’m not sure why, but this image of a giant Great Dane came to my mind — big, with floppy ears, a long tail, all white and speckled black (the “Harlequin” kind).

I started sketching him. It was a big odd, since most Great Danes get their ears cropped after they are born — but what the heck,  I have no idea why they still do that anyhow. Seems cruel to me, and so I did my sketch with natural ears.

After he was done, I added a nice red necklace, and named him Friday — a homage to Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. I thought it was even more odd, since the sketched dog was a male (even though it was just a portrait). Also, the name Friday for a dog is not very common.

The sketch looked pretty good, and I almost could see the dog in my mind… so I told my husband that my next dog would be a male Great Dane named Friday.

I got back home late, and decided to check online for puppies — just for fun, nothing serious. After all, a dog is a huge commitment, and I really need to focus on making books right now. Besides, my previous dogs have been adopted mutts (all except for one, which was a Springer Spaniel — what a great breed!)

I went to Puppy Find (www.puppyfind.com) and typed in Great Dane — 1674 hits for Great Dane puppies.

So, I decided to shrink that number by selecting Danes in Canada only.

SAY WHAT?!?!

Now, I don’t usually have super powers, and I never won the lottery or anything like that… but you have to admit that as far as coincidences go, this one is pretty freaky. Just like the story, I found him on a Friday.

And yes, he looked just like the sketch.

Yes, I wrote the owner to check if he was available.

No, thank goodness she didn’t write me back.

I am in the process of sketching a very large bookshelf filled with books. . .

Just in case.

Oh, and a pile of money. Who are we kidding?  ; )