I Approved My Second Book for Publication Today

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My title management page now shows the eBook and Print versions ofThe Butterfly Who Airlifted His Friends Over The Wall.

Yesterday I re-submitted my corrected PDF to Ingramspark and today I approved the book for publication. Approving the book means that it will go into the machinery that will make the book available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kob0 in a couple of days. I’ll post those links when they’re available.

Speaking of the publishing business, today I got my quarterly remittance for my first book: $0.71. My total income for 2020 was $7.75, which makes me smile and motivates me to continue making books.

Chore Day, April 11, 2020: Cooking Bean Burgers and Looking for My Book on Amazon

After I cooked up a batch of bean burgers for the boys, I went to Amazon to check out my book. I’ve had only a handful of sales, most of them to myself, but I like to look at my Amazon page now and then to get a renewed sense of accomplishment. But today, when I went to get my ego boost, I saw that Amazon no long sells my $8.99 book. The book is listed, but Amazon doesn’t actually sell it any more. It’s been booted from the store. But, Amazon does redirect customers to another seller who will order the book from Ingramspark for $4.99 and sell it for $16.61. Fortunately, Barnes and Noble is a little more friendly. The book is still for sale there for $8.99.

Al Fresco Art Day, Jan 12, 2020 -- Doing Drills and Buying My Book

Today I ordered a copy of my book from Amazon. Here’s a screenshot of my cart. It feels great to be ordering my own book. I’m really curious to see what kind of quality Ingramspark is giving to self-published authors. The eBook isn’t available on Amazon, but you can buy it through Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.

The Al Fresco Art Club challenge of the day was to do some old-fashioned sketching drills. I chose to do some of the cartooning exercises in Jack Hamm’s Cartooning the Head and Figure. It’s an amazing book with 1,000+ examples. Jack had a fertile mind and a quick hand.

I skethed ears, heads, and babies. You gotta keep the ears and heads simple, and the babies cute. You keep a baby cute by drawing the head big and the body and limbs chubby. I chose this drill because I want to amplify my characters’ cuteness factor in the next book. Too often I stretched out Jimmy’s body and changed him for an eight-year-old to a teenager. To make sure that doesn’t happen in the future, I’ll be drawing plenty of big heads and little bodies over the next three months. That’s right, I said three months. I’m giving myself 90 days to complete the second book.