moving onto part deux

Right now, I’m betwixt and between things. Doomed Queens has finally gone on press as of last week (so I’ve heard). Aside from strong pre-sales (so I’ve been told), it was also picked up by Costco and the QPB Club.

I’ve just received the final cover proof. (Doomed Queens has french flaps and endpapers though it’s a paperback. Broadway is planning a beautiful production job!) This is also probably on press right now too. After more than a year of solid labor, it’s a strange feeling to not have anything more to do on the book itself.

So where does this leave me? Do I simply more onto the next publication? Well not exactly, though I do have a few backburnered projects that I can now turn back to. Publishing a book is a bit more complicated than that. After all, writing, designing and illustrating is only part one of bringing a book to life. Part two is assuring that the book actually finds its way in the world — that it sells well, wins appropriate attention, and gets well reviewed. All this is a job onto itself.

So here’s my “to-do” list for Doomed Queens, part deux:

1. Finish finetuning my kriswaldherr.com website. I’ve still lots of Doomed Queens content to roll out as publication date approaches. Publication is set for October 28th.

2. Need to finish my press kit Q&A. I’m taking this quite seriously since it’s a very important tool for the media to learn about my book. Am doing my best to be pithy, witty, and wise.

3. Prepare for the launch party. There will be two, one at a private club and one at my gallery, which will include an exhibition of the original art from Doomed Queens.

4. Confer with marketing at my publisher. We have lots of ideas for publicizing the book. Now we need to decide on how to proceed. For example, there’s been talk of a Youtube video, which I think is a fantastic idea. I’d also like to design a Facebook application.

5. And so much more. What I’ve listed here just scratches the surface and doesn’t even include all the labors of the good people at Broadway Books. For example, I know they’ve already sent out galleys for reviews. Once the book is published, there will probably be a big mouth mailing, to stir up support from halo’ed quarters.

As for myself, well, I just feel tired. I’m glad to have finished part one of my labors. I’d love to take a break, a mental margarita if you will. But I know I have many miles to go before I sleep. And now is not the time to lose my focus.

• Filed under publications, queens | 2 Responses

Why does this blog look different? *

It’s all part of my site redesign, which has gone “live” as of last night. There’s still a few bugs to be ironed out — but when isn’t there? All of those bugs should be banished within the next week or so. The main thing I need to attend to is optimizing the home page for earlier versions of Explorer — it’s displaying perfectly in Firefox, Safari and Netscape. (No offense to Explorer lovers everywhere, but it’s hard on html.) Oh, and updating my cgi scripts for the oracles and online catalog. That sort of stuff.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this site redesign is that my url has migrated over to www.kriswaldherr.com, instead of artandwords.com. So please reset your bookmarks! Though the site at artandwords.com will still be operational for a little while (at least until the bugs on the new site are ironed out), eventually it will forward to kriswaldherr.com. In other words, artandwords.com will still be around, just not as it was.

Why have I done this, after over a decade of identifying myself so closely with artandwords.com/aka Art and Words? Believe me, it wasn’t an easy decision. When I initially chose artandwords.com as my author url, I did so because my name isn’t simple to spell or pronounce. I thought it would make it easier for people to remember my work, to find my site. And in some ways, it has.

However, over the years, it has created confusion. People think that Art and Words is the parent company, where I play only a small part — as if I’m a subsidiary working for a corporation, instead of the founding mama who created this site and my books. This has made it more difficult for me to take credit for what’s mine on this website, to claim authorship of my publications. I can’t tell you how many e-mails I’ve received addressed to “Art and Words”, rather than Kris Waldherr. After all, it’s Kris Waldherr who creates the art and words, not the other way around.

Anyway, I think my new logo clarifies this:

So welcome to KrisWaldherr.com. I’ve got a new logo. New url. New website. New content, including new pages for Doomed Queens. And (hopefully) new and easier navigation throughout.

It’s all good.

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*Now you can see why I haven’t been updating this blog so much. Site redesign is a lot of work!

• Filed under art and words, new projects | No Comments

32 short updates about my life

Hey, hello there! Long time, no blog. You might be wondering what is going on here.

1. I finished Doomed Queens.

2. Though I finished Doomed Queens, I’m still dealing with some last production-oriented details. So finished editorially, not finished design-wise.

3. Doomed Queens needs a website.

4. Yes, I’ve designed a teaser page, but it really needs a website.

5. My whole website needs to be redesigned. I know it’s a sad mess since I got hacked into several months ago and had to change ISPs.

6. Guess what I’ve been doing the past two weeks? Yes, I’m knee-deep in html and css and so on. I’m still not finished with the site, but getting close. Tentative launch date: August 7, 2008.

7. But there’s been good news for Doomed Queens.

8. Costco picked it up! “Attention, shoppers….”

9. There will be a point-of-purchase display for participating independent bookstores.

10. I want one for my gallery. I’m an independent bookstore. (Kind of. I do sell books in my studio-gallery.)

11. There will be an exhibition of Doomed Queens‘ art at my studio-gallery this winter.

12. The exhibition will be called “Royally Screwed: Doomed Queens through the Ages.” The opening will probably be Friday, October 29 — in time for Hallowe’en.

13. I’m going to create a window display for it at my studio-gallery. Maybe I’ll even include a faux guillotine to set the mood.

14. Actually, I’m thinking a lot about window display these days.

15. I want my gallery window to look like a Joseph Cornell box.

16. I wish I had more time to dive into it — maybe this autumn.

17. Also, on the gallery front: I’m planning to paint the area above my window cobalt blue with gold ornaments.

18. It will look like a medieval illumination. I hope.

19. I also plan to paint a large art deco-inspired tree on two walls. But in very subtle paint, almost like a paper watermark. (If walls can have watermarks.)

20. My friend Lisa Hunt just started a blog about her upcoming Fairy Tale Tarot. It’s very good!

21. She’s coming up north to visit me later this summer. I can’t wait!

22. Also on the social front: Two friends moved to my neighborhood, one into the apartment above my studio. My life feels like a sitcom.

23. I’m enjoying lots of café society this summer.

24. On the family front: Thea is potty trained. Hip, hip, hooray!

25. Tom is going away for three weeks to curate an exhibition in Germany. Yay for him, boo for us.

26. My father-in-law had a book published.

27. I designed the cover for it.

28. We all went away to Idaho for our vacation, right after my last blog post.

29. It was beautiful, but we lost electricity for three days after a giant tree fell in a windstorm.

30. Thea liked swimming in the lake. I liked reading lots of books.

31. We had a stop over in Colorado. They had lots of great book stores. We had to check an extra bag on our flight home.

32. Since our return to Brooklyn, I’ve been dealing with items # 1-19. I’ve also started opening up my gallery to the public Saturdays from 12 – 4.

And that’s the latest here! How was your July?

• Filed under art and words, be-mused, friends and colleagues, the world around me, travels | One Response