Getting There

Hi,
I am now going to put here the fourth story out of five found in the Keter Malchut collection. I hope you all enjoy it, feel free to comment. The fifth is already in editing, so soon we shall have the entire short story collection online, say, isn't that swell?

Too Much Stuff

The reason I have not been writing for such a long time is not that there is nothing new to say, but rather, that there is so much to say!
I will just give you a few headlines, and hopefully clarify things in the near future.

• We have a new distributor - Opus books
• The penguins book was postponed
• 'New York Visions" should be ready in about three months
• Our fifth book is also coming along nicely
• We should keep the English stories coming
  
• There are more book ideas, but they are a bit hazy right now
• So much PR work to do!

There, that just about covers it. I hope to explain all of this and more in the not too distant future.

Thoughts for the End of the Year

Hi,
So this was the year I decided to become a publisher. The year started out very badly, with bad personal news, but it ends in a very nice way.
I am a publisher, three books are ready and the fourth one is being edited, the first book is slowly being translated to English just so that you, dear blogger readers can read it, and many new and exciting ventures... will just have to wait because books are too important right now.
We did have a deal with 'Sifrut Achshav" but it never materialized, it was a bad deal, so never mind.
We are looking for a new distributor, and in the mean time we decided that we would sell our books directly.
Feel free to mail me at:
alicelidd@gmail.com
That is if you want to order our Hebrew books, or for any other publishing related discussion.

Been Busy

Yes, I know dear blog I have been busy. have been neglecting you lately, but I have something for you. You may call it a third day of Christmas present, if you so wish. I have, at last, a second story out of the Keter Malchut book.
Happy?
This story is called 'Maybe Not', and it's the second story in this five story collection. I hope more are coming, and with shorter intervals, but I cannot promise you anything, I am still busy busy busy...
Sorry.

It has been a while

I have done some serious thinking in the past few weeks, about publishing and marketing, and expanses. Mostly boring stuff, but I'll try to find the interesting bits and tell you about them later.
For now, it looks as though we shall publish six books by March or April, and then focus on marketing and sales etc. and not publish anything new in Hebrew till the fall.
As I have promised I will tell you in detail about all of the six coming book, and I promise to write more often from now on. So stay tuned for more details...
Also, we have now found a wondeful editor for our English translations. I intend to translate all the short stories from 'Keter Malchut' in the near future, and publish them here in the edited version. This means you can expect a new and much better version of the 'Smoke of Time' very soon.

A Publisher's Dilemma

I have started taking private lessons in the operation of this press. These are from a hardened business man, who helps me get the business side together.
You see book publishers are forever between two opposite sides, each pulling in a different direction. On the one hand there is literature - the will to publish good books, books that explore new ways of story telling, and do it well. On the other hand there is business, the will to publish books that sell.
The thing is: if the books you publish do not sell, you cannot make other books, and cannot do good literature. On the other hand if you only care about the money, what's the point of this whole exercise, there are enough trashy books out there even before drop of light published anything. So it really is a dilemma.
In the next few posts I will tell you about all the books that we have published, or intend to publish in the near future, and how with each one, we are faced with this constant dilemma, and how we might solve it with some careful business planning. Feel free to comment on any of this, It might help me pull my thoughts together.

New Addition

A new addition was recruited a few days ago – I. Yes, the press is growing, ever so slowly, yet in a determined manner.
I hope to contribute as much as possible to the wondrous world of Israeli fiction press. More to come in the very near future, so stay tuned.

Penguins in progress

After a long break due to prior engagement, I've recently returned to working on the book about the penguins. I would like to share bits of the process.
This is the story of an illo which tells about tourists that visit the penguin's beach. The tourists take pictures and sometimes throw coins at the penguins. This was the first version:


(click the image to enlarge)

I wasn't happy about it, but I didn't know why exactly, so I asked for my mentor's help - Mr. Danny Kerman, who is a well known illustrator and writer in Israel, a very nice person, and an excellent teacher. His remarks were that the people are all facing forward in an unnatural way, and look detached from the penguin. He also said I should improve the way different materials meet - for example, the way the ship's body meets the see, the way the water meets the shore, and so on. I found his remarks inspiring, and created a new version for this illo, which started with the following sketch:



I've done a few changes in the sketch, which were reducing the tilt of the ship, so that the people won't look as if they're falling, and moving the penguin down and out of the frame. This is the final outcome:


(click the image to enlarge)

This is better, although I'm afraid that the people and the penguin still look a bit detached. However, I'm not sure if I'll have the emotional strength to do it all over again... for the third time! I'll wait till the rest of the book is done, and decide than.

Here are two more sketches which are waiting to become colored illos:


I'll tell this sketch's story on my next post:



Let me just add, after two days of hard work, my back is killing me. Just one of the risks in this trade. I have to go back to Yoga.

So Far So Good

We actually sold our first two books on Icon yesterday, and we are going to keep doing it today. Our sales figures are nice, and considering the short time period, and our anonymity, they're really amazing.
More about our Icon adventures when I comer back. Right now I have to go sell some more books!
See yall.

Days are Coming

Ido Gendel is a very talented author.
He won first second and third prizes in several science fiction writing competitions here in Israel.
He was not too surprised when I offered him to publish some of his stories, he was surprized however when he heard that I will not be charging him money, and that he might only gain from this process. You see here in Israel it's fairly common to charge first tie authors for their first books.
I don't think it's such a fair idea though. I think that publishers should pulblish, and authors should write. The nature of the business is to invest money in books. I did not gain much money by these views yet, but I think I will in the future.
Anyway, a few months down the road, Ido has published his book, and being a fairly artistic guy, also designed our logo and the cover for his book. He also designed some other stuff, but more about all that later. Our very talented Miri Peled also contributed a story to this book, and so we have the manuscript of Days are Coming.
BTW, Ido also contributed a story to the new edition of 'Keter Malchut". Now 'Days are Coming' is at the printers, and very soon, we will sell both books in the Israeli Icon 2007 festival. We have not translated yet the stories there to English, but we will in due course. Here is the cover, though: