We are United with Paris

The civilized world is grieving for and with Paris.  I felt that I had to address this staggering event in my blog this week.  One might ask why staggering? After all, it is only one country.  But it is more than that my friends.  Much more.  

What happened in Paris on Friday, November 13 struck a blow at all humanity.  This author is certainly not going to use this blog post as a political forum. 

But what I want to do is to showcase the poignant piece of art that I actually saw on Facebook.  We all know that our Statue of Liberty was given to the United States by France in 1868.  I hope you find the relevance of this drawing as touching and freedom driven as I do.  And I hope we can all come together as a human community to put an end to this kind evil. 

Pray for Paris.  Pray for all humanity.

More Book Banning in Italy?

What is happening to children's literature in Italy, particularly in Venice?  Luigi Brugnaro took over as mayor of Venice in June, many people thought his priorities might clean up corruption that rocked Venice with over-funded protective floodgates.

Instead, Brugnaro focused on cleaning up the city's primary schools, namely 49 so-called "dirty books" touching on issues such as non-traditional families and gender issues.

The banned books are among 1,098 new books for children that the Venice school district paid some €10,000 for in 2014. The blacklist includes titles from award-winning Italian and international children’s authors like Leo Leonni, whose book Little Blue and Little Yellow tells a fictional tale of two genderless circles that hug so hard they become green.

Another banned book—called What’s Dad’s Secret?—tells a tale of a divorced father whose children worry he has a terminal disease when he starts acting strange around them, only to be overjoyed to learn that instead he has simply fallen in love with his male friend, Luca.

And there’s I’m Not Like The Others by French author Janik Coat, which is about animals that are different from their traditional species, which is as much about physical and religious differences as it is about sexuality.

Public pressure could have an influence on the book ban. Last week, 263 Italian and foreign authors whose books are in Venice schools sent a letter to the mayor asking that their books also be removed from schools as a show of solidarity with the banned authors.

Venetian residents are also holding Flashmob-style read-ins of the books in public venues, and they have started a Facebook page called “Free our Books” where they post pictures of children reading the banned books.

As a personal aside, this blogger has just returned from two weeks in Rome, Ravenna, and Loro Piceno.  Democracy was palpable, as was thoughtfulness, and an aura of judiciousness.  One can only hope the honorable mayor of Venice will reconnect with the Italian citizens who protest his outrageous actions.

What in the World do You Authors Do All Day?

I am asked this question more times that one could imagine.  For those of us who write full-time, the answer is simple and complex:  We work all day long!

My day has become, by fiat really, divided into three segments.  The first begins about 6:15 in the morning. Still dark.  House quiet.  Coffee brewing.  Puppy ready to jump into my lap for a hard day’s writing.

My attention turns to housekeeping issues.  Emails from two accounts, facebook, Twitter, Google Circles and my blog. Several years ago, none of this existed for me but email.  Today social networking has big teeth and is crucial to an author’s professional life.  If I’m lucky and efficient, all this can be finished by around 8 AM—unless it’s a gym day, when things get pushed back by an hour.

The second segment of time focuses on actual writing.  I am best at “being an author” if I've warmed up with other tasks but am not too tired.  This is when being in the flow occurs.  When nothing is in my mind but the story at hand.  When I am squarely in my protagonist’s (or antagonist’s) head.  When nothing else matters but moving the story from here to there.  What a good time of day it is when the magic works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  Mercifully, most of the time it does.

The third part of my professional day is decidedly not my favorite, and sometimes I skip it.  That would be marketing.  There was a time not long ago when authors didn’t have to do such things.  Not anymore!  Today one must talk with bookstores, visit schools (which actually I love), do signings at various locales (fun, too, come to think of it).  Hmm.  Maybe I dislike the idea more than doing it…

The evenings will find me with my laptop in front of the TV, which I usually zone out.  It’s then that I’ll be sure my next blog is ready to post later that evening, my calendar is up to date and coffee’s ready to brew.  Everything at the ready for 6:15, quiet, coffee, puppy…You get the drift.

I can be brought out of the flow at:

Web Site:  http://www.nancystewartbooks.com 
Blog Site:  http://www.nancystewartbooks.blogspot.com
 Twitter:    https://twitter.com/#!/stewartnancy                                                                                          Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nancy.rosenthalstewart

The Not-So-Nice Tale of Tobermory Cat

Here is quite an amazing story from the Scottish island of Mull. It was brought to my attention from The Guardian and written by Alison Flood. 

Once upon a time, a ginger tom cat lived in Tobermory on the Scottish isle of Mull. The tourists loved him; a local artist even set up a Facebook page collecting photos of him lounging on walls, soaking up the sunshine. A Scottish publisher decided to commission a children's book about the Tobermory Cat, and asked a well-known author to write it. Everyone lived happily ever after. The End.

Except it wasn't. The idyllic town of Tobermory – and an innocent ginger cat – have been drawn into an increasingly surreal copyright battle, which has rumbled on for months and become ever more vicious, featuring hate mail, "screams of abuse" over the telephone and cyber-bullying. And all over a cat that does not seem to care at all!

The dispute boils down to this: the local artist, Angus Stewart, says it was his Facebook page that made the Tobermory Cat famous, and that by writing a book about the cat, the publisher and the author are taking his idea.
The publisher, independent Edinburgh press,  Birlinn, says the cat has been known to locals and tourists for years. Local bookseller Duncan Swinbanks agrees. He says he's taken pictures of the cat, lying on the beach with a crowd watching it, dating back to before Stewart's Facebook page started.

"The idea was arrived at with no knowledge of [Stewart's] website," says Birlinn managing director Hugh Andrew, a visitor to Mull for 20 years. "I've published a lot of books in Mull but haven't done anything recently … I was thinking away in Tobermory when I was there last summer, and walking along the road I saw a huge ginger cat, with four or five people photographing it. I went to [local bookseller] Duncan [Swinbanks] and he said that's the Tobermory cat. I said let's do a children's book, and he was very enthusiastic. As I was going he said 'the cat's quite well known – there's a Facebook page'."

"This whole book was done because we're suffering on the island from the recession – our visitor numbers have fallen," says Swinbanks. "Hugh and I talked about this, and he said let's do a book on the cat."

Andrew approached author Mairi Hedderwick to write the book; she wasn't keen. He tried Debi Gliori, and she got on board. They decided to visit Mull for Gliori to meet the cat, get a feel for the place and, "as a matter of courtesy", to "go to see the people that were involved with the cat, and explain what was going on", said Andrew.


This included Stewart, and, as Gliori recounts in a lengthy blog post from late last week – the first time she has spoken out about the situation – the meeting did not go well.
"We would never have heard of the cat had it not been for the Facebook page. It was his idea. If he hadn't put in all the work into the Facebook page, nobody would ever have heard of the cat," she says he told her and Andrew. Andrew offered Stewart the opportunity to advertise his gallery and paintings on the back of the book, but he wasn't interested.

Time passed. Gliori had an idea for her story: all the villages of Mull have their own special cats, which draw visitors from near and far, except for Tobermory, because its cats aren't special. One ginger tom, however, wants to change this. "Ideas are 10 a penny. You can't copyright them," Gliori told the Guardian. "There was no stealing of ideas whatsoever."

Stewart turned to Facebook. "Dear Facebook friends," he wrote on a dedicated open page. "SHARE or LIKE any posts will REALLY HELP MY CAUSE – as it could virally create a MONSTER CELEBRITY CAT which can fight off any Edinburgh Publisher intent on taking all of my creative work. If Facebook can overthrow dictators it can pee on a publisher."

Then he named Gliori and Birlinn on Facebook for the first time. "Sadly this Tobermory Cat is shutting up shop … I honestly believe [Gliori] is taking my idea and title. There are half a million cats in Scotland and lots of towns – so their claim to have come up with the same idea and title independently of my existing work seems 'unlikely'. Their action means I will have no rights over my creative property, how it is used and deprives me of the right to earn an income from it in the future."

The post prompted an outpouring of fury on Facebook, where Stewart's supporters shared contact details for Birlinn and Gliori. The story was, as one put it, that the "corporate bastards are grinding down the individual", and plans were made to express the "disgust" felt to Gliori and to Birlinn.
The publisher received hate mail, and aggressive anonymous phone calls from members of the public. "It was scary for us," said Andrew. "There were screams of abuse to our intern and people in the office. I've had hate mail … We've had to get Amazon to remove defamatory comments. They set out to destroy the book, and I've had no real redress … To accuse us of theft, of plagiarism, is absolutely the most serious charge you can make about my business, and to Debi. It's absolutely devastating to our livelihoods if it sticks."

Gliori, meanwhile, was drowned in vicious Twitter messages. As she writes on her blog, "I became aware that my name was almost trending on Twitter. There were multiple mentions of it, and none of them good. Several people went further and got into my account and started firing off tweets to all my followers, informing them that I was a thief … Some of the tweets were nasty. Little fantasies of what the lovely Facebook friends of the Artist would like to do to me, if they got up close and personal … the 'friends' of the artist were massing on Facebook. They were leaving me messages. They knew where I lived. They were digging around on the internet, googling me, digging up whatever they could find.

Her illustrated children's book, The Tobermory Cat, has just been published, but Gliori is still shaken from her encounter. "I keep thinking I'm fine now, I'm over it, and I go out in public to do an event, and I'm thinking who's out there, who's going to stand up in the audience and do something horrific," she says.

Stewart has also just published a book, a collection of photographs of the cat.  He did not wish to speak to the Guardian – he is "being cast as some sort of bully and it is very dangerous stuff", he said in an email – but did point towards his numerous posts on the subject, in which he explains his reasoning.

"I don't claim copyright of a real cat – that would be foolish," he has just written on a writers' forum on which writers have been expressing their outrage over Gliori's treatment for the past few days. "I claim copyright on my fictional work called Tobermory Cat and a fictional celebrity cat character entirely of my making. My star is not one cat, he is a construct, I use three cats, none of which has the given name Tobermory Cat … Their book is out, same ginger cat, same title, same car surfing antics, extracted details, the story of a cat becoming a celebrity cat – a graphic story, the prequel to my story but ending with a celebrity cat. If this book is the first of a series, they have occupied the ground. They brush me off, preferring to spend thousands on lawyers rather than supporting my work – but I try to secure the future rights or they will own the lot."

The nitty gritty details of this extraordinary story are being picked over endlessly online. Nicola Morgan, an author, former chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and friend of Gliori's, points out that "there is no copyright on ideas or on titles, and that "creative people are creative not because of where they get their ideas but because of what they do with them". Other writers suggest that if the idea belongs to anyone, Saki might justifiably lay claim to the first Tobermory cat.

And the cat itself? It continues sleeping in the sun.

Social Media Networking: Be an Active Participant with Relevant News, Articles, and Assistance

It is my great pleasure to welcome Donna McDine to the blog for her monthly post, Marketing Monday.  Her expertise in such matters is amazing, and I learned from reading this offering myself.  Welcome, Donna!

I haven’t forgotten my promise from my last post to discuss LinkedIn, but like many things my inner thoughts have taken over and my conscious is beating the heck out of my mind to chat about the importance of personal participation in social media networking.

The success for any type of social media networking is active participation. Yes, technology allows us to become automated in just about every aspect of postings through cyberspace. The convenience of scheduling blog posts to Twitter, then to Facebook, then to LinkedIn is a great time save, but we must set a daily reminder to become engaged personally in our social networking.

I admit with a red face I’ve been guilty of allowing my automation take over and have become absent as a live person via my social networking. I have given myself the good old slap upside the head and no longer will I allow myself to become the absentee markete

As of late, I’ve downloaded the Twitter application (app) to my Droid phone, providing me the opportunity while waiting for my daughter to come out of basketball practice or religion to engage with fellow Tweeters. This is proven to be a successful way of engaging for me and have connected with current and new colleagues, potential clients in the children’s publishing industry, and for those seeking out assistance with their social media campaigns. Twitter works perfectly on the Droid phone because of the rolling screen of Tweets. Thanks Twitter, for keeping tweets to 140 characters.

Luckily my family gave me an iPad several years ago and I’ve downloaded the Facebook and Twitter apps to further engage with others. I personally like the Facebook app on the iPad since it’s a much larger screen than my Droid phone

Mind you, I do try to keep my personal social interaction down to 30 minutes per day so I’m not spending the majority of my time away from my valuable writing, editing, Author PR Services time, and of course my family.

Key attributes in becoming an active social media networker

·         Share relevant information to followers, friends, and colleagues (whatever the specific social media network calls them). If you are a children’s book author share… the latest publishing industry news you’ve read about, your latest magazine article publication or book release, children’s book fair events, children’s book conferences (such as SCBWI by region), your experience in conducting school visits, etc. The list is endless. Important to note, don’t make it all about you. Shout out the successes of your colleagues.

·         Engage in online chats through social media networks. For example, on Facebook search groups you are interested in joining… such as, teachers, librarians, parents, schools. Participation is imperative, so I strongly suggest you do not join more than 1-2 groups per social media network you are a member of.

·         Offer tips and assistance from your expert standpoint. When a particular topic is being discussed and you have experience in said topic, join in the conversation and engage. You will be pleased and amazed on how much people appreciate your feedback and they will remember that in the future. You will eventually be known as the go to person in your field of expertise, which often times leads to much more than you ever provided

·         Don’t fall into the “it’s all about me attitude.” This is a sure fire way to turn people off. Don’t chat about your specific book or product unless the conversation specifically lends to it.

Once you join a group on most of the social media networks you are able to set an email option to be reminded of the latest discussions in the group so you remember to participate. You can also set a reminder through your To Do/Tasks option in your email. I utilize Outlook for my email and I’m constantly updating and checking off my To Do/Tasks list, which by the way gives me great satisfaction in checking off the latest item. Yep, I’m a list person and love to see the list of checked off tasks! I tell my girls all the time, if it’s not on my list it won’t get do

Happy networking and remember don’t overload yourself!

Until next time…

Donna M. McDine

Publicist & Award-winning Children's Author

Donna’s Website: http://www.donnamcdine.com
Write What Inspires You Blog: http://www.donna-mcdine.blogspot.com

Author PR Services: http://www.authorprservices.com