Knock Knock's Blog, page 13

Knock Knock’s Craig Hetzer and Elyse Tepper Speaking at Tradeshow Bootcamp’s Business Camp, July 13, 2015

Great news for small biz owners out there! Knock Knock publisher, Craig Hetzer, and director of manufacturing, Elyse Tepper, will be speaking at this year’s Tradeshow Bootcamp’s Business Camp on Monday, July 13.

TSBC’s Business Camp is a one-day business conference carefully crafted to address strategies and solutions for creative entrepreneurs with at least 3 years experience in business. It will be held at The Club in Manhattan Beach, CA from 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. with a reception to follow at 7 p.m.

Craig’s session is at 11 a.m. and he willbe talking about product differentiation and creating products with a unique point of view—offering tips on how to stay relevant in the marketplace. Later in the day, catch Elyse at 4 p.m. in her session about manufacturing overseas as she breaks down the process—how it works logistically, when it makes sense financially, pitfalls to avoid, and how to find trusted vendors.

Read more conference deets on tradeshowcamp.com/business-camp.

Early bird registration is now available (ending May 22) so register at a discounted rate while you can! Registration includes tuition to TSBC and its materials, access to TSBC‘s private forum, meals and reception costs, and fun surprises!

Don’t forget to sign up for our  newsletter  and check our  Facebook ,  Twitter ,  Pinterest , and  Instagram  pages to see what we’ve got going on in 2015.

Win a Selfies Photo Album + $100 to Spend at Knock Knock!

Introducing the first photo album created specially for your side-pout face, infamous duckface, and silly mirror shots—the Selfies Photo Album. (It’s an E! News favorite.) For our latest giveaway, we want to check out your selfies at work. (Literally.)

Enter our #WorkinIt Selfie Giveaway!

The prize: One winner will get a Selfies Photo Album and $100 to spend at Knock Knock.

How to enter: Use the Rafflecopter form below to complete your entry. We’ll contact winners by email. The giveaway closes Thursday, March 19 at 11:59 p.m. Read official rules here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you share your #WorkinIt selfie (that is, a selfie snapped at work) be sure to follow Rafflecopter’s steps above and you could be featured in a future Knock Knock blog post, like this guy:

When you’re hard at work, let your eyes rest for a few moments. (This may or may not be Conner, our inside sales associate.)

Good luck and keep on #WorkinIt!

Don’t forget to sign up for our   newsletter   and check our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram pages to see what we’ve got going on in 2015.

Meet Erica Salcedo!

You’ve met Calm the F*ck Down author David Vienna, but now it’s time to shine the spotlight on the book’s fantastic illustrator: Erica Salcedo! Hailing from the quaint town of Cuenca, Spain, Erica got her start at Castilla-La Mancha University studying fine arts and later received her master’s degree in graphic design and illustration at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

Her work is focused on children’s illustrations so she uses her love for animals as inspiration to create her one-of-a-kind characters. Currently preparing a picture book due out in the beginning of 2016 for Bloomsbury UK, she also illustrated the young fiction novel, The Mosquito Brothers, for Groundwood books that will come out this month. Get to know more about Erica with this fun Q&A!

1. Where do you find inspiration for your drawings? Does living in Spain influence your creative process at all? For me, inspiration can come from any situation: a person that dresses extraordinary on the street, a conversation, and of course, from animals as well. I like to imagine the kind of personality each and every dog could have in my neighborhood. Hehe. You need to have your eyes wide open! 

A glimpse into Erica’s work space, where all her characters come to life. (Click the pic to get a closer look!)

 2. Favorites hobbies outside of drawing? At the moment, I don’t have much time for anything. However, when I do have some free time, I like to go for a walk in the forest or crochet (like a granny)—it’s very relaxing! I’m also very passionate about watching TV. Some of my favorite TV shows are “Sherlock,” “The Walking Dead,” “American Horror Story,” “The Leftovers,” “Girls,” and “Orange is the New Black.”

3. You incorporate animals into many of your illustrations. If you could be any animal, what would you be? It’s true. I love to draw animals. If I could choose, it would be the only thing that I would draw. I have a predilection for foxes and wolves, so maybe I could be a fox. It’s an animal that reminds me of my childhood, but I can’t deny that my other half is a sloth—I love to sleep.

Another illustration for Calm the F*ck Down.

4. How was it illustrating Calm the F*ck Down and which is your favorite drawing in the book? (If you have more than one, that’s okay too!) It was great! I liked the book proposal as soon I got it in my hands. At first glance, I understood the humor of the book. I love and always try to put a pinch of humor in my illustrations, so the book fit like a glove to me. A big point for me was if I could make the characters in the book appear as animals. And I like to put a lot of detail in my illustrations, so one of my favorites is the “Travel with Kids” illustration.

Erica’s “Travel with Kids” illustration for our new book, Calm the F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need.

5. What’s your favorite Knock Knock product and why (other than Calm the F*ck Down, of course)? I try to be an organized person so the 5 Days a Week Paper Mousepad is a must for me.

6. How did you get your start? Is there any advice you would like to share with aspiring illustrators out there? It was so clear to me that I was going to be an illustrator. I started with small jobs, even jobs that have nothing to do with illustration (like graphic design), and was persistent and patient. Bit by bit more jobs came and today, I’m very lucky that I work full-time as an illustrator.

My advice: at the beginning, accept all the jobs that come your way and be persistent. Make your own illustrations and use the internet and social media to network and get clients—self-promotion is key.

One of Erica’s sketches in its early stages.

7. What are 5 things on your bucket list right now? My life is always on the fly so I don’t have concrete goals, but one thing that’s always on my mind is to travel more. I would love to visit Japan.

For more info on Erica Salcedo and her projects, check out her website or “Follow” her on Twitter , Instagram , or Tumblr .

Knock Knock Featured in “Bride To Be” Magazine

More love for our Selfies Photo Album! It’s featured in Australia’s Bride To Be Magazine’s special issue of Your Day. The abum’s a perfect way to get those memorable wedding photos “off the computer and out on display!”

Grab your own Selfies Photo Album here.

Pack Mentality

Our dog Mike passed away a little over a year ago and the boys have been pleading for another pet. They wanted one so badly, they were drawing fish, cutting them out, taping string leashes to them, and walking them around the house. I didn’t have the heart to tell them, if they wanted a pet fish, it wouldn’t live longer than 10 minutes into their first walk . . . Maybe 15 minutes, if it was raining.

In December, we decided to get another dog—specifically, a puppy. We figured it would have the energy young boys love. So, we adopted Lulu, a Rat Terrier mix. She’s small and can keep up with the boys. But, since she was just a few months old when we got her, she also wasn’t trained at all. The proof of this was in the near daily piles of poop on our floor. And I’m 80 percent sure they were hers.

Despite the best efforts of my wife and me, we found maintaining a steady training schedule to be quite difficult. After all, when we adopted Mike, we were childless and free to devote hours and hours of that thing we used to call “free time” to getting him to learn the rhythm of our days.

With kids in the mix, the time to focus on a dog simply doesn’t exist. And after a couple of glasses of wine one night, I even implored Lulu to help us out. But she didn’t give a crap about my plea, save for the aforementioned daily deposit.

So, we hired a dog trainer. We both felt great shame in this, but it was worth the money to get Lulu onboard with the family-wide “No Pooping In The Living Room” policy. We quickly learned, however, that a dog trainer’s job is less about dog training and more about dog owner training.

We described out frustrations, what we wanted Lulu to learn. She asked how we’d attempted to teach her, and then she gently explained why we were idiots. In my case, it came down to this: I was trying to act as the alpha dog, when I needed to act as a rational human being with a pocket full of treats. Positive reinforcement, the trainer said, will have more effect than negative.

I stopped saying “NO!” whenever Lulu did something wrong and started giving treats and pats on the head whenever she did something right. And within a day, the potty accidents had stopped. I still got to remain alpha dog because I have opposable thumbs, which make the handling and rationing of treats possible. Let’s see the little mutt do that.

And because I’m a moderately smart human, I realized this theory (sans dog treats) could probably have the same level of effectiveness on my kids. Reward the good; ignore the bad. Now, I know I can’t ignore all of the bad, especially if that “bad” involves a Radio Flyer wagon, a flight of stairs, and a box of bottle rockets. But, I could focus more on the good things—my kids’ victories, their art, their piano lessons, their amazing hair, whatever. So, that’s what I’m doing.

As a parent, it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of saying “no” without looking for opportunities to say “yes.” I can’t always keep my cool, but I can try to remain mindful. Raising children is stressful, but it’s not only stressful. It can be fun, too. Like the dog trainer demonstrated, it’s up to me to focus on the moments for which I can positively reward my kids, even if it’s just a simple thumbs-up.

And I can do that because I have opposable thumbs.

David Vienna is author of Calm the F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need and contributing Knock Knock blog writer. He chronicles life as a father of two fraternal twin boys on The Daddy Complex . Check out more news on David here .

“Calm the F*ck Down” Book Launch at Skylight Books, Tues., March 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Los Angeles friends: join us in celebrating the release of our newest title, Calm the F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need by David Vienna, parenting blogger behind The Daddy Complex. The launch will be at Los Feliz’s Skylight Books Tuesday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m.

We’ll have a book reading, Q&A with David, a special “CTFD” giveaway and light refreshments!

If you’re on Facebook, RSVP on the event page. And check out Skylight Books’ event page as well for more info.

The man himself, David Vienna. (Pic by Amy Windsor of Bitchinwivesclub.com, and ingeniously Photoshopped by Andy Herald of Howtobeadad.com)

Reddit friends: David will be doing an Ask Me Anything (AMA), this Thursday, Feb. 26 at 10-11 a.m. PST/1-2 p.m. EST. Ask him questions on parenting, his writing process, or anything at all!

“Pregnancy Book for Men” Illustrators Nominated for Academy Award!

Congratulations to Netherlands design studio Job, Joris & Marieke, for earning an Academy Award Short Film nomination this year! Check out the trailer for “A Single Life” below, a short about a woman who has the power to move back and forth throughout the years of her life using a mysterious vinyl single.

A SINGLE LIFE – TRAILER from Job, Joris & Marieke on Vimeo.

Job, Joris & Marieke illustrated The Pregnancy Book for Men and our upcoming book Little Philosophers, Big Questions!

We’ll be tuning in this Sunday and rooting them on to win the Oscar prize!

The Winner of our Calm the F*ck Down Giveaway

A big thanks to everyone who entered our Calm the F*ck Down giveaway! The winners received an advanced copy of our new parenting book signed by the author himself, David Vienna, plus $25 to shop at Knock Knock.

So without further ado, congratulations to our 5 lucky winners!

Mandy A.
Philip N.
Hope K.
Gabby S.
Alexi F.

Before the book hits our virtual shelves, you can check out David’s parenting blog, The Daddy Complex and read more about him in our blog Q&A.

Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter and check our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram pages to see what we’ve got going on in 2015.

Meet David Vienna!

In July 2013, Los Angeles writer David Vienna introduced a parenting technique to the world so commonsensical and brilliant that the internet exhaled oohs and aahs and LMAOs. He deemed it “The CTFD Method.” And it only had a few steps: “1. Calm the fuck down. 2. There is no second step.”

Meet David Vienna, Calm the F*ck Down author. Check out his own parenting blog, The Daddy Complex.

A year and a quarter of a million shares later, after the post was picked up by the likes of Jezebel, Redbook, and HuffPost (while stirring up conversations on The Atlantic and The New York Post), David fleshed out his method into a brand new book. Calm the F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need is coming soon and it’s guaranteed to keep you calm, cool, and collected.

When he’s not writing for Huffington Post Parents, writing his next play, and managing the social realms of Dish Nation, he’s making hilarious videos with his twin boys, Wyatt and Boone (the still above is from his web series “Discussing News With My Kids”), and making us laugh with his super funny parenting blog, The Daddy Complex.

1. As someone who juggles and wears plenty of metaphorical hats, what’s a typical day like for you? What’s your daily routine? I don’t have a daily routine, just a never-ending series of surprises. Surprise! The dog ate some Lego bricks. Surprise! The boys have a cold. Surprise! I haven’t showered in three days. The only constants are my morning coffee and my evening cocktail.

“Calm the F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need” by David will be available in February.

2. What has been the proudest moment for you so far as a parent? Witnessing our son Boone, who was walking behind our son Wyatt, say, “Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?”

3. You’re stuck on a desert island (sorry, that stinks). A. What three book titles would you wish magically appeared on said island? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and Boatbuilding for Beginners (and Beyond) by Jim Michalak.

B. A TV appears on the island, but only episodes of one show can play on it forever. What TV show would you choose to watch? Cop Rock.

Family portrait: David, his wife, Larissa, Wyatt (left), and Boone (right).

4. Any hobbies outside of writing? One of my favorite hobbies is eating . . . Is that a hobby?

5. What’s your favorite Knock Knock product and why (other than Calm the F*ck Down)? As a parent, I find How To Traumatize Your Children incredibly useful.

6. We know you’re chock-full of parenting tips, but do you have any writing tips or writing words-of-wisdom to share with our readers? Don’t compare yourself, your process or your work to others. This also applies to clog dancing enthusiasts.

7. If you could cook a meal for a group of four people—either fictional or real—who would they be and what would you cook for them? Well, my first answer is “the four people would be me and my family and the dish would be fettuccine alfredo,” but since I do that all the time I’ll give another answer . . . Hmm . . . My guests would be Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Nikola Tesla, and Joan of Arc. I’d explain to them that the future holds many wonderful gifts and society has truly reached its peak, and then prove it by serving Cheetos and turducken.

David, Boone, and Wyatt clashing swords.

Follow David on Twitter at @thedaddycomplex (named a “Beast Best” by The Daily Beast) and @davidvienna. You can also keep track of The Daddy Complex on Facebook and Instagram. And if you’re heading to the Dad 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Feb. 19-Feb. 21, 2015, check out David’s panel, “The Creative Parent: Finding the Right Strategies for Your Right Brain.”

For other viral posts by David, check out How To Hang Out with Your Friends & Their Baby and his post Self Defense Against Misinformed Parenting Advice for HowtoBeaDad.com.

FREE VALENTINE’S DAY RELEASE FROM KNOCK KNOCK

Ahh, Valentine’s Day! It’s a day filled with chocolates, super-sized stuffed animals, and funny gifts explaining all your mushy feelings for one another. It’s pressuring work—from the high expectations to make it the best day ever to succumbing to those three little words—and we’ve all been there.

Well now you can sit back, and spare your credit card that unnecessary order of five-dozen roses because we officially release you from the Cupid-driven activities of Valentine’s Day. Whew! Download and print our Valentine’s Day Release and rid yourself of all forced romanticism—just sign, “Share,” and breathe a sigh of relief. Oh, and be sure to keep the chocolate.