Jack Cheng's Blog, page 7

#392: A House for Oneself, Part 1

My write-up for our third Building Beauty studio project kept ballooning so I’m splitting it into two parts. Here’s the first. I’ll let you know when I’ve updated the page with the second.

In other news, this Saturday I co-ran, with my friend and podmate Patrick, the novel-writing workshop track at the SCBWI Michigan Spring Conference – the first in-person one we’ve had since the start of pandemic. I even got to try out a visioning exercise, adapted for writing books, similar to the exercise we d...

#391: A Columbus Jaunt

Dick Davis, preeminent translator of Persian literature and professor emeritus at Ohio State University, says that events that happen within a culture are like vodka snuck into a bowl of punch: no matter now much you dilute the punch, the vodka is still there.

Davis goes on to talk about how for Iran, its conquest, first by the Arabs in the 7th century then twice by the Turks and twice by the Mongols – all of which happened within a few hundred years – fostered a cultural sense that “the wrong pe...

#390: Structure-Preserving

The new novel is headed to print production, with last-minute surprises secret even to those who have advance reader copies. Now I’m working on a website write-up for my third studio project, which I presented in class two weeks ago. A new Color class this semester also has me copying paintings for the first time since high school. It’s been an electric start to the year.

To new readers: I’m currently writing about my experience as a student in Building Beauty , a two-semester architecture program...

#389: Working with Your Hands

Dashing this letter off ahead of book and class deadlines next week, mainly to share with you this sentence I read in a woodworking book:

When working with machines, you take the wood to the machine. Conversely with hand tools, you bring the tool to the wood.

Or to generalize it: You bring tools to the material; you bring material to the machine.

I’ve been thinking about this as I’ve been building physical scale models for the house design project in my studio class. I’m already spending 2–3 hours ...

We did it!

SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS made it to the final round of the Goodreads Choice Awards. Thanks so much for voting it this far. We're down to ten this time ... you know what to do:

https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS is a nominee in this year's Goodreads Choice Awards!

(In the "Middle Grade & Children's" Category.) If you enjoyed the book, I'd greatly appreciate it if you took a moment to vote here:

https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

Thanks!

15. The Publisher

There’s the publisher—the publishing house, a company that puts out books—and then there’s the publisher—a specific person and role within that company. In this our final episode of See You on the Bookshelf, we speak to Lauri Hornik, President and Publisher of Dial Books for Young Readers, and we reflect on the overall journey of See You in the Cosmos from manuscript to printed book.

Music by Saint Benjamin. See You in the Cosmos is available now in bookstores and libraries. Find your copy here.

14. The Book Tour

This week we talk once again with our Penguin Young Readers publicists Lindsay Boggs and Kaitlin Kneafsey, and with our sales rep John Dennany, about putting together the book tour—one that, for a debut Middle Grade author like me, involves fewer bookstore events and more school visits and dinners with booksellers.

Music by Saint Benjamin. This episode also featured sounds from Freesound.org, including Shutting a car door by cameronmusic, Car interior / driving on rainy night by Maurice_J_K, and Walking Chicago Midway B Concourse by Corsica_S.

See You in the Cosmos is available now in bookstores and libraries. Find your copy here.

13. The Marketing

We’ve talked a bit about marketing in past episodes; this week we go more in depth with Julia Teece from Penguin Random House (UK) and Alexis Watts from Penguin Young Readers (US). We talk about how Marketing works with Publicity on a campaign, about selling into Schools and Libraries through both in-person events and the online Penguin Sneak Peek (such as this video for Spring 2017 featuring See You in the Cosmos), and about awards and the longer sales cycle for children’s books.

Music by Saint Benjamin. See You in the Cosmos is available now in bookstores and libraries. Find your copy here.

12. The Sales

See You in the Cosmos is on the shelves of most bookstores in the English-speaking world. But it doesn’t get there automatically. Booksellers have to decide to stock it. And convincing them to stock it (and tell their customers about it) is in large part the responsibility of the publisher sales rep. This week we talk to John Dennany of Penguin Random House Books for Young Readers about the on-the-ground work of traveling to bookstores, giving sales presentations, and about how he knows when a book might be poised to take off.

Music by Saint Benjamin. This week also featured "Acoustic Meditation" by Jason Shaw from Free Music Archive. See You in the Cosmos is available now in bookstores and libraries. Find your copy here.