Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest: Chet Baker Speaks

Mether thinks I am getting a little hard of hearing, because I sometimes do not hear the UPS truck come down the driveway. It is not that. It is that my dreams are getting better.

 So why would I stop a perfectly good dream about actually catching a squirtle, instead of waking up in real life, where I never catch a squirtle, to bark at the big brown truck?

This time, though, I heard her open the front door which is my cue to bark! And rush out in front of her! And greet Mr. Crum and then check his truck for bikkits!

She had been particularly alert this day, because there was a package coming she was very much looking forward to getting.  Perhaps full of home-made bikkits.

Instead, there was just a book. She seems very excited about this book, even though no one can eat it.

All I have heard for as long as I can remember is book bla bla bla bla book bla bla bla book bla bla bla bla. bookbookbookbookbeautifulbla bla bla heavybla bla bla gorgeousbla bla bla lovebla bla blaexquisite reproduction bla bla bla bla sohappy

One good thing about this book is it makes her happy to have it in her hands at last. I like her happy best.
Also, she is preparing to sign and send a LOT of these books out of her studio, and that means she will be there a lot. I get to lie in the middle of the floor where she would trip over me if she did not stop to kiss me.

Also, that means that every day for awhile, we go see Miss Cynni down at the Lower Salem Post Office. I love going to see Miss Cynni. Because she loves me and makes a fuss over me,

because I get to go behind the scenes and inspect the premises, and also because bikkits.

oncet there was a real cowboy there! With spurs!

And the good thing about that is that every package Mether sends through the Lower Salem Post Office, she says, helps convince the U.S. Postal Service to keep that tiny post office open. I loved going to Whipple Post Office, but they closed it down. Which upset Mether a lot. But then we found Lower Salem.

So we go out of our way to take boxes there so Miss Cynni still has a job. And bikkits.

Anyway. I understand that Amazon has Mether's book available now for pre-order.  Even though they will not send any copies out until April 12. And it is so easy to order it now, forget it and have the book just appear in your mailbox POOF when it is available. 

However. 

Mether will have her book available for pre-order on her website in mid-March.  

Which is not all that long from now.

When you order your book from Mether, she will write something nice in it and sign it to whomever you wish. She is the one who handles all the orders, boxes them up, addresses them and drives them down to Miss Cynni's Post Office. With me.

And each time she does that, she makes about $14.00. When she sells a lot of books, she can buy more bikkits, and maybe fix up a bathroom from 1978 that is now crumbling to pieces.  And I get to go to Lower Salem Post Office, where there are bikkits.

So that is a good deal. You get your book signed and personalized, and I get bikkits, and Mether gets $14.00 and maybe a bathroom.

But when you order it elsewhere, Mether does not make anything. *** And the first thing I am afraid she will stop buying when she is poor is bikkits. Then kibble. I could go hungry. We do not want that to happen.

This is Chet Baker, Boston Terrier, asking you to think before you order, and buy local.

Stay tuned for updates. Pre-order forms will appear here on this blog and at juliezickefoose.com in mid-March. She'll let you know on her pages on Facebook and Instagram, too. Mether will time it so your signed book arrives on or a little before April 12.

Thank you very much. 

Sincerely,

Chet Baker

Now for a message from Mether.

***How can it be that an author doesn't make a cent when you buy her book elsewhere? It's not that Amazon is somehow evil or denying me my rightful amount. When you buy my books anywhere but from me, I make nothing. This is how it works. Print book sales have plummeted so drastically in the last five years that even very popular books fail to "pay out," or earn back their advance. Paying out means enough books sell to pay the publisher back what they paid me to write it.

Letters from Eden, my first book of illustrated essays published in 2006, paid out very nicely, and I just got a small royalty check last week! The Bluebird Effect, my second book, published in 2012, was wildly popular, an Oprah pick, even! but has yet to "pay out," or earn back the advance Houghton Mifflin Harcourt paid me to write it.  The difference? Letters from Eden was published in 2006, when people were still buying a lot of books. The Bluebird Effect was published in 2012, when the Internet had almost completely grabbed everyone's attention, apparently for good. Until the publisher, through sales, makes back the amount I was advanced, neither The Bluebird Effect or Baby Birds will pay a royalty to me. So when a retail outlet, be it great big Amazon or your favorite bookstore sells my book, I don't make a cent unless and until the advance is paid out. Because people get most of what they want here on the Intertubes, lots of fabulous books will never sell enough copies to pay royalties to their authors.

 I'm not dumb. I see the writing on the wall. While the advance is a nice sum, and helps keep the lights on and the fridge stocked, it's spread out over as long as it takes me to write and illustrate the book. Which, in the case of my books, can be anywhere from 5 (The Bluebird Effect) to 13 

(Baby Birds) years.

 I've got to find other income streams; I can't make it on advances alone. The only realistic way I can make any money on this book is to sell it myself. That's why I speak and travel so much. I have to. Good thing I love public speaking and travel!