Saving Jemima: Pre-Order a Signed Copy

Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-luck Jay is coming out September 10, 2019. I have an advance copy in hand. Every time I pick it up I feel grateful all over again to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for making such a beautiful book out of my stack of writings, paintings and photographs. I just shake my head. How lucky can you get, to work with the best natural history publisher on the planet to tell the story of an orphaned blue jay? She was some jay, but still. Lucky, and blessed.

Looks small here, but it's a healthy 6" x 9" x 1" Note jay-colored clothing on line.

For months, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about getting signed copies to my friends and you, my beloved blog community. I have had a sense all along that Jemima is going to hit bigger than any of my previous books; my agent tells me it is the most commercially appealing thing I’ve done. You don’t have to have a special interest in birds to appreciate it. You just have to like a good story that happens to feature a bird. 

My first book to feature both paintings and photographs! Woot! It's so EASY to illustrate a book with photos! But I don't do anything the easy way, so I did 20 paintings, too.

I had the great privilege of reading it for HMHCo's audio book (can you hear the squeal?!) and that is gonna kick butt. I loved recording it, even though parts of it were hard to get through. Like doing about 8 hours of radio. All things considered, I knew that I was looking at signing and boxing a LOT of books this time around.

Each chapter head watercolor gets a full-page treatment. Design by Martha Kennedy, Chief of Design, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. Yes I am grinning ear to ear!

I thought about what it’s been like to fulfill book orders from my home. I've done it for my last three books. How keeping track of orders, inscribing, signing, boxing, addressing and mailing books is pretty much all I do for months after a book hits. How lifting the boxes and loading them into and out of my car messes up my back. I used to drive each load 20 minutes to the nearest post office. Now, I'd have a 40 minute drive. Given what's happened in the last seven months, I realized I wasn’t up for any of that. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that my energy—that wonderful energy that I use to produce illustrated books and (ahem) increasingly rare blogposts-- is indeed finite, and it can be quickly drained away. I've had to critically assess how I spend that energy, because there's a lot less of it now. Swimming in a whirlpool will do that to you. My rationale that fulfilling orders for signed books is “part of my work” looks thin to me now. It’s not. It’s something I’ve been doing, doggedly, faithfully, but it’s a long way from being my true work. The truth is, it doesn't have to be done by me. The writing and illustrating and thinking does. And that's how I should be spending my time.

Meanwhile, my family is not the only one that's had a rough time since December, 2018. Bird Watcher’s Digest has been turned upside down, losing its Editor/Publisher and chief visionary when Bill passed away in March. Then Elsa, Bill’s mother and BWD’s founder, who was still working at 85, died tragically just two months later. It was a staggering double blow. Everyone is still picking themselves up. Yet out of the unimaginable chaos and loss, an answer to my small problem became clear to me.

I decided to direct my sales to Redstart Birding, the magazine’s sales, optics and expertise branch, which Bill and Ben Lizdas created not long before Bill fell ill. I’ll design a custom bookplate I can sign, and that will be included if you order a signed copy. Short of attending one of my talks, Redstart will be the only place you can get a signed copy of Saving Jemima. And proceeds of sales from those who want signed copies will go not to an online sales giant, but to the magazine that published my first article and painting in 1986, and helped me build a wonderful audience for my writing and art. It seems like a win all around. I'm grateful that my sweet friend, Redstart's stalwart Swiss Army knife Angela, is willing to take on all those orders, that packing and shipping. It won't be trivial.

 I think you'll love the story of this feisty young blue jay, and how she worked her way into our hearts. How I wound up saving her at least twice, and she saved me right back. Old story, I know, but rescue stories are rarely one-way (ask Curtis Loew!), and each one is unique. And this rescue was a blue jay, the best and brightest bird I could hope for.

 

So if you'd like to help support Bird Watcher's Digest and have a beautiful signed bookplate in your copy, you can pre-order Saving Jemima at Redstart Birding. Hit this link:  ORDER JEMIMA

 The book will be released September 10, 2019. It's roaring up! I can't wait for you to have it in your hands, too!

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"Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest" Has Landed!

I was playing bakketball with Phoebe and Liam and her friends from her college. It was sunny yesterday and I was barking because that's how you play bakketball. You stand over the ball and bark bark bark bark until the person is afraid to touch the ball. You bark like a slobbering wolf. Then you quickly try to pop the bakketball before they take it away from you.

You rasp your teef against it very hard and quickly while they scream and dither.

Then the big brown truck rolled up the driveway and everything fell to pieces. Mether got her overexcited smell and started running around in circles. 

When the brown man opened up the back of the truck it was full of boxes. All the ones with orange stickers were for her.

I was amazed. So many boxes. And not a bikkit anywhere. 

They are not thinking about me at all. 

Book book book book careful don't drop it ooh look how many bla bla bla bla bla

I did not hear "bikkit" even once.

I inspected the cabin. No bikkits. What is wrong with this brown man?

I sent Mether a subliminal message about bikkits. Here is what it said: 

"Get me a bikkit. Because the brown man forgot."

Mether said the orange sticker on the box says she can take orders now, but she cannot send the books out until about April 5 . Media Mail takes about a week, and the books aren't supposed to arrive until April 12. She says that is the "release date" for the book, everywhere.

Notice he does not have a treat in his hand.

This is the first shipment of Mether's new book. The tire went flat.

They couldn't pull the cart at all.

Mether got her favorite VolunTeens to help unload the books and carry them into the studio. That is Zach and Elizabeth and Phoebe. Liam was at school. She fed them some nice food for pay.

The VolunTeens carried the books through a little hallway.

I stood in the middle of the hall blocking the way and finally lay down so they would have to step over me.

It was the least I could do.

When they finally got all 180 books carried in I was exhausted.

Holding up progress is a lot of work.

You can order your copy of Baby Birds by clicking the new button in the right sidebar of the blog. 

The order form gets all your contact information in one place. It also gives you a box where you can ask Mether to sign the book special for someone. PayPal is the quickest and easiest payment option. Don't be put off by the word "donation." Your "donation" is 

 the price of your book(s) plus shipping. 

If you'd prefer to make out a check to Julie Zickefoose, the order form will give you her mailing address. When she gets your check she will sign and send your book. If you forget to send the check she won't send anything.

If you want more books than the order form allows, just write Mether a note in the comment box on the order form and she will answer you by email with a quote. Then she will scramble around for a bigger box.

Indigo buntings

One thing you should know about this book is it is an AMAZING deal. $28 for a full color, 3 1/2 pound book with gatefold plates and more than 400 paintings? I do not know how Houghton Mifflin Harcourt keeps the price that low. I truly don't. Mether is over the moon about this beautiful book.


Also, it is probably the ultimate Mother's Day gift. Because it's all about babies and how they grow and thrive. And what mother doesn't love to see that?

All carping about bikkits aside, thank you very much for your support. 

You're going to love this great big beautiful book of baby birds!

Love, Chet Baker

PS: Let Mether know in the Comments box if you'd like my pawdypadprint in your book. 

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!