Happy Holidays! We're Off to the Printer!

Hello, Everyone!

How did three months fly by just like that???

First of all, Happy Holidays from all of us here at Mama, Mama!  It's the season for scarves and (extra) good cheer. Stay warm and enjoy your time with friends and family.

After so much back and forth with Andrew, mainly over the page count and the title page, the file was finally sent off to the printer.  Which means things are set. I'm very relieved... but also freaked out!!!  What if there's a typo, or two, that we somehow missed?  What if, what if... Ugh!

Not much to report, really, except to say that the last few months we spent wrangling over the details have been trying.  We were so wrong to think, back in September, that we were "almost" done.  Ha! Little did I know that it would take a couple more months to clean up the files and get them ready for the printer. Just understanding the page count concept alone took me forever. Also, it seemed there was always one more typo to be found after every "final" draft that we did. We had many "final" files. 

And on this note, we want to say thanks to Tom McCarthy, Mike's law journal advisor at Hastings and my colleague from my Jossey Bass days, for doing one "final" proof editing round to "keep us out of trouble". 

While we wait for word from the printer, we're going to start looking into the Kickstarter prizes.  We know it's a bit late- thanks for the patience!

Thanks for checking in! 

Finalizing Illustrations

Hello, World!

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright!  We have finally finished all the illustrations and now we move on to editing the pages for all those pesky typos and questionable font choices.

Yes, it's exciting.  And also frightening.  The doubts are starting to come in.  Is this book good enough?  Would people like it?  Etc. Etc.  I have to stop this train of thought and instead focus on getting the work done and the book out into the world!  

Here's a few sample pages I printed out.  I tried to print the color version at Kinko's but they were going to charge me almost $30.00 for 1 copy so I said no.  Below you can see one page in color so you can get an idea of the color scheme.

So.  Not yet done.  But getting there.  One day at a time.

Oh- this Friday I meet with the printer rep.  

Thanks for the support, as always!

Summer Update

Hello Everybody,

Hope your summer is going well.  Ours has been busier than expected.  But we're still chugging along- more and more pages are being finalized.  Here's Charlie's favorite.  He loves it because he and his friends get to fight the bad guys.  Enjoy!  

We Kickstarted It!

Hi Everybody,

March was a long month but it finally ended and when it did we had succeeded in raising $5,334!  Thank you to everyone who pledged, helped spread the word, sent us good vibes, urged us on.  We truly could not have done it without all of you.

Sending you all a warm and fuzzy digital hug!

Maverick Tolentino Diane K Putnam Emerynrose Gepilano Marie Villanueva Allan Brocka Ricarte Abejuela III Katrina La Madrid Alfredo Ho (Car N Bike Moto) Angie Velasquez Donna Feliciano Taylor Anna Vela Kamran Adili Bethel Garcia Penn Dodson Brianne Leymaster Auey Santos Bronwyn Baz Carla Michelle Cara Baker Cynthia Sluis Carlo Ligotti Deepti Sethi Chris Bustos Emi Endo Chris Mamitag Evany Thomas Crissie Mcbride Moe Flannery edelle Lorenzana Rosalynne Valiente Innosanto Nagara Tony Robles Jade Shulist Ellaine Yap Jane Uy Emerson Agito Janine Macbeth Christhea Villanueva Jason Tuason Hannah Morales Josh Livni Josephine Ilog Karna Campopiano Jenkie Sulit Kris Garcia Kerith Lisi Lauren Campopiano Raziel Valiente Lynn Honrado Rohit Jainendra Marc Campopiano Sheila Lagura Maricris Hansen Von Ryan Hernandez michelle amato Rachel Quinnley Sophie Munger Ana Marie Adriano Susan Miller Bernadette Mar Thea Sizemore Julienne Villanueva Victor Mendoza Ian starr Yaro Ralph Dolly Trinidad Amanda Libke Madeline Lynes amber Husten Scott Elsasser Anne Estiva Buggie B Transportation Annie Frey  Janet del Mundo Arvin Fuentes Judy Thai Bryce Vinokurov Linda Campopiano David Scheidt Monica Hernandez Elsa Valmidiano Nick Buxton Emily Danuco Odessa Garrett Gina Rivera Cater Paul Kim Timothy De Fiesta Mike Lynes And now on to the final phase of illustrations!

Live Kickstarter Campaign: Please Pledge!

Hello everyone! 

We finally launched our Kickstarter campaign yesterday.  Yey!!!

To those of you who may not be familiar with Kickstarter, we need to raise at least $5,000 otherwise we get nothing.  It's exciting and daunting all at once.  So please pledge if you can. 

The link is below.
 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1247154770/mama-mama-know-what-i-like

Click on it and it will take you to the front page. 

It will look like this:

There's a video.  Right next to the video is a tracker for the pledge.  Press on the "Back This Project" green button.  It will take you to a page where you'd need to input your pledge amount and it will also ask for your name and email address and password. 

Please don't let this process stop you from proceeding.  Kickstarter only needs to create an account because that is how I track my backers and how I get in touch with them for rewards or updates in the future.  After this page, it will take you the credit card page and once you submit your pledge, you're done!  I promise you it's not hard.  But if you run into any trouble, please let me know.

There's a bunch of awesome rewards waiting for you- so come and pledge and let's make this book happen!!!! 

Please also help by spreading the word about this project and link to the Kickstarter campaign.

Thank you very much!

Again, here's the link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1247154770/mama-mama-know-what-i-like

Dollar for Dollar Match Pledge

Hi Everybody,

An awesome thing just happened!  A donor has pledged to match, dollar for dollar, any amount we manage to raise outside of Kickstarter.  This is a very generous pledge and I really really hope that we can take advantage of it to the fullest extent.  I hope this motivates you to donate now before our Kickstarter campaign which we are scheduling to launch mid February.  So you have until then to be part of this dollar for dollar match.
 

Again, here are the ways to contribute:

By check:  Please mail check, payable to Justine Villanueva, 225 Lindo Place, Davis, CA  95616.

PayPal:  Please go to the "Support Us" page above and click on the PayPal button.

Thank you to those who have already contributed!  Thank you for the support!!!

Happy New Year Update

Happy New Year 2015!  We hope you had an enjoyable time with family and friends over the holidays.

We're seeing the so called light at the end of the tunnel as Andrew nears completion of the illustrations!

Last month, friends Annie Frey and Jade Shulist who own a kid-friendly cafe in Berkeley called The Rec Room, invited me to read during their site launch.  It was a chance to connect with people beyond my circle of friends and family.  The response was positive:  the kids stayed for the entire reading and several adults came up to show support by signing up for the e-mail status updates.  Definitely going back there for another reading once the book comes out!

 

Another childhood friend, Raziel Valiente, also started introducing the book to her organization, Bukidnon Association of Southern California, during their Christmas party.  This means a lot to me because the organization's members are from Bukidnon and speak Bisaya.  I'm hoping they will support the book as it represents them and their culture in a way that most US mainstream children's books don't.

Should you want to join us in spreading the word out by reaching out to your network of friends and family, we would be immensely grateful.  We can provide you with flyers or any other marketing materials you might need.  Please contact me if you are interested.  Libropst@gmail.com.

Thanks to Emi Endo for putting together the flyers!  And for adding a banner on this blog site.  Did you notice it?  Check it out- now the site looks legit! 

We're moving along, still targeting a February kicstarter campaign.  Lots of work to do before then.

Thanks for checking in.  We wish you loads of laughter and happiness for this new year!