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!

Year End Updates

Hello Everyone!

Happy December!  Hope Thanksgiving was a memorable one.

I just looked at the oldest post and...I can't believe it's been a year since we officially started this blog and project!!! 

Alright, moving on.

For those of you who are eager to support us NOW with your donations (instead of waiting for the Kickstarter campaign, see below), we are grateful, and ready to accept any amount!  Please click on the "Support Us" tab above and it will take you to the page that has the info on how to donate as well as the PayPal option. 

Alright, the Kickstarter campaign.  We worked hard but, unfortunately, didn't quite make the deadline that we've set for ourselves, i.e. mid November.  We had the option of pushing for a late November/early December launch but we thought better of it.  December is a very busy time of the year for most people and we didn't want to add to the busy-ness and get lost in the shuffle.  So we've decided to keep on working on the illustrations and marketing campaign but we will wait until February 2015 to launch our Kickstarter.  We hope by then most everyone would have recovered from the holidays and easier to reach out to.


But in the meantime, here are a couple of updates:

Our friend, Emi Endo, has offered to make fliers and other marketing materials!  She is a graphic designer and a writer.  Can't say it enough- I'm very grateful for this.  As soon as we get a sample flyer, we will post it up.

Also, this December 14, our friends Jade Shulist and Annie Frey, have invited me to present the book at their soon-to-be-open kid friendly cafe in Berkeley called The Rec Room.  I don't yet know what I'll do but I'm so excited!

Thanks, Emi, Jade, and Annie!  And thank you for checking in and for your support! 

Video and Translations

Hey All,

We're working on our Kickstarter video which we hope to launch by mid November!    Our resident videographer, Von Hernandez, is hard at work and we can't thank him enough.

Last week, we went to the Blake Garden up in the El Cerrito Hills to shoot the video.  It rained in the morning but by 3:30 the sky cleared up and we managed to get the San Francisco scene (Alcatraz Island, Bay Bridge, skyline, the bay, etc.) in the background.  Blake Garden is where the kids and I used to go for our picnics and is the inspiration for the picnic scenes in the book.  It is always peaceful and calm up there!  (We moved to Davis in July of this year and Blake Garden is one of the things I miss about El Cerrito.)

I've finalized the script for the audio and gotten permission to use music composed by a good friend of mine, Frances Ancheta.   Yey!

I feel so self-conscious, though.  I've been in several dance and theatrical performances before but being in front of the camera freaks me out!  Looking at myself in the video with an objective eye will be a challenge...

 (This is me before facing the camera.)

Additionally, we are adding both Bisaya and Tagalog translations.  Another good friend of mine, Chris Bustos, asked me why there were not going to be translations on the actual pages.  Originally, we planned to provide translation only on one of the back pages.  After Chris' question, I rethought the plan and decided that the book would benefit from Bisaya translations right on the pages in addition to Tagalog translations on the back pages.  This changes our lay-out a bit but it's something we could work with.  I've got Tagalog speaking friends, Ricarte Abejuela and Andreas Santos, helping me out with the translations.  I didn't think I'd need help with Bisaya since I speak it but I'm reaching out to my Bisaya friends for some insight.  Can't hurt! 

Thank you, Von and Frances and Chris and Ricarte and Andreas!  And thank you everybody for keeping in touch and supporting this project!  Happy Halloween! 

Inking and Coloring

Hi All,

Where did the months go?  And how quickly!  The kids and I left for the Philippines back in May and that somehow stalled the project.  We also moved to Davis (California) in July and life has been pretty busy since then.

But onward we go.

I had to struggle a bit more with the manuscript.  I was seized with the sudden desire to keep the manuscript (really) short and tight.  I went slashing here and there and must have reduced the word count by half.  Andrew was dismayed when he got the FINAL manuscript.  He said I took out all the fun from the book.  He asked me to think about the drastic changes before he proceeded with his illustrations.  He was nice about it, though.  I valued his opinion so I once again did some soul searching:  who is this book for?  why am I writing it?  etc. etc.  It took me a while but eventually I did finalize the manuscript.  There's no going back now.

Since then, Andrew has been working on the colors.  I got to see all the mini pages loosely colored.  It felt so weird (yes, that's the best I can describe the experience!) to see the book coming together even more.  I know I said this before when I saw the line drawings arranged together in a book form.  I guess each phase just brings us closer to the final book and I am feeling very excited to be seeing the end of each phase.

And so we are off to inking and then coloring.  Below is a preview or sample page.  This is probably about 90% done.

I've also been doing my research on printing options and costs.  When I first started looking into various printers, I was overwhelmed by the options.  Fortunately, Janet Del Mundo, the same person who generously shared with me with her expertise on everything related to children's book publishing, gave me some leads on printers.  I'm pretty confident that the printer I'm going to be using will churn out quality books as they print for big publishers like the (ex) Children's Book Press.

Also, yes, we are getting ready to raise funds.  I spoke too soon in my last post back in April.  We are now targeting a publication date sometime in early 2015.  This time frame gives us about 3 months, until December this year, to finish the illustration and fundraise.  We hope to print and publish sometime in the first three months of 2015.  So please please consider contributing!  More on fundraising soon.

Thanks for the continued support.  Please check again for updates.