r media - art, design and publishing talk

Our Graphic Novel is Published!

2009-05-20T14:18:00.001+08:00

No 30 - The (Not So) Glamourous Life of a Publisher

2009-04-25T21:51:00.005+08:00

For some reason, many people think publishing is a glamorous industry. Perhaps because after hearing success story of Bloomsbury, the then small publishing house and now turned key player (in the publishing industry) after making an acquisition in 1997 of an author whose books have outsold everything but the Bible.

Even getting published isn’t glamorous either. If you are a self-publisher, besides printing costs, you need to think about other important aspects like promotion and marketing and even the mundane like mailing the promotional leaflets yourself. We need to do just that.

The envelopes ready to be posted to potential buyers.

The labels all ready to be pasted onto the envelopes.

The production sequence: One cover letter, one leaflet, two bookmarks and one self-addressed envelope.

Book publishing is challenging because there are hundreds of thousands of books published a year from various sources, big houses, independents, foreign publishers. What chance does a small, unknown self publisher like us have? We have done our homework by getting the right reviews, planned its marketing strategy way ahead. Will all these effort result in dividends? Time will tell. In the meantime, it's back to do the mailing chore.

No 29 - Personal DNA - Assess your personality

2008-11-02T08:04:00.002+08:00

A new kind of personality test which is free, fun, fast and accurate. Test has been designed by a team of professional psychologists. It employs innovative answering techniques, allowing for increased accuracy and an enjoyable process.

Try the test now and see how you score!

(You do not need to sign up or sign in to take the test.)

No 28 - Percintaan Tan Hong Ming

2008-07-15T16:58:00.005+08:00

tan hong ming

Her name is Umi ...

UMI QAZRINA

I like her ...

yasmin ahmad

Why do you like her?

tan hong ming

She's wear earing ...

She ties to her pony tail ...

erm ...

She's pretty ...

yasmin ahmad

What do you wish you could say to her?

tan hong ming

Do you want to come on a date?

urmm ... to a romantic dinner

yasmin ahmad

Does she know you like her?

tan hong ming

No, ... I keep it a secret

yasmin ahmad

Why?

tan hong ming

I don’t want the whole world to know!

yasmin ahmad

Why not?

tan hong ming

Coz everybody would laugh at me

yasmin ahmad

Why would they laugh at you?

tan hong ming

Huh?

yasmin ahmad

Why would they laugh at you?

tan hong ming

She doesn’t like me ...

yasmin ahmad

She doesn’t like you?

tan hong ming

(shakes head ...)

umi qazrina

My name is Umi Qazrina

yasmin ahmad

Who is your best friend?

umi qazrina

Tan Hong Ming

yasmin ahmad

Tan Hong Ming?

Do you like him?

Do you have a boyfriend?

umi qazrina

Tan Hong Ming ...

“Kanak Kanak Memahaminya”

"Tan Hong Ming" won a Gold Andy for Film Direction and another Gold for Public Service Advertising. This commercial was made for Petronas and was directed by Yasmin Ahmad.

No 27 - Graphic Novel Workshop

2008-06-01T08:24:00.014+08:00

Introduction

r media conducted its first graphic novel workshop - basic level on 31 May 2008. Participants age ranged widely and they included children, teenagers, working adults and parents. It was a whole day event.

Details

Workshop Title:
Organiser: Darul Andalus and r media
Date: 31 May 2008
Time: 0900-1730
Venue: Wisma Indah

About the workshop

The workshop was a multi-media event, using live drawing and sketching, PowerPoint presentations and slides. Included were discussions and demonstrations of basic creative techniques and basic drawing skills, as well as writing and comic conceptualisation.

Overview

r media felt glad to see the participants engaging actively in all the activities and exercises. The enthusiasm were apparent especially the younger participants. Some of them did not even want to go for the scheduled breaks as they were intent on completing their exercises.

We discovered some raw talents - with the right guidance they can become great graphic novel creators to fill the void in Malay graphic novels.

Photos

Here are some photos from the workshop.

An opening introduction by Mr Abdullah Othman, Director, Darul Andalus.

Participants Profile

Working adults

Children

Demos and Discussions

Explaining

Guiding

Live drawing

Digital colouring demo.

Groupings

Mango Group
Character name: Chomel

Apple Group
Character Name: Tuffaha

Orange Group
Character Name: Yellow

Pear Group
Character Name: Mr Smarty Pear

Participants

No 26 - Teachers in the US are using Graphic Novels to Captivate Reluctant Readers

2008-03-30T07:31:00.006+08:00

Not long ago, about the only way a kid could get away with reading a comic book in school was to hide it inside the covers of a textbook. Now Roberta Kaiser, the media specialist at Nautilus Middle School on Miami Beach, not only stocks her shelves with them, but demand outstrips supply by a wide margin.

Picture - top: Nautilus Middle School's Roberta Kaiser says graphic novels are so popular that she has to limit circulation to one book per student.

"I have to limit them to one at a time, but there are students who come in two to three times a day to return one and get another,'' Kaiser said.

Before anybody explodes about kids reading comic books when they're supposed to be doing quadratic equations or studying Shakespeare, know that comic books have changed, and so has reading.

Under the spiffier label of "graphic novels,'' these bound books feature every stripe of hero and story. "The themes and genres can range from science to biography, and from memoirs to yes, superheroes,'' said John Shableski of Diamond Book Distributors, which specializes in comics. "Every subject is available in the format.''

These are not your father's comic books. Superman and Wonder Woman, yes; but also graphic novel editions of the works of Shakespeare, and many classics -- The Red Badge of Courage, Beowulf, Greek Myths, The Adventures of Robin Hood, even Canterbury Tales.
Last year, the Printz Award, an American Library Association honor for the most distinguished book for teens, went to American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney was an original online comic about a beleaguered middle-schooler before the hard-cover edition propelled it and its sequel to The New York Times bestseller list. Bone, about a marshmallowy type creature's adventures, was self-published by Jeff Smith before Scholastic bought it, colorized it and split it into nine volumes. A million copies of the first installment, Out From Boneville, have been sold. Scholastic brought the series to the classroom by producing a teacher-friendly guide.

Comics are infiltrating the schoolhouse like never before because they are reaching that most elusive of creatures -- the reluctant reader. Faced with a generation raised in a visual environment dominated by television, the Internet and electronic games, teachers and librarians have found comics will lure readers -- especially boys -- who have a limited interest in books.
It was the how-to-get-a-boy-to-read conundrum that propelled Francoise Mouly, co-editor of Raw magazine and the New Yorker art editor, into producing comic books for young readers herself. Mouly has two children with husband Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, a Holocaust memoir that is considered one of the granddaddies of the graphic novel format, and which won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize. Her daughter, Nadje, learned to read after a few weeks of concentrated effort. Despite being raised in the same environment -- "surrounded by books, with parents who read to them,'' her son, Dash, now 16, struggled.

"I was running out of books I could use with him,'' Mouly said, so she turned to Spiegelman's vast collection of comics -- Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Batman. That worked. "My husband sacrificed his comics to fatherhood, but it was a good cause, and it allowed Dash to find a path to success,'' Mouly said. "It made us both realize how much of a magic bullet comics could be. Children will learn if there's something in it for them and if it's pleasurable.'' The personal experiment made Mouly realize how divorced comics had become from childhood. "Dash had friends who came to the house and had never seen comics before.''

In response, she and Spiegelman produced three comics anthologies -- the Little Lit series -- aimed specifically at readers age 8 to 12. Next month, she's launching Toon Books, which takes the comic book offensive to its youngest audience ever: beginning readers. The new line debuts in April with three titles -- Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes, Silly Lilly by Agnes Rosenstiehl, and Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch. The books have already been adopted by Renaissance Learning's "Accelerated Reader'' program, used in 60 percent of American classrooms.

Comics in book format are not new. In the 1940s, illustrated classics and Bible stories in bound form were produced specifically as educational material. But the entire comics genre took a massive hit when excessive violent imagery led the U.S. Senate to hold hearings in 1954 to investigate the link between comic books and juvenile delinquency. The hearings didn't find one, but they did lead to the creation of a sort of decency code, supported by much of the industry, that effectively set innovation back several decades.

As far as pendulum swings go, comic books are back and then some. Shableski, the book distributor, says sales climbed from $43 million in 2001 to $330 million in 2006.
Much of that is fueled by the embrace of schools and libraries, which in response to a perceived reading crisis among kids, have shifted their focus on getting children to read the "right'' material, to getting children to read, period. It's not just that children are more likely to read something they enjoy, it's that a comic book's combination of pictures and text holds a child's attention longer than blocks of print. Speech balloons develop an understanding of the role of dialogue in a story. Many comics readers wind up wanting to create their own, ("that never happens with a video game,'' Mouly points out), promoting not only literacy, but creativity and self-expression.

Kaiser, the middle school librarian, says her kids overwhelmingly choose the superhero and manga (Japanese) comics over the ones that cover curriculum topics. She hopes the biography and history selections will be added to teachers' lesson plans, but for the moment she's satisfied that she has figured out a way to get certain kids to make regular stops at the circulation desk.

"Some of my comics readers are reading other stuff, but some of them would not be reading at all if they were not reading comics.''

No 25 - Colour Picker

2008-03-25T21:47:00.002+08:00

Two wonderful sites to pick/match colour. The first is a website. All you have to do is to key in the rgb values directly.

http://www.colorblender.com/

My pick will definitely be this software simply named Pixie by Nattyware. You need to download the programme.

"Pixie is an easy-to-use, fast and tiny utility designed especially to fit the needs of Webmasters and Designers. Its a colour picker that includes a mouse tracker. Run it, simply point to a colour and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that colour. You can then use these values to reproduce the selected colour in your favorite programs. Pixie will also show the current x y position of your mouse pointer. Its the only tool you'll need for working with colours."

Quoted from www.nattyware.com

No 24 - Mosque by David Macaulay

2008-03-22T07:23:00.004+08:00

A very informative book about the building of a mosque in the Middle Ages that can be appreciated by anyone from teenagers on up. Mosque explores the construction of a fictional, but typical, mosque in 16th century Istanbul.

The author and illustrator David Macaulay focuses on the architectural and social aspects surrounding these holy structures, so that even those with no knowledge of Islam can appreciate the significance that these buildings have in Muslim culture.

In his interview, he said that he was inspired primarily by the buildings themselves, particularly the work of the great Ottoman architect Sinan. In his own words

"The building complex in this story is fictional, as are its patrons and architect. The individual structures, however, are modeled directly on existing examples built between 1540 and 1580 in and around Istanbul, Turkey, by Sinan, the most famous architect of the Ottoman Empire....It seems to me that the best examples of religious architecture are among mankind's proudest accomplishments. When working in the service of some higher entity, we humans seem capable of surpassing our reach and perhaps even our expectations. Driven by faith, but guided ultimately by common sense, these constructions reveal a remarkable level of ingenuity, ambition, and craftsmanship rarely found in secular architecture."

-David Macaulay

This book is a definite treat for the eye and the mind.

All images are Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

No 23 - Art and Technology

2008-03-15T14:25:00.003+08:00

Sometimes art is needed to define technology.

Great concept - simple and nice illustration and animation.

No 22 - Graphic Novels Creating Excitement in the Literary World

2008-03-12T20:53:00.012+08:00

There’s excitement in the literary world as publishers are churning out more literature greats in graphic novel format – Dracula, Great Expectations, Macbeth, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Wind in the Willows and one of my favourite classic read – The Last of the Mohicans – to name a few.

Marvel

Marvel under its new imprint Marvel Illustrated recently released a few classic titles – The Last of the Mohicans, Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers as a miniseries. According to Marvel’s Senior VP of Sales, David Gabriel, The Last of the Mohicans was chosen to start the series because it was a boyhood favorite of Marvel’s CEO, Alan Fine.

The titles in the pipeline are The Picture of Dorian Gray, Moby Dick and get ready for this, The Iliad.* The Iliad, together with the Odyssey, are two ancient Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem is commonly dated to the 8th or 7th century BC, and many scholars believe it is the oldest extant work of literature in the ancient Greek language, making it the first work of European literature.

* The word Iliad means "pertaining to Ilion" (in Latin, Ilium), the city proper, as opposed to Troy, the state centered around Ilium, over which Priam reigned. The names Ilium and Troy are often used interchangeably.

Penguin

Puffin

Penguin under its Puffin Graphics too have a string of classic titles transformed into graphic novels. Puffin had collaborated with Byron Preiss Visual Publications to produce the books. Byron Preiss is a longtime publisher of graphic novels both as a packager and through his iBooks imprint. The complete list is below:

Black Beauty, adapted by June Brigman (Power Pack, Brenda Starr) and Roy Richardson
The Call of the Wild, adapted by Neil Kleid and illustrated by Alex Niño
Dracula, adapted by Gary Reed (formerly of Caliber) and illustrated by Becky Cloonan (Demo, East Coast Rising), a particularly good choice for this title, with her fluid line and strong blacks making the horror story creepier.
Frankenstein, adapted by Gary Reed and illustrated by Frazer Irving
Macbeth, adapted by Arthur Byron Cover and illustrated by Tony Leonard Tamai — the story’s been revamped as science fiction with shojo manga-style art that works surprisingly well.
The Red Badge of Courage, adapted by Wayne Vansant (The ‘Nam) in an almost journalistic semi-realistic style, attractive and easy to read.
Treasure Island, adapted by Tim Hamilton
The Wizard of Oz, adapted by Michael Cavallero.

There is a sad twist to the series. Unfortunately the series was abandoned when Byron Preiss tragically died in a car accident.

Papercutz

Papercutz's best-selling series of comics adaptations of the world's greatest literature, Classics Illustrated now returns in two new formats: the original, featuring abridged versions of classic novels, and Classics Illustrated Deluxe, featuring longer, more expansive adaptations.

Great Expectations and Wind in the Willows were chosen to kick off the re-launch because, according to the publisher “ …both are gorgeous and intelligent well thought-out adaptations that set an excellent tone for our line…”

The volumes are perfectly designed for library shelves, with sturdy bindings and a large enough size for kids to get a good look at the contents. The artwork is beautifully reproduced—crisp and clear—and each book contains background about the series’ history and a brief bio of the artist/adaptor. In fact, The Wind in the Willows was recently cited in SLJ's March cover story, “Graphic Novels Rule!: The Latest and Greatest Comics for Young Kids,” by Michele Gorman, highlighting 25 outstanding graphic novels guaranteed “to attract a new generation of young readers.”

Incidentally Papercutz, is also the publisher of graphic-novel series such as The Hardy Boys,and Nancy Drew.

Graphic Classics

The approach by Graphic Classics is somewhat different. Instead of publishing individual titles based on the classics, they had based their classic-to-graphic novel series by featuring the world’s greatest authors - from Arthur Conan Doyle to Robert Louis Stevenson - and their works. Their impressive line of adaptations included some of the greatest stories ever written like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Edgar Alan Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, H G Wells’ War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man and my all-time favourite, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

No 21 - The Case for Comics

2008-03-12T20:52:00.001+08:00

Comics have come a long way since its Superman [1] and Batman [2] days in the 1930s. From being the bane of the scholastic community, comic books have continued to evolve over the years and have broadened its scope both in the art form, character development and purpose. Recent issues of Superman (the character still thriving after 70 years!) saw the Man of Steel battling homelessness, animal abuse and pollution. In Batman: The Ultimate Evil, the Dark Knight battles paedophiles.

Given the positive changes that occurred in the comics industry as well as their ability to attract young readers, the scholarly world has finally begun to re-examine their potential as educational tools.

Brief History

Comics is the art of visual story telling (less commonly known as sequential art). When and where comics originated is debatable but telling stories using pictures have been around since the beginning of time. The discovery of the cave paintings in Spain in 1879 [3] attest to this fact. Telling pictures are also evident in Egyptian hieroglyphics [4], Japanese emaki [5], and the Bayeux Tapestry [6].

Comics Today

Comics today have evolved to become a sophisticated medium, in both visual and literary qualities, in the form of graphic novels. Graphic novel is defined as a novel whose narrative is related through a combination of text and art, often in comic-strip form.

The term graphic novel goes hand in hand with the name Will Eisner [7], universally acknowledged as one of the great masters of sequential art. A compelling visual storyteller, Eisner is considered to be one of the most influential comic book artists of all time. He has be called the “Leonardo of the comic book form” and the “single person most responsible for giving comics its brain.”

The Future

The potentials of graphic novels are being realised in the field of education across Europe, Japan and the USA. As the web, mobile content, social networking and video games become the language of youth culture; educationists and librarians there are convinced that graphic novels will become an even more important tool for literacy and education.

Graphic novels offer appealing stories and engaging visuals that reach out to reluctant readers, visual learners, and others who may shy away from traditional, print-heavy books. Yet graphic novels offer the same benefits of regular books: introducing young people to new vocabulary, “book language,” and stories and information to teach them about their world and spark their imaginations.

Graphic Novel Categories

As with regular books, graphic novels are categorised under fiction and non-fiction and both have its sub-categories.

1 Fiction

* Science fiction
* Fantasy
* Drama
* Humour
* Crime
* …

2 Non-fiction

* Historical
* Literature / Language
* Biographical
* Religion
* Political
* …

Like any form of pop culture (movies, television programmes, books, magazines, video games etc.) graphic novels should be chosen responsibly, by parents or teachers. Its themes and appropriateness of its content varies with age groups.

[1] Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster in 1932 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938. Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in June 1938.

[2] Co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger and published by DC Comics. The character made his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939.

[3] In 1879, amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was led by his five-year-old daughter to discover the cave’s drawings. The cave was excavated by Sautuola and archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Piera from the University of Madrid, resulting in a much acclaimed publication in 1880, which interpreted the paintings as Paleolithic in origin.

[4] A hieroglyph is a character of a logographic or partly logographic writing system. This ancient Egyptian writing consisted of over 2,000 hieroglyphic characters where each hieroglyphic character represents a common object from their day.

[5] Emakimono, often simply called emaki, is a horizontal, illustrated narrative form created during the 11th to 16th centuries in Japan. Unique to Japan, emakimono combines both text and pictures, and is drawn, painted, or stamped on a handscroll. They depict battles, romance, religion, folk tales, and stories of the supernatural world. It is seen as the origin of modern manga.

[6] The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 m (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth which depicts the events leading up to the 1066 Norman invasion of England as well as the events of the invasion itself. The Tapestry is annotated in Latin. It is presently exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

[7] William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories; and for his educational work about the medium as exemplified by his book Comics and Sequential Art.

To download the above article in jpeg - please click on the images below:

No 20 - Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year

2008-02-27T01:27:00.004+08:00

If you don't already know, the Bookseller magazine has just announced the shortlist for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The nominees are:

I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen
How to Write a How to Write Book
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
Cheese Problems Solved
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood

The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year is a humorous literary award, normally given each year to the book with the oddest title. The award was created by Horace Bent, and first presented in 1978 by the British magazine Bookseller. Nominees are selected from submissions sent in by librarians, publishers, and booksellers, and the final winner is voted for by the public

The details for each nomination can be found here.

My pick for the winner will definitely be:

Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
By Catharine A MacKinnon (Harvard University Press)

This is a question long debated by biologists, psychotherapists and misogynists the world over. Annoyingly, MacKinnon doesn’t claim to have the definitive answer. Instead, her book is a "critique of the trans-national status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights . . . this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared."

Oddest title is crowned

28 March 2008

If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs was crowned the winner of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year.

No 19 - oScope Visual Search

2008-02-22T23:47:00.005+08:00

For those who surf a lot here is a new way to search stuff. Introducing oScope Visual Search, a free online service developed by a great team of highly talented and skillful people at oSkope media gmbh in Zurich and Berlin. Unlike other search engines oSkope allows you to search for items on different web services like eBay, Amazon, flickr, and YouTube and gives you a visual result. There are other cool bits as well like if you search for videos under YouTube, you can play the video directly without leaving for another site. You can also save your favorite videos, images in "My Folder". You can change the image size as well as layout style.

It is really amazing. Go on give it a try it - have some fun. I searched my name under YouTube and this came out:

No 18 - Cairo

2008-02-16T11:33:00.004+08:00

Check out Cairo - the graphic novel.

Book Description

Journalist G. Willow Wilson brings an extraordinary fable to Vertigo with CAIRO, an original graphic novel illustrated by Turkish artist M.K. Perker, himself a contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker. Set in bustling modern-day Cairo, this magical-realism thriller interweaves the lives of a drug runner, a down-on-his-luck journalist, an American expatriate, a young activist, an Israeli soldier, and a genie as they navigate the city's streets and spiritual underworld to find a stolen hooka sought by a wrathful gangster-magician.

About the Creators

G. Willow Wilson is an American author and essayist who divides her time between Egypt and the US. Her articles about modern religion and the Middle East have appeared in publications including the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine and the Canada National Post.

This is her first foray into graphic novels. Read her interview about Cairo here.

M. K. Perker

M. K. Perker was born in Istanbul in 1972. He studied animation and started his professional career at the age of 16 as a comic book artist. Between 1990 and 2001 he contributed to almost all major newspapers and magazines in Turkey, including Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan as an illustrator, editorial cartoonist and art director. Perker's first book, a collection of short comic stories, appeared in 1998 followed by a second in 2000. Since relocating to New York City in 2001 his work has appeared in a wide range of publications from The New York Times to MAD Magazine. Perker lives in New York City.

No 17 - LookyBook

2008-02-16T11:05:00.000+08:00

Finally a site that allows you to browse great children's picture books from cover to cover. Looky Book allows you to look at picture books in their entirety—from cover to cover, at your own pace.

You can also create your own booklist (My Bookshelf) and share your favourite books with others.

One my favourites is:

Sparkle and Spin: A Book about Words.
It starts with an ice-cream cone and ends with only the cone.

Have fun looking!

No 16 - JacketFlap

2008-02-16T10:56:00.000+08:00

Move over Friendster and FaceBook, here comes JacketFlap.

JacketFlap is a social networking community where you can connect with more than 1,600 published authors and illustrators of books for Children and Young Adults.

Calling all writers, illustrators and publishers, register now. It's free!

No 15 - World Book Day

2008-02-16T10:34:00.001+08:00

A good initiative to encourage reading amongst children - refer to attached site:

http://www.worldbookday.com/

The core activity of World Book Day (WBD) is to spread the habit of reading - covering schools and pre-schools. On World Book Day - 1st of March - participating bookshops/publishers will distribute schools packs, display material and distribute World Book Day £1 or €1.50 Book Tokens. These tokens can be used to exchange for books that are specially published for the occasion. These books are priced at £1 or €1.50 hence the name. As a special contribution to World Book Day’s 10th Birthday celebrations there will be ten rather than six specially created £1 Books, pre-schools and secondary schools need to register to participate, as in previous years.

Other activities of WBD are:

Spread the Word - aimed at older children and adults - to ensure that the whole population is encouraged to be involved in reading

Quick Reads - where special titles will be published on World Book Day for those who have lost or are yet to develop the habit of reading for pleasure

Better by the Book - which will enable people or organisations to donate NEW books to hospitals, hospices and other settings via the bookshops themselves

I think it's about time that Malay/Muslim book-literature-related organisations come up with creative activities to encourage reading.

No 14 - Kalima Launch

2008-02-16T10:24:00.000+08:00

Severe lack of foreign language books translated into Arabic prompts The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) of the United Arab Emirates – the same organization responsible for the Abu Dhabi Book Fair - to launch a program - Kalima - to translate hundreds of foreign language works into Arabic.

Kalima is the Arabic for “word”.

Read more ...

No 13 - Toon Books

2008-02-16T09:48:00.001+08:00

Françoise Mouly, New Yorker art director and wife of acclaimed cartoonist Art Spiegelman launches a new line of book comics called Toon Books. This new line is aimed at readers ages four and up and are designed to nurture basic reading skills and encourage a love of visual storytelling.

An excerpt from Toon Books' official website states

"TOON Books represent a whole new approach to books for emerging readers — a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodore Geisel* put a hat on a cat."

*Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss.

Among its Spring 2008 titles is Otto's Orange Day about a cat named Otto who meets a magical genie and wishes for everything to be orange. Cover and sample pages below - extracted from www.toon-books.com.

Toon Books
THE LITTLE LIT LIBRARY is a division of RAW JUNIOR, LLC, 27 Greene Street, NEW YORK, NY 10013.
© and ™ 2007 RAW JUNIOR, LLC, all rights reserved

No 12 - Brown Bookshelf

2008-02-16T09:30:00.000+08:00

Authors Launch Brown Bookshelf

Five authors have banded together to create The Brown Bookshelf, an online community dedicated to promoting children’s fiction by African-American authors and illustrators. The group, which launched November 1, is the brainchild of authors Paula Chase Hyman (the Del Rio Bay Clique series, Kensington) and Varian Johnson (Red Polka Dot in a World Full of Plaid, Genesis Press), who “met” via online author message boards.

I am hoping to form this sort of alliance - so that local writers and illustrators can support each other by imparting knowledge and skills, sharing resources and as a group, help to promote the culture of reading and buying books by local writers and illustrators.

No 11 - Nestlé Children’s Book Prize

2008-02-16T08:39:00.001+08:00

Have you heard the news ...

Nestlé and Booktrust have agreed to end the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize after 23 years of partnership.

The revelation was a sad one - nonetheless - here are the last winners for the prize:

2007 gold medal winners

9 to 11 years category
Shadow Forest by Matt Haig (Bodley Head)

6 to 8 years category
Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell (Macmillan Children's Books)

5 years and under category
When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor and Nick Sharratt (Orchard Books)

No 10 - Before & After

2006-11-30T23:16:00.000+08:00

Occasionally I will feature local book covers that really need a makeover. These two books will start off this series.

This short article is not meant to say that the featured covers are wrong but to emphasise that with a little more effort, we can improve the look of our books - making them more attractive that commensurate with the books' good content.

Book 1 - Islamic Law Volume 2 - Zakaat

Before: Clipart is being used for the image. I always believe that cliparts are for powerpoint presentation for a primary school project. Text layout and font choice is conservative.

After: An appropriate image is selected. You can get these images from royalty-free image database. The book's title is made prominent. Fonts chosen compliments each other.

Book 2 - Islamic Law Volume 4: The Hajj

Before: I presumed that the above is for a series. The title is a dead give away but the books' design did not give the impression that they are from the same series.

After: If books belong to the same series, it is best that designs complement each other.

No 9 - Book Quotes

2006-11-24T11:48:00.000+08:00

No 8 - Malay Children’s Literature

2006-11-22T00:15:00.000+08:00

Malay Children’s Literature

Children’s preference and tastes in choosing what to read has become more sophisticated. Local Malay writers and publishers need to acknowledge this fact and only then can they find ways to attract our children to read Malay and Muslim publications. Not only are Malay publishers up against electronic media and video games producers (which are making aggressive drive to encourage children to buy and engage their products) but also better quality and more creative English publications both local and international.

International book publishers have anticipated this challenge to their industry from the electronic media and had no alternative but to improve on the quality and creativity of their products. That strategy paid off and they have managed to sustain readership especially among children.

From that perspective, the challenge facing local Malay writers and publishers is finding ways to lure Malay readers back to read and appreciate Malay literature and they can only do that by emulating the strategy adopted by international publishers, that is, to start producing better quality and creative publications.

As quoted by Assoc Prof Hadijah Rahmat (Assistant Head, Malay Division, Asian Languages and Cultures, NIE, NTU)

“It is imperative that a quality programme be instated to streamline the writing and development of Malay children’s books that can generate knowledge potential, creativity and at the same time produce literary talents. This will help to create an ideal environment towards the appreciation of Malay children’s literature.”

You can read the full article below:

http://cyberita.asia1.com.sg/rencana/story/0,3617,85659,00.html?

No 7 - Dot, Dot, Dot ...

2006-11-21T23:52:00.000+08:00

Ellipsis Marks

The rendering of this punctuation mark is often incorrect. Analogously, in printing and writing, the term refers to the row of three dots (or four – the fourth one being the period if the ellipsis appear at the end of a sentence), not two or five or twelve!

. . .

The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify. Ellipsis (plural: ellipses is Greek for omission) in linguistics refers to any omitted part of speech that is understood; i.e. the omission is intentional. This punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.

Acronyms, Initialisms, and Alphabetisms

Acronyms, initialisms, and alphabetisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, ABC, and WTO written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form.

Note that all acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.

Acronyms can appear with or without periods but the most common mistakes will be the omission of period for the last initial of an acronym for example:

W.T.O

instead of

W.T.O.

Try and look out for these flaws the next time you read newspapers, magazines ... .

The Straits Times, Saturday, November 25, 2006

A stylish name for a private housing estate - the Quintet, a classy full page/colour newspaper ad but terribly needing the service of an editor. Can you spot the error?

No 6 - Wiley Buys Over Blackwell

2006-11-21T23:49:00.000+08:00

John Wiley & Sons Inc. has agreed to buy London-based academic journal and book publisher Blackwell P ublishing Holdings Ltd. for $1.08 billion in cash and debt.

The decision by the Oxford-based academic publisher to sell itself will also put an end to the ongoing internal strife within the Blackwell family, which have hindered previous attempts to sell off the business in the recent past.

Blackwell’s which traces its history back to a small bookshop opened in 1879 in Oxford, is one of Britain’s biggest and best-known privately-held businesses. Although Blackwell Publishing is a separate company from the Blackwell bookshop chain, Blackwell family members serve on both company boards.

The publishing business has in recent years outperformed the bookshops chain, which has struggled against the growing use of the internet as a research tool and the competition from internet booksellers such as Amazon.

For Wiley, which publishes scientific, technical and medical journals, encyclopaedias and online products, the deal transform it into the second largest scientific publisher after Reed Elsevier.

The transaction is expected to be completed by early 2007.

About John Wiley & Sons Inc.

John Wiley was founded in 1807 and in the early years was best known for the works of Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and other 19th century American literary giants. By the turn of the century, Wiley has established itself as one of the leading publisher of scientific and technical information. It has 3,500 employees worldwide, with operations in the United States, Europe (England, Germany and Russia), Canada, Australia and Singapore.

About Blackwell Publishing

Blackwell Publishing is the world's leading society publisher, partnering with 665 academic, medical, and professional societies. Blackwell publishes 805 journals and, to date, has over 6,000 books in print. The company has over 1,000 staff members in offices in the US, UK, Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, Japan and Singapore.

No 5 - Font Talk: Copperplate Gothic

2006-11-21T22:37:00.000+08:00

FONT TALK

Copperplate Gothic

Copperplate Gothic is a typeface designed by Frederic W. Goudy and released by the American Type Founders (ATF) in 1901. While termed a "Gothic" (a metonym for sans-serif), the face has small glyphic serifs that act to empahsize the blunt terminus of vertical and horizontal strokes. The typeface shows an unusual combination of influences: the glyphs are reminiscent of stone carving, the wide horizontal axis is typical of Victorian display types, yet the result is far cleaner and leaves a crisp impression in letterpress or offset printing.

The typeface is most often used in stationery, for social printing, and is classicaly seen acid-etched into glass on the doors of law offices and banks.

The font was used by r media for Darul Andalus logo and later it was used by Berita Harian for its masthead.

References

Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.

No 4 - Nestlé Children’s Book Prize 2006

2006-11-08T22:02:00.001+08:00

Nestlé Children’s Book Prize 2006

The Nestlé Children’s Book Prize is one of UK’s biggest and longest-running awards of its type, the Prize celebrates the very best in children’s literature and every year involves over 55,000 children in choosing the nation’s favourite children’s books! It has helped launch the career of many of today’s top children’s writers, including JK Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson.

The chair of judges, journalist Julia Eccleshare commented: “The judging panel have produced a superb shortlist from an exceptional field of submissions. The nine books chosen have one thing in common: the ability to draw the reader into a different world through the use of drama, humour, believable characters, and, in the case of the picture books, wonderful illustrations. They showcase the very best in children’s literature today”.

The shortlist now goes to the toughest critics of all, the children’s judging panel. Over 100 schools will take part in the judging process to decide the winners, who will be announced on December 13th at a ceremony at the British Library. Last year around 4,500 school-children were involved in choosing the winning books.

The Nestlé Children’s Book Prize is sponsored by Nestlé UK Ltd, one of the UK’s largest food and beverage manufacturers, and a major supporter of charities helping children and teenagers. The prize is administered by Booktrust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading.

Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Shortlist 2006

9-11 age category

The Diamond of Drury Lane: Julia Golding (Egmont Press)

The Tide Knot: Helen Dunmore (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

The Pig Who Saved the World: Paul Shipton (Puffin)

6-8 age category

Hugo Pepper: Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell (Doubleday)

Mouse Noses on Toast: Daren King – illustrated by David Roberts (Faber and Faber)

The Adventures of The Dish and The Spoon: Mini Grey (Jonathan Cape)

5 & under age category

Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear: Mick Inkpen (Hodder Children’s Books)

The Emperor of Absurdia: Chris Riddell (Macmillan Children’s Books)

That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown: Cressida Cowell & Neal Layton (Orchard Books)

And the winners are:

2006 gold medal winners

9 to 11 years category
The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding (Egmont)

6 to 8 years category
Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King, illustrated by David Roberts (Faber Children's Books)

5 years and under category
That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton (Orchard Books)

No 3 - 13-digit ISBN and New Online Book Marketing

2006-11-08T19:58:00.002+08:00

Publishing Update

The 10-digit ISBN giving way to a 13-digit one as required by the industry as of 2007.

To get ISBN-13 from ISBN-10, you use this online tool:

http://pcn.loc.gov/isbncnvt.html

(remember to select the option to add in hyphens)

Book Marketing

New avenue for online book sale:

http://search.express.ebay.com/Books__W0QQ_srcZ1

This is an Amazon-style website for publishers to sell their books online. Read the
overview for more details:

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/announcement/overview/express.html

No 2 - Cover vs Content

2006-11-08T19:54:00.002+08:00

Cover vs Content

A good read - where publishing is concern. It is an interview of Paul Buckley, an expert in book cover design - a veteran art director of one of the largest book publishers in the world, Penguin Group.

He said,

"No matter what you’re selling - a product, an idea or a skill - the presentation is just as important as the thing itself. Your customers will only do so much research (if at all) when purchasing your product, and when presented with similar choices, they will choose the one they feel most comfortable with. And that decision is most likely based on the packaging. Nothing illustrates this better than the experience of shopping for new books: before we even bother to read the description on the back of a book we have never heard of, we need to first notice the book and have enough desire to pick it up. And that decision is based on the book’s cover."

Click on the links below to read more ...

http://hearhear.us/articles/2006/07/12/an-interview-with-paul-buckley-part-one
http://hearhear.us/articles/2006/07/20/an-interview-with-paul-buckley-part-two

No 1 - What Future Books?

2006-11-08T19:47:00.000+08:00

What Future Books?

Do not be too alarmed with the coming of the new media like blogs, podcasting, rss. Of course there will be an impact but it will not make books obsolete entirely.

But academic publishing is definitely changing rapidly. Resource materials like dictionaries, encyclopaedias and technical manuals will definitely go the electronic way because they are too heavy and expensive to publish. At the same time, libraries are running out of space to store the many volumes. Academics are finding it easier to rely on e-resources as they can get information that they need almost immediately - via on-line (pay-per-view, on-line subscription, one-time access ...).

General reading books especially children's books are as popular as ever. Click on the link below and in the downloaded page click on the pdf file: The latest children's supplement, published by The Bookseller, 17th March:

http://www.thebookseller.com/?pid=13

We see a multiplicity of media in future, rather than one medium replacing another. If you look at the history of media in general, when a new medium comes along, it does not usually replace an earlier one; it just adds to it. Books came first, then radio, cinema, video and computing. None of these things has replaced the book. Even the introduction of the CD-Rom (predicted to mark the end of books in the 1990s) audio and e-books have not been able to replace the printed books or media in general (like newspaper, magazines). These new media only enriches choice for the customer and that’s good news.

Publishers should make use of this new media to enhance the sale of their books.

Blogs: Publishers in the west are already making use of blogs to create book community (like a virtual book club). These blogs discuss books.

Examples of blogs on Malay books:

http://kakibuku.blogdrive.com/

http://buku.blogdrive.com/

RSS (Rich Site Summary) – can send info on upcoming books to your website’s subscribers.

Podcasting: the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Pustaka Nasional has started using this to enhance their books.

http://www.pustaka.com.sg/podcast.html

Other resources:

1. Making use of search engines like Google, Yahoo to publisher’s advantage.

2. Exploring Open Source resources for tools to enhance publishing workflow/marketing.

2006-10-08T09:23:00.000+08:00

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2006-03-21T08:46:00.000+08:00

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