Moheard's Blog

Browsing through a Christmas Gift website, I came across a lady who has produced a line of Lists notebooks and diaries. Astonishing – but wild! This is what the online shop says:

Your Life in Lists

An illustrated fill-in journal that allows users to create an autobiography in lists.

The listmaking revolution is in full swing, and this incredible journal packs the ease and fun of making lists into a format that allows users to create an entire autobiography

List making has never been so popular – websites, television programmes, newspapers & magazines are all using this format.

Is this Japanese or Chinese? I think it must be an Amazon website. How exotic is that!

Neighbours and friends far and wide attended the launch on Sunday 26th. There is a video on YouTube. Search for  “Leo’s Heroes – Book Launch!” It was a great party, and 49 signed copies were sold. Some more orders to fulfill too.

My celebrity guest was my grandson Orson to whom the book is dedicated. I introduced him as ‘comic artist, surrealist, animator and lightning sketch portraitist’. A few people had their pictures drawn – Orson signs them ‘rare’.

Here is a photo of him drawing Denise Hoyle, while I look on.

Orson goes to London Zine Fairs where he sells his own comics and lightning sketches. Regular comic artist visitors from Japan buy his work. Pardon me while I swell with pride!

Book Launch last Sunday – a great success I think. Val and I were busily signing and selling copies. I will post some pictures later.

Meanwhile, I was so thrilled to receive an email out of the blue from an ex-RAF photographer (Bomber Command), Bob Ambrose, who had heard about Leo’s Heroes from the Sir Sydney Camm Commemorative Society. In Leo and the Flying Machine Adventure one of the characters Ginger, injures himself falling from a glider. Here’s part of Bob’s email:

At the Old Windsorian’s Informal meeting at The Fifield Inn, Fifield near Windsor on Monday October 25th  at 11.00 a.m. we will be paying respect to Sir Sydney Camm and those who fought in WW1 and WW2. We are also proud of our connections to the History of Aviation in Berkshire  and particularly to that of one of our old boys, Ted Stanbrook, the son of ‘Ginger’ Stanbrook; at the age of 16 Ginger crashed and was injured in Camms’ first manned flying machine in the grounds below Windsor Castle in 1913.

We are delighted that ‘Ginger’, Sydney and Fred Camm, are all featured in Chapter 3 of Leo’s Heroes in the new fantasy story book, by Mo Heard, to be released next week.

Sydney Camm

http://www.sirsydneycamm.org

As a new author of a children’s book, I have very little chance of reviewers or those who recommend titles for teachers on their websites, to pick it up. I accept that there are too many books being published, and it’s very difficult to get past the first hurdle of no-one knowing my name. Surely if I am a nonentity, then my work must be of little merit or interest they might think? In our celebrity-obsessed culture, it’s probable that children only want to read a book by a famous author. Are they able to search out a book for themselves on the library shelves? The only way a child will read Leo’s Heroes, is if parents have heard the name somewhere and decide to buy it. Do they take notice of 5-star ratings on Amazon? Someone says that these help – so please get reviewing everyone!

The publisher will be promoting Leo’s Heroes to bookshops, and the book will be featured in their catalogue and distributors’ lists. I am thinking of all the ways in which I can promote the title myself.

1.  I’ve created an Author Page on Amazon.

2.  I am listed on the National Centre for Language and Literacy website, where teachers can search for an author to visit their school.

3.  I shall read an excerpt at the book launch on 26 September and upload a video on You Tube.

4.  Val and I will be signing books at The Stables Theatre on two dates in November, when she is exhibiting at the Gallery.

5.  I shall contact local schools in September, once the new term has started, and I shall be encouraging children’s independent bookshops to stock the book for these schools.

If you are a teacher, here is the information with ideas for lessons. Remember that five of the chapters can stand alone as short stories.

Leo’s Heroes – an exciting story of a boy’s mysterious travel through time

Cross-curricular themes and ideas for Ks 2 & 3 lessons

Victorian toy theatre. Children’s toys of the past. Collecting.

Television inventor John Logie Baird. Kids’ TV programmes.

Sydney Camm, Hurricane aircraft inventor. Model flight.

WW2 Blitz. Evacuation. Winston Churchill. Children’s games.

Victorian poverty. Fakes & antiques. Museum collections.

Investigating a family tree. Ancestors’ lives.

Time travel. The Universe. Aliens.

Sessions with the author:

Telling the story of Leo’s Heroes with short extracts from each of the six chapters. 30 minutes.

A reading of one chapter chosen from the themes. 45 minutes.

As above, with additional discussion and workshop as required. 90 minutes.

Dramatic, lively and fun!

http://leosheroes.wordpress.com

By the way, if you are thinking of ordering Leo’s Heroes, do support your local independent bookshop. Also, please ask the local children’s library, and your child’s school library to order it. Anything you can do helps the book’s profile.

Comments on Amazon apparently really matter; your reviews would be appreciated. I especially would welcome children’s reviews.

LEO’S HEROES ISBN: 978 1 84624 469 8

Book Guild Publishing. £8.99 H/B.

Publishing date is now 28 September.

I’m looking forward to promoting Leo’s Heroes by arranging readings in museums, schools and bookshops. I already have one booked at the Cuming Museum in Southwark for 29 October at 2.30. I’ll be reading the chapter where Leo washes up in Victorian London, aiding and abetting a couple of mudlarks in a forgery scam. The Cuming has a good collection of the fakes – Billys and Charleys they’re called. Hannah, the Education Officer will let the children handle some of them in a follow-up workshop.

Val and I had a meeting this week with the marketing team at Book Guild. Their campaign is pretty comprehensive, and I should see any media results by the end of the month. A lot of the exposure though is down to me; by getting bookings to read or sign, I can spread the word.

Here’s an unbelievably spooky kitsch thing I found in my collection. It’s still wrapped so I haven’t tested its wierd secret!

My partner Stephen and I have nostalgia for our childhoods growing up in London and quite often indulge in remembering the heaven which was the books and comics we read then. We were delighting in recalling the bizarre ads shown on the comics’ back pages, when Stephen mentioned that he once sent away for sea monkeys. These duly arrived dried in a packet, coming to microscopic life when dropped in a glass of water. The ads showed drawings of mummy and daddy sea monkeys in sunglasses, and the daughter in a mini-skirt. How cool is that? The disappointment was the size of these miniature crustaceans, half that of a flea by the sounds of it. Dead a week later probably.

A very funny book  *Hey Skinny: Great Advertisements from the Golden Age of Comic Books, has many of the American ads from the 1940s and 1950s. My favourite from 1953 is the “INVISIBLE HELMET”.  ‘Put it on … Now  you see people – they can’t see you! Be the first in your neighborhood to wear it. You will be envied by everyone. Order immediately. Satisfaction guaranteed. $1.99.’ Only ten years earlier, children were wanted by Uncle Sam. ‘Rush coupon NOW!’ for a Junior Air Raid Warden Kit. (Boys! Be ready for enemy air attacks. Just What Every American Boy Needs.)

Do kids today experience that same potent desire to have ‘unlimited hours of fun’, ‘thrills and fun galore’ (there’s a word we don’t hear much now)? ‘Your chance to be popular’, ‘Oh Boy! More fun than a 3-ring circus!’ ‘Wanted! Boys and girls for the movies!’  ‘Now you can scare the Devil out of people with this Luminous Ghost Mask!’ ‘Love can be yours again!’ All those exclamation marks! So exhausting!!

After we’d finished hooting with mirth and exclamation, I suggested that it would be really sad if a child perchance, reading a 50 year-old copy of one of these comics found in Granny’s attic, completed a coupon (cut here, next to a tiny pair of open scissors), and sent away for whatever marvellous product was on offer, obviously never ever to receive the goods. This sparked the idea to create a story. I used to be a Trustee of Pollock’s Toy Museum in London, and know a lot about the history of the juvenile drama. A speech balloon appeared above my head: my eyes looked up to see what was written there. “A boy will find an old advertisement and send away for a list of toy theatres and plays to perform. He will meet Benjamin Pollock, a real person from the past”. Cut to the next frame: I am hunched over the computer, my hands flying over the keyboard. A box at the top explains (in that beloved comic-style printing) that the boy would become a time traveller and meet other actual people who really lived, but they’d be unusual, little known today. Our hero would help these people, and change the course of their lives with his intervention. To be continued …….

* Chronicle Books 1995

Leo’s Heroes is now on Amazon!

The book has gone to the printer. Marketing campaign meeting at the publishers on 2 August.

Remember to check out the children’s blog at http://leosheroes.wordpress.com

The story will unfold there over the next few weeks with lots of pictures.

Eeek! I’ve written a children’s book and it’s being published by Book Guild of Brighton. You may have a passing interest in why I wrote this book. Who do I think I am you cry. I’m certainly not a struggling author. Why do I think it should be published? Of course, I’ve written loads of things before – reports, method statements and proposals, essay assignments for my degree, but never a creative story (silly mysteries informed by the Upper Fourth at Malory Towers composed at 13 don’t count in my back repertoire.)

Writing Leo’s Heroes was a satisfying experience, I had fun, I was excited by this thing which completely took me over for a few weeks. And I had to follow where it led. Later I contacted a couple of agents in a half-hearted way, and I may have even approached a publisher (yawn), without luck you won’t be surprised to hear. Did I have the motivation to become a published children’s author? What was I to do with my book? I shrugged dismissively and quickly forgot about it.

But after the manuscript had lain disregarded for some time in that ubiquitous drawer all scribblers maintain, I decided to take a short cut and buy in the professionals, the way one might hire caterers for a fancy dinner party. (I confess that I pay a friend to do my gardening.) I could, you might protest, use my savings more usefully to back pack around South America for a year, or try sky diving; I might spend time trekking along the Great Wall of China, take up the challenge of the Advanced Motorist Course. But none of these things appealed to me as adventurous occupations. (I must admit guiltily that there’s a smidgen of timidity for physical exertion somewhere in my genes); also my time is committed to a little drama teaching, studying for a degree, and volunteer guiding for a local tourist spot. I don’t have the time or the stamps, to continually send off chapters and polite letters of introduction to agents (publishers no longer want unsolicited manuscripts it seems) in order to receive back equally polite rejection letters. I needed to get a life, take matters into my own hands – and I know what – pay to see my book in print. Sorted.

I have gone into a partnership publishing deal, where I pay for the editing, proof reading, printing, promotion, distribution, representation, and everything else a publishing house does to bring a book to the reading public. This surely is the adventure – an unknown future where anything could happen. It’s not so-called vanity publishing – I don’t seek fame, and I certainly won’t make a fortune. I never had fame when I was an actress, so I know I can handle the shame of possibly not selling more than ten copies of my book. (Who remembers my appeareances in The Whitehall Worrier or Dixon of Dock Green? Or even the Jaffa oranges girl being parachuted over Wimbledon Common scattering fivers (fake) into the wind. “Who knows where Jaffa oranges come from? Win five pounds for the correct answer!”)

This partnership method is a good model I feel, since the publisher is only doing what every other publisher does for the author, but has the cash flow to keep a list going without growing an enormous slush pile. What’s wrong with the author putting up the dosh? The publisher makes money and I receive royalties. They say that they can’t publish every manuscript received – surely they must get hundreds each year? – so the fact that they’ve chosen Leo’s Heroes to be published, for me is some sort of validity … We’ll see.

http://www.bookguild.co.uk

More later on my illustrator Val Falla.

Go to the children’s blog at http://leosheroes.wordpress.com to find out more, and read extracts from each chapter.