Where has the time gone!?! In a sense this feels like the end of a journey. Our book will finally find its way into kids’ hands - that’s exciting and took lots of effort and teamwork. Job complete! Well, not exactly. As I sit here looking at a small pile of “Everything Butt Art on the FARM” samples, I know our journey is just beginning.
Please join us in celebrating the start:
Saturday 4/30 2pm - 5pm
The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street (btwn Houston and Prince)
Hope to see you there.
1,000 copies of Everything Butt Art at the ZOO - arriving at our already-jammed Brooklyn apartment this week. The rest of the books go to our distributor’s (IPG) warehouse in Chicago.
And my wife thinks we need a bigger place…
Last Saturday I had the great pleasure of working with Miranda to record audio for the Everything Butt Art iPad app (so the book can be read to you when you push a button). She was professional well beyond her 8 years. Matt, our engineer at The Cutting Room Studios in NoHo, was similarly impressed. In fact, we didn’t need more than two takes of any line. Thank you to Miranda (her little bro Spencer) and her parents Matthew and Christina for supporting EBA. Also, thanks to Matt Craig (with his unwavering patience) and The Cutting Room for their great work.
This will be a great event for all but especially for kids - Giant cutout characters (the ostrich is 6’7”), snacks, drawing, reading, iPads to try, balloon animals, lots of art to view, and books for purchase the day before they hit store shelves (signed if you’d like).
Like everything, getting our version 1.0 website up and running has taken a focused team effort. It’s exciting to go live but there’s so much more to come.
Over the next month we’ll put finishing touches on version 1.1. Our goal is to launch 1.1 on May 1st, the day Everything Butt Art at the ZOO hits store shelves nationwide.
Here are few of the expected enhancements:
-Account and profile creation using EBA specific sign-in or with Facebook or Twitter
-Hosting of artwork via upload to an account/profile
-Private galleries
-Ability to post drawings to public gallery
-Social layer to public gallery – share images, favorite images, “like” images, comment
-Activity stream, not unlike a Facebook News Feed
We’ll look forward to sharing more progress soon.
Alexis decided to get cute with our launch space. It’s neat to think that our public gallery opening will actually look very much like this image. Come say hi.
What: Everything Butt Art Launch
Where: The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012
When: Saturday, April 30th from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, in the world of printed books there is a bit more complexity. Today, after months of working with my distributor (IPG), printer (Monroe Litho), and superstar Illustrator and Creative Director (Alexis Moniello) we sent our final file to print. We’ll receive a proof of Everything Butt Art at the ZOO sometime next week. Once we approve the proof, the printing press will get started cranking out 8,500 books.
My feelings this evening range from euphoria to panic. I’m thrilled that our efforts have led to a final product that makes us proud. It’s a true milestone; something that began as just an idea has evolved into something tangible and real. At the same time, my excitement is tempered by anxiety – did we print too many books initially? Too few? Was environmentally responsible, domestic production the right choice or should we have focused on margin? Time will tell. In the meantime, I can rest assured knowing that we stayed true to our values and worked our butts off to get to this point.
I’m looking forward to seeing the finished book. Maybe they do just click the print button.
