fresh ink - new book!

Well it's always nice to add some fresh ink to the GoodYarns inventory, and this week we've done it. Our new fundraising book is hot off the presses - it's to raise money for a teen humanitarian trip helping with the programs of our favourite organization, Winnipeg Inner City Missions.

I dashed off a little story, partly in fun last fall, but it turned out to be fairly popular. And as it puts a spotlight on WICM, I thought it was just the right piece to turn into the cornerstone fundraising project for our next visit.

It's called, The Golden Acorn Project, and features a little girl named Junebug. She's named for the mom of the grade school friend that I kabitz with on FB, an animal lover who engendered this clearly profoundly in her own daughters, one a vet and one the ED of Boston Terrier Rescue - gave a suggestion on what Benny and I should do with all the acorns we had collected.

I've created an online order and info page. It's published thru Createspace - I'm really pleased with the 24 page, 4-colour book, pretty professional looking. The author copies are really cheap - way cheaper than my first run done at a local print shop. Tho I wanted to shop local, unit costs per book were $9 a copy for 100 copies. Thru CS, author copies were $3.65 (with ProPlan upgrade). Shipping from Texas costs a bit, but bumps the unit cost to a whopping $4.95 ea, so still cheaper this way. I make almost $15 a book for the cause rather than $11. Plus the added distribution channels of Amazon +. And the book looks better done than the quaint plastic coil bound version of first print run.

Anyway, just wanted to share from a creator's point of view. We have some great ideas for the launch. Benny and I were out collecting acorns yet - a feature of the launch will be to create the golden acorn necklace Junebug wears at the end of the book. Thinking gold acrylic paint, cord and some variation on needlefelted nut.

For your reference, here's the link to the order/info page:

http://web.me.com/lisadmckenzie/Golden_Acorn_Book/Order_Golden_Acorn.html

I may even re-order some copies of our fundraising book for the launch. Could make us another $500!

For fun, here's the link to the book on Amazon. Altho I did subscribe to Look inside, I also uploaded my own pages. Wanted people to be able to see more of the illustrations than leave that to chance. Plus uploading customer files let me make notes, which I found helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Acorn-Project-not-just-children/dp/146636890X/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header

Hope this helps some of you out there contemplating fundraising projects!