Margaret Jean Campbell

07/01/2024

This past week, I spoke to more and more people who are writing their books and planning to self-publish.
They're writing and writing and writing.
And writing and writing.
And that's all fine, except the book that will get shared into the world isn't going to be a manuscript or a Word Doc.
It's going to have a shape and size and look a certain way, even if it's an ebook.
And if you don't get right into building that physical experience for your reader WHILE you are writing your book, I think you are missing out on all the wonderful things your book could become.
(Not to mention the incredible build up to your launch that would happen if you brought your potential readers along the way while you built your book.)
I mean, a book is not a flat experience. It's an architecture... a sequential architecture.
It has a pace, it has a certain number of words on a page, it has rooms, it has doors and windows, it has hallways, and it might have decorations - maybe even gardens with fountains.
And unless your readers are like me and start in the middle or backs of books, you will guide them through that architecture.
And you're doing it with words and maybe illustrations.
But if you're finishing your book before building the form, you're not giving the form a chance to speak to you. You're not inviting the form to influence your words, your storytelling, the journey you want your reader to take.
BIG opportunity LOST.
PS If you decide you want to try this, here's step one. Find 10 books that look the way you want your book to look (sizes you like, title page, credit page, dedication, chapter headings, fonts, font sizes, whatever) and find a design student who knows InDesign (if you don't) and will copy some of the pages of your manuscript into these different "looks" that you like.
You can upload a PDF of your "page looks" to a free flipbook creator online and see what your book looks like with pages turning.
If you have 24 pages, you can upload a test proof to KDP and have a book sent to you... to hold, get feedback, make notes in, and experience (for about $2 plus shipping). I'm putting together specific instructions for all this, but a person who knows InDesign can figure it out.
And your book will take on a new life... a life you couldn't have predicted if you just let it stay FLAT.
You don't need a huge budget. KDP is basically free.
You don't need a self publishing company to help you.
You do need a KDP (Amazon) account. (IngramSpark is a whole other story...which I'll get into on another day.)
Also, there is much misinformation in self-publishing groups.
But, there is amazing and reliable information on the self-publishing association websites. The Alliance of Independent Authors is one of the best.
PPS These experiments with the form of your book can get a lot more exciting. I'll write about this more in the future.

06/30/2024

One of the people who commented on a post yesterday reminded me of all the "holes in our hearts" that we carry, probably for the rest of our lives... and maybe into next lives, if we have next lives.
The father of my children threw away a wool shawl that I had knitted for my daughter. He put it in the trashcan as we drove away from our house (we were moving), and he wouldn't let me out of the car to get it. As I shrieked with tears, he told me to shut up - there wasn't time to stop and get it. I quieted down, because the kids were only 5 and 7 and the whole situation was traumatic. But I was devastated by the cruelty of the moment.
I mourned the loss of that shawl for 11 years, resenting the nastiness that would cause one person to deliberately strike at another. Furious.
The crazy thing is, a lot of stuff in life seems to happen in circles - some of the circles are too big and I guess we never get to see the way the circle ends up. And maybe some circles can never close—they're too infinite.
But the mourning over that shawl lasted 11 years... I'd think of it and get so sad. But one day... 11 years after the shawl went into the trash... and I know this is going to sound completely unbelievable... but it's true... I was walking across the parking lot outside a local thrift store, and in the window there was this shawl draped over a sofa. And I got closer and I saw the mistake I had made years ago in the row of knitting. It was my daughter's shawl. In the thrift store window. I went into some kind of mad frenzy and ran into the store and blurted out the story to the poor cashier, who had to listen through my tears and babbling while I paid the $3.00 to get my heart back.
This circle got closed before I'm gone, my heart has at least one hole mended before I'm done. I'm so lucky for this. I'm forever grateful.

06/30/2024

04/28/2024

Focus on the beautiful.

Written on a 3,400-year-old clay tablet found in the ruins of a royal palace in Syria, this is what the in-crowd were dancing to in 1400BC.

04/17/2024

If you're an artist, musician, leader, social worker, mental health worker, counselor, physician, educator... If you want to find out more about neuroaesthetics and the use of the science of Creativity and Wellbeing to grow your work, Tasha Golden, PhD, Director of Research at the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University, encourages us to download this Field Guide.
There's also a link to a new course she's developed a bit further down the page. Tasha led a Workshop yesterday at the 2024 CA Arts & Culture in Sacramento. Her work is unbelievably exciting.

Arts on Prescription: A Field Guide for US Communities offers a roadmap for communities to develop programs that formally integrate arts, culture, and nature resources into local health and social care systems. Arts on prescription connects healthcare providers and social service agencies with more