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QUIT SLOUCHING!! Have I got your attention? :) 

My husband sends me great info like this regularly (he’s a fitness trainer). These tips are extremely useful for anyone who sits all day (and probably incorrectly). It’s not just the old “sit up straight” talk either:

• Sitting provides stability to perform high visual & motor control tasks 
• General Goal: Optimal Sitting Posture = Design of Chair + Posture 
• Specific Goal: Seated Minimal Muscle Cocontraction + Neutral Spine 
• Utilize Backrest & Do Not Slump Forward (Excessive Kyphosis) 
• General Backrest Inclination: 90-105° 
• Lumbar supports — Help Achieve Neutral Lordotic Curve 

(via National Posture Institute)

Another great reminder: make a point of regularly sitting up, stretching, and moving around. Got a laptop? Try switching during the day from a seated desk to a standing desk (if you have one; or if you have a bookcase with adjustable shelves you can set one to the right height and try that out).

Watch out for your health, because if you don’t no one else will!

ps: If you know who actually created this medical illustration, please let me know! That name embedded in this JPG is not the illustrator. So, another tip: Don’t claim to own illustrations that aren’t yours! GRRR!)

Why you Should Promote Your Back-List Books

Author Alexis O’Neill has just released a video for one of her back-list titles. Most authors promote heavily newly released books, but don’t do much for titles a couple years old. I’ve asked Alexis to explain why she’s focusing on her back-list books and give us a few tips about back-list promotions.

Q: What is the title and when was it published? Can we see the trailer?

The Worst Best Friend (Scholastic 2008).

Here’s the first trailer for The Worst Best Friend.

Q: Did the book receive any awards, special recognitions, etc?

This book is a companion book to The Recess Queen (Scholastic 2002) and they are often purchased together. Both are books about the ups and downs of friendship – one featuring girls the other, boys. While The Worst Best Friend hasn’t received awards, The Recess Queen has won many, including Children’s Choice in two states and a nominee in seven others.

Q: Do you have newer or forthcoming titles with the same publisher?
No.

Q: Why did you decide to promote this particular book at this time? Have sales dropped and you just wanted to give it a boost? Do you expect your efforts to help keep the book in print?

As long as a book is in print, it’s alive! My friend, Tina Nichols Coury, created a book trailer for the launch in 2008. She recently approached me and asked if she could try another slant on the trailer, and I said. “Go for it!” Among other differences, the first trailer is narrated, the new trailer has only background music.

Just think of this: a book is back-listed within six-months of publication. That’s hardly enough time to get the word out about it. I think that our promotional efforts should keep on going as long as the book is in print. And I think that fresh material on a variety of platforms introduces your book to new and diverse audiences. Look at how popular Twitter and Facebook have become in just the past two years. Having fresh material is an “excuse” to post a new link.

There is no magic bullet for promotion, so expecting a book trailer to do all the promotional heavy lifting for you is crazy. Frankly, what keeps my books in print is that I’m invited to do tons of school visits every year. (Bully and friendship themes

Imagine you’re a kid forced to wait in the back of a squad car while your parent(s) deal with a crime, fire, or other horrible event. You’ve got nothing to do but wait and watch.

But not anymore, thanks to an innovative program started by an author. “[P]atrol cars now are equipped with a BACK (Be A Cheerful Kid) packet of about a dozen books. The children get to keep the books…” Read more here.

Not much to report today. The wife is down and out with back problems again. Things have slowed down a tiny bit as far as work goes, which has allowed me time to get some of my personal projects started...that, and lay around lazily. Nothing really changes around here.

I'm starting work on something new (that I can't really go into detail about just yet) and I decided to post one of my really early, really rough character sketches above.

Steve~

Holy toledo things have been busy lately!

Lots of work and lots of family stuff has made it a wee bit difficult to get around to posting on the ol' illustration blog. Add all of that to the fact that I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping and you've got a recipe for disaster more annoying than a weekend long marathon of Ben Affleck movies.

Anyway, hopefully I'm entering a bit of a downspell and hopefully that'll mean throwing something up on here more often.

Hopefully.

I don't like making promises, so we'll just stick with hopefully.

Anyway, my wife has been snapping some pictures of me early in the morning and we think that we've discovered the reason I'm not getting any sleep.

The stupid cats seem to think my head is their bed.

(Don't give me any guff on the black and white stripped quilt. I've had it since I was a kid, it's ugly as sin, it needs to be thrown away, I've heard it all from my wife more than once. I'll tell you the same thing I tell her...it's not going anywhere. That's right, I'm a thirty year old Linus. Deal with it.)

Steve~

Both my wife and I have rather annoyingly been struck with some terrible back pains at the exact same time. This is especially sucky because both of us are hobbling around the house like a couple of injured camels, complaining, whining, and generally being a pains in the butt.

Yep...lots of fun at the ol' Novak household.

I put a few new zombie designs up recently over at redbubble, including one just in time for the new Indiana Jones flick. Feel free to check them out.

Steve~

Into the Wardrobe, a C.S. Lewis website has an interesting article about C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald and their writing for children.