All I Want For Christmas Is… Forgiveness For My Shameless Self Promotion

Final Final Cover

I very rarely ask folks (because I feel funny about it) to review my book on sites such as Amazon or Goodreads. But it’s come to my attention recently that having 50 or more reviews on Amazon helps a book’s visibility in Amazon’s search engines (who knew!).

It makes sense that reviews help promote the sales of a book, and certainly, the more reviews the better. So this holiday season, I’m asking you, my friends, fans, and blog followers, if you have a free moment or two, to please leave an honest review for my book The Peddler’s Bed on Amazon. I would greatly appreciate the support.

Please only leave a review if you have actually read the book. And you do not have to have purchased the book from Amazon to review it there. Thanks so much in advance! And thank you to everyone who has already left a review! You have my eternal gratitude.

🙂 Happy Holidays! 🙂

Wishing you peace, health, and joy in the New Year!

Tree

https://amazon.com/Peddlers-Bed-Lauri-Fortino/dp/0991386639

A Labor Of Love: Harriet And The Little French Doll

FrenchDollPNG_FrontCover

The treasured story of Harriet and the Little French Doll has been passed down from my grandmother Harriet to my mother Shirley and finally to me. The events in the story, which take place over three Christmases, really happened to my grandmother when she was a young girl in the early 1900s.

In 1944, she typed the story, drew and painted illustrations for it, and handmade her own little book, complete with a cloth cover, and gave it to her daughter Shirley for her seventh birthday. Today, I’m proud to be the current keeper of the original book. The first half of the story introduces readers to all eighteen members of Harriet’s doll family (she loved dolls!), and the second half features the very special little French doll.

Alfred, Edna, and June

Grace

Wesley and Edith

George

Esther

With an eye toward making the story available to others, I decided to recreate it using Amazon’s Kindle Kids’ Book Creator. I designed the book in Microsoft Publisher, with some minor text edits, and the addition of a foreword and an About the Author page. I included all of the original art, which I had snapped photos of and transferred to my computer. Surprisingly, the art required very little touching up. Then I converted the document to PDF and uploaded it into the Kids’ Book Creator, which saved it as a file on my computer.

After that, I opened Kindle Direct Publishing and followed the instructions to complete the book. This was my first time using Kindle Direct Publishing and I discovered there is a bit of a learning curve. But I sorted everything out, and now I’m pleased to report that a Kindle version and a paperback version of Harriet and the Little French Doll are now available on Amazon.

My grandmother was a special person. She lived with my family since before I was born and helped to raise my five siblings and me. I have many fond memories of time spent with Gramma. And I remember, too, that she was always writing, either with typewriter or pen.

She was very talented, both artistically and as an author. She was a self-taught poet who wrote her first poem at the age of 11. She went on to write hundreds of poems over her lifetime. Many appeared regularly in magazines and newspapers, including Ideals, which, to this day, often still publishes her poetry in its special Christmas issue. I know without a doubt that I inherited the writer’s gene from her.

My grandmother Harriet at age 11 with the little French doll (on the right)

My purpose for recreating my grandmother’s story, Harriet and the Little French Doll, is to share a tiny bit of her life and talent with the world.

And The Winner Is… (plus February’s Prize)

In January, I posted about a year-long giveaway that I’m offering here on Frog on a Blog–a new prize each month for folks who comment on blog posts. With so much negative energy floating around in the world, especially in recent months, I decided I wanted to do something positive, something to show my gratitude to my followers, fans, and friends for their support.

The first prize offered, for the month of January, was a signed copy of my picture book The Peddler’s Bed.

Final Final Cover

And the winner is…

Heather Stinnett

Congratulations Heather! Please contact me by clicking HERE. I need your address and how you’d like your book signed.

This month’s prize is a Curious George plushie, all decked out for Valentine’s Day.

Comment on this post or any post during the month of February for your chance to win. For more information on how to qualify for prizes, click HERE.

Due to contest/sweepstakes regulations in other countries, this giveaway is available to U.S. residents only. I’m very sorry fans and followers from other nations. I still appreciate you! All winners are chosen at random.

New Year=New Beginnings (plus a giveaway and free bookplates)

Happy 2017!

Image from The Peddler’s Bed

The Peddler is jumping for joy because it’s a brand new year, full of possibilities. It’s also a year full of giveaways! I’ll be giving away a prize each month to folks who comment on a post–any post–during the course of the month. Winners will be chosen at random and announced on the blog. Subscribing to Frog on a Blog is recommended (though not required) to keep track of posts and to see if you’ve won.

Those who share a post, will get an extra chance to win that month’s prize. Prizes will consist of picture books, picture book critiques from me, a set of pilot’s pens (Night Writer–for writing in the dark), and other fun picture book or writing related stuff.

To kick things off, for January, I’m giving away a signed copy of my book The Peddler’s Bed. All you have to do is comment on any post this month (including this one). If you share the post, you’ll get an extra chance to win. If you comment on or share more than one post during the month, you’ll get one extra chance to win as well. To make it as fair as possible, if you win for one month, you will not be eligible to win again. But feel free to leave comments anyway.This is my first time offering a year-long giveaway. If all goes well, I may do it again next year.

Important: If you share a post, please remember to tag me or let me know in the comments that you shared.

*Due to contest/sweepstakes regulations in other countries, this giveaway is available to U.S. residents only. I’m very sorry fans and followers from other nations. I still appreciate you!

For everyone out there who already has a copy of The Peddler’s Bed, I have free autographed bookplates to give away. Just use my Contact form and leave your name, address, and how you’d like the bookplate signed (to whom), and I’ll pop it in the mail to you asap.

DCL Actor’s Table Reading of The Peddler’s Bed

I’m happy to share a DCL Actor’s Table Reading of The Peddler’s Bed, which was organized, recorded, and edited by Mr. Scott Mosher, Paralibrarian at the DeWitt Community Library. Thank you, Scott and the talented script readers!

Have 5 minutes? Have a Listen!

You will also find a link to this recording of The Peddler’s Bed on my Teacher’s Resources page along with a Reader’s Theater children’s recording of the book, and other fun stuff.

Also check out the DeWitt Community Library’s SoundCloud page for more Actor’s Table Readings and Reader’s Theater recordings.

My First Picture Book: A Q&A With Karlin Gray

ThePeddlersBed_cover

Recently, I had the extreme pleasure of answering some questions about my debut book experience for Karlin Gray, author of Nadia: The Girl Who Couldn’t Sit Still, which was published June 7, 2016 by HMH. Karlin says, “Since I am new to the picture-book world, I wanted to learn from other writers. What inspired their stories? How did they go about crafting their first book? What did they do when they finally received that offer?” Those are just a few of the fun questions Karlin asks on her blog.

Click Here to read my responses to Karlin’s questions.

Look for my review of Karlin’s debut book, Nadia: The Girl Who Couldn’t Sit Still, this fall.

Stop By and Say “Hi”!

Final Final Cover

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and chat with me at the East Syracuse Free Library Author Greet and Meet Event on Saturday, June 25 from noon-2 pm. I’ll be signing books along with nine other local authors representing books for all ages.

Click Here for more information about the participating authors.

Greet and Meet

The address for the East Syracuse Free Library is 4990 James St., East Syracuse, NY 13057.

Hope to see you there!

Darlene, Cally, and Jen, You’ve Won!

Peddler Jump_Peddlers Bed The peddler’s jumping for joy because three winners have been chosen to receive copies of my picture book The Peddler’s Bed, illustrated by Bong Redila and published by Ripple Grove Press.

If you subscribed to follow my blog between January 1 and March 31 of this year, you were automatically entered into the drawing.*

January’s winner: Darlene F. (Living In His Presence Daily)

February’s winner: Cally F. (Some Special People)

March’s winner: Jen (Jen’s Lexical Creations/The Wordsmith Mom)

And guess what, you each get two copies of The Peddler’s Bed, one to keep and one to share!

Winners, get in touch with me through my Contact page. I need your address (U.S. addresses only), and I need to know how you’d like each book signed.

Please contact me within the next three weeks or I may choose an alternate winner.

I look forward to sharing my book with you! 🙂

*This contest was held on my SCBWI Launch Party Page. Winners were chosen at random.

BookPartySCBWI

Spring 2016 Local Author Meet & Greet

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and chat with me at the Spring 2016 Local Author Meet & Greet on Sunday, April 10 from noon-2 pm, at the Liverpool Public Library in Liverpool, NY. I’ll be signing books too!

Here’s the full lineup of authors who will be participating. There’s something for everyone: kids, teens, and adults! Hope to see you there!

Local Author Meet and Greet

Spring 2016 Local Author Meet & Greet

I’ve been invited to participate in the Spring 2016 Local Author Meet & Greet at the Liverpool Public Library in Liverpool, NY, on Sunday, April 10 (2016) from noon-2 pm.

I’m looking forward to meeting members of the community and hopefully gaining some new fans. Stop by and ask me questions about my book, The Peddler’s Bed, or my life as an author. Purchase a book and I’ll sign it, or bring one you’ve purchased elsewhere–I’m happy to sign that too! Or just drop by to say “hi”.

I’ll see you at the library! 🙂

The Liverpool Public Library is located at 310 Tulip St., Liverpool, NY 13088. For more information about the event, call the Library at (315) 457-0310 and ask for Cindy Hibbert.

One Teacher’s Mission To Inspire Her Students Using “The Peddler’s Bed”

With so many books to choose from, I’m so excited and so moved that she chose mine!

Ms. Macadangdang is an English teacher at LA Academy Arts & Enterprise Charter School in Los Angeles, CA. Her school is located in the inner city of Los Angeles, an area crippled by poverty. Her students are reading below grade level and struggling with the new demands of the Common Core standards. She is working hard to provide as much opportunity for learning and academic achievement as she can for her students. But her school lacks the funding she needs to do all that she’d like to do for them.

So Ms. Macadangdang turned to DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose.org is a fantastic organization/site where public school teachers post classroom project requests, and donors choose the ones they want to support.

Ms. Macadangdang is seeking funding to purchase 30 copies of The Peddler’s Bed to inspire imagination and integrate arts into her curriculum. Here’s her project in her own words: “My 6th graders need to be inspired! The common core curriculum is so advanced, and they are so far behind, I need some tools to bridge the gap. With this donation, we will step away from the prescribed textbook and use this rich and imaginative text to perform grade level literary analysis and learn how to analyze images as a form of text.”

I am thrilled to know that my book, The Peddler’s Bed, will be used to inspire these incredible young students and help bring them just a little bit closer to a bright and happy future.

To learn more about Ms. Macadangdang’s classroom project and what you can do to help, please click HERE.

Paying It Forward, Starting In My Own Community

Scene from The Peddler’s Bed illustrated by Bong Redila (Ripple Grove Press, 2015)

Even before my first children’s picture book, The Peddler’s Bed, was published, I knew I wanted to help people. But how? After the book was released, I began to research non-profit organizations that might be a good match. And although there are many extremely worthy causes out there, it didn’t take long to realize that the best match was right here in my own community: The Syracuse Rescue Mission.

Since 1887, the Syracuse Rescue Mission has been helping people in need by providing food, clothing, and shelter. Though they have evolved over the years, adding more services, programs, and locations, the values of faith, hope and love continue to form the foundation of their mission.

This is what the SRM is all about: Putting an end to hunger and homelessness for men, women, and children in our community.

Their Food Service Center provides three free hot meals a day to anyone in need. (Nearly 700 free meals a day and nearly a quarter million meals a year are served!)
Their emergency shelter offers 183 beds for men and women in eight separate dormitories.
They offer employment and education resources, life skills training, spiritual care, and connection to other services.
Rescue Mission staff help place hundreds of individuals into permanent homes in the community every year.
Their Homeless Outreach Service is a mobile unit that reaches out to individuals experiencing homelessness, offering to bring them to shelter, and providing food, water, clothing, blankets and other support.

I am donating 25% of my royalty earnings from sales of The Peddler’s Bed between September 1, 2015 and September 1, 2016 to the Syracuse Rescue Mission. It’s easy to see why supporting the SRM is the right choice for me. If you’ve read The Peddler’s Bed, you know it’s all about kindness, caring, giving, and, of course, a warm bed.

Thank You!

If you’ve already purchased a copy of The Peddler’s Bed, thank you so much; you’ve joined with others to help provide food, clothing, shelter, hot showers, and warm beds to men, woman, and children in need.

It’s not too late to help. If you’d like to purchase a copy of The Peddler’s Bed, choose one of these links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

If you’d prefer to donate directly to the Syracuse Rescue Mission, click here, or search for a similar cause in your local area. Let’s put an end to hunger and homelessness for all people.

Final Final Cover

If A Book Is About A Bed, Does That Make It A Bedtime Book? Hmm…

My picture book The Peddler’s Bed is centered around a bed, but I never considered it a bedtime story. It could certainly be read at bedtime, but it wasn’t written with that in mind. When I think of bedtime stories, I think of books like Goodnight Moon or other soft, lyrical, lulling stories. I think I’m both right and wrong about that.

Wikipedia defines a bedtime story as a “traditional form of storytelling, where a story is told to a child at bedtime to prepare the child for sleep.” Most any picture book could be deemed a bedtime story under that definition. If you read your child a book before bedtime, any book, then you are reading a bedtime story. And that’s great! I believe reading to or with your child at bedtime strengthens the bond between you.

There are many picture books about nightime and/or going to sleep, but very few are focused on an actual bed. So for this post, I thought I’d share two recent titles I came across that, like The Peddler’s Bed, are all about the bed (and a few other characters).

In Simon’s New Bed, Simon the dog is overjoyed to get a new bed, but when he returns from going for a walk with his best friend, the boy, ready to take a nap, he discovers Miss Adora Belle the cat asleep in his brand new bed. He tries everything to get her to move. He howls. He barks. He drags the bed all over the house. He even begs. Nothing works. Finally, he has the answer. He asks if they can share. That’s just what they do. And the two nap happily together.

The bed in The Pirate’s Bed is a true character, a living, breathing character with emotions and longings. When a terrible storm destroys the pirates’ ship, the bed is lost at sea. It drifts along contentedly at first, glad to be away from the smelly, snoring pirate. But after awhile, despite the birds that would come to perch on it and the playful dolphins that swam around it, the bed felt lonely. Then one day, it washed ashore. It was discovered, fixed, and sold, and finally found happiness in the home of a boy who dreamed of pirates.

If you know any other picture books that feature beds, or if you’d like to weigh in on what you consider a bedtime story, please leave a comment.

For more information about my book The Peddler’s Bed, click here. How does my book compare to the two titles above? I think you will find all three to be very different.

Stop By And Say “Hi”: My SCBWI Book Launch Party Page #SCBWIparty

Click On This Photo To Go To My SCBWI Book Launch Party Page!

Children’s book authors who have been published this year have the great honor of being among the first to promote their books by creating Book Launch Party pages on the SCBWI website. The Book Launch Party initiative is a brand new promotional tool offered by the SCBWI to its members. Click on the image above to go directly to my party page. Once there, please Like the page and sign the guest book. Also, check for contests and explore the other links. Come party with me! 🙂

P.S. There are lots of other neat Book Launch Party pages to visit on the SCBWI site too!

Following My Book Through Processing: A Library Assistant’s Perspective

Final Final Cover

Being a Library Assistant at the DeWitt Community Library presented me with a unique opportunity that most authors do not get : I cataloged my own book, The Peddler’s Bed. This experience was extra special because The Peddler’s Bed is my very first book. I want to share the experience with you, through pictures.

A shipment of new books has arrived from Ingram via either FedEx or UPS.

The label on the outside of this box tells me it contains mostly children’s books and The Peddler’s Bed is one of them.

The box is unpacked along with other boxes and the contents are placed on one of the processing carts. My book hasn’t gotten to me yet; that comes a little later. (I pulled my book out a bit to make it easier for you to see.)

My processing counterpart, Linda, gets it next. She’ll do all the labeling and stamping. It already has the protective mylar covering the jacket. Look how shiny it is.

Linda added the spine label (I printed it!).

She stamped the name and address of the library, as well as the processing date, inside on the first page. You can see the order card in this picture too, paperclipped at the top.

Linda also placed the library barcode and a NEW sticker on the back cover, top left.

Now it’s my turn. My book is on my processing cart, ready to be added to the catalog. Can you see it?

Here’s a closer look. Can you see it now?

Here it is! It’s in good company. Do you recognize some of the other books nearby?

Okay, back to work. (So shiny!) Time to create an item record for my book.

Creating an item record is fairly simple. I log into Polaris, the integrated library system used by the library. I pull up the bibliographic record for The Peddler’s Bed. Then I attach an item record to the bib record. I do this by opening up an item record form and filling in the necessary information. (This picture shows the item record form.) I save the record and presto, just like that, we’re done. My book can now be searched for and found in the library’s catalog. (This has all been simplified so that I don’t bore you to death, but it really isn’t complicated.)

My book is now shelved and part of the library’s collection. Since it’s new, it’ll be shelved with the new picture books for a couple of months before it’s moved to its permanent position on the picture book shelves.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at where The Peddler’s Bed will be on the regular picture book shelves. Do you see it?

There it is! It fits in quite nicely between Alison Formento and Mem Fox.

And with that, a long held dream of mine has come true: I have a published book in the library. And it’s already been checked out several times since the beginning of October.

If you have any questions about processing or cataloging new library books or media, just ask. I’m happy to answer.

———————————————–

Another dream has come true as well: The Peddler’s Bed is on the shelf of my local Barnes & Noble! 🙂

20151007_152321

Emerging Author: Bits About Me (Plus a Giveaway!)

Today is exactly one month until the official release of my debut picture book The Peddler’s Bed on September 1! I’ve been counting down the months with special posts.

On June 1, I shared an interview with the super-talented illustrator of The Peddler’s Bed, Bong Redila. Kirkus Review said his “palette has the color and clarity of stained glass…”. I agree! His art is fantastic! And did you know that Bong is color blind! To read his interview, click here. (To read Kirkus Review’s positive review of The Peddler’s Bed, click here!)

On July 1, I posted an interview with Jami Gigot, the author and illustrator of Mae and the Moon, which releases on September 8. I was very pleased to interview Jami as both of our books are being published by Ripple Grove Press. Mae and the Moon has received several great reviews and I can’t wait to read it. To read Jami’s interview, click here.

This month, I thought it would be fun to share a few bits about my childhood with you, in pictures. (Maybe it’s more fun for me than for you, but I hope you enjoy it.)

I was born in 1971. Here’s me (on the right) with my dad, mom, and twin sister.

Here’s me at age 2 1/2. Am I too young to be thinking about writing yet? Probably. But the seed is in there somewhere, waiting to be cultivated. My grandmother was a writer and a self-taught poet, so I’m convinced I inherited the “writer’s” gene from her.

Here’s me at 4 years old. Am I thinking about writing now? I’m not sure, but I do know that we always had books in the house, so I’m definitely developing my book love.

I'm nearly 9 in this photo. I still look cute; what the heck happened to me?! Well, I'll spare you my awkward teen years. Trust me, you do not want to see those photos! :) (I really should burn them one of these days.)

Now I’m thinking about writing for sure. I’m nearly 9 in this photo and I love to write stories! (I’ll spare you my awkward teen years. Trust me, you do NOT want to see those photos!)

As I was going through a folder filled with old school papers and drawings I did as a kid (Thanks, Mom, for saving all of them!), I came across several books I had made. I loved making books! Sadly, my artistic skills are lacking, but A for effort, right?

The Purple Cow (Yes, that’s a cow and a jug of milk.)

The Pumpkin Patch Caper (Those look like squashed pumpkins, right?)

The Life of My Sam (It’s a cat on a chair, really it is.)

It makes sense that emerging authors would fall in love with writing at this age. We’ve already developed the ability to physically write. We’ve been exposed to books, hopefully at home as well as at school. And we’re participating in creative writing in class on a regular basis. At age 11, I was given an autobiography assignment in school. How much could an eleven-year-old have to write about her life? Surprisingly, quite a bit (all in cursive, I might add). And because I loved to write, I loved the assignment.

I still have that autobiography (thanks, Mom) and as I was rereading it, I discovered, in a section entitled “What I’ll Be Doing in 1998”, that I planned to be an author and that I wanted to write children’s books about animals. I hadn’t remembered writing that. When high school and adult life took over, I forgot my childhood aspirations and my life went in a different direction. But eventually, I circled back around to writing. I certainly wasn’t an author by 1998-it took more than a decade longer than that-but now I’m finally back where I belong, making books.

Do you know an emerging author?

If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it and taking a quick walk down memory lane with me.

Now for the giveaway:

In celebration of the release of my debut picture book The Peddler’s Bed on September 1, I am giving away a signed copy! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post! On September 1, I will choose a winner at random and announce it here on Frog on a Blog. Along with the book, I’ll be sending the winner 2 blank books to share with an emerging author or two, to help them get started writing and illustrating stories of their own. If you share this post on social media, and let me know in your comment that you did, I’ll give you an extra chance to win!

You may want to subscribe to my blog so that I can contact you via e-mail if you win. Subscribing brings every new blog post directly to you. You’ll receive book reviews, author and illustrator interviews, and lots more picture book fun right in your inbox. It’s easy to subscribe, just put your e-mail in the Subscribe box located in the sidebar to the right.

(Giveaway open to U.S. residents only)

{a rainbow of blank books waiting to be filled with the colors of imagination}

**I am also running a Giveaway on Goodreads from August 1 until September 1. Check it out for another chance to win a copy of The Peddler’s Bed!**

For more information about my book, click the My Books tab at the top of the page.

The Peddler’s Bed Is Now Available For Pre-Order On Amazon!

I am pleased as punch to announce that my first picture book The Peddler’s Bed (illustrated by Bong Redila and published by Ripple Grove Press) is available now for pre-order on Amazon! The official release date is not until September 1, 2015, but I couldn’t wait to share my happy news. Please click on the Amazon page below for more information.

Lauri Fortino's Frog On A (B)Log

Animals . Nature . Picture Books

My Books

All I Want For Christmas Is… Forgiveness For My Shameless Self Promotion

🙂 Happy Holidays! 🙂

A Labor Of Love: Harriet And The Little French Doll