Note - The illustration above is "Lorm" from Kate Buss' delightfully creative and hilarious book of lovable monsters titled: The Book of Monsters From A to Z: A Field Guide by Professor Edelgeezer. Here's a look at the "L is for Lorm" passage:
L’ is for the Lorm
A Lorm is the name that I would call, the laziest
monster of them all. He mostly sleeps on a rock all
day, and waits for bugs to fly his way.
Look for more collaborations between us and Ice Cream Fine Storybooks and stay tuned for a few events this summer involving books and ice cream. Heck, maybe sooner with the way Chicago weather has been lately!
Quote of the Month
"I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it’s much harder to start writing later, in middle age, struggling on a book around a full-time job and family."
- Toni Morrison
"Oh Mother How Funny" and "Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake" Reviewed on "Where the Board Books Are"
Shoutout to one of our Minnesota Author + Illustrator duos for their children's board books receiving a positive review over on Where the Board Books Are. Way to go, Vicki and Kristie!
Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake is available in our bookstore. Oh Mother How Funny is currently out of stock, but if you're interested in ordering a copy (or two) sometime in the future, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at library@longoverduestories.com
Colin Jost, Head Writer at SNL,
Offers Helpful Writing Insights in his Memoir
Not one that we published, but really enjoyed this book from Colin Jost, the Head Writer and Weekend Update Co-Host on Saturday Night Live. Here's a blog post with 5 of the most helpful insights for writers. Eh, we'll throw one in here to entice you to read the whole blog post.
Quantity Leading to Quality / Improvement
"I wrote more than anyone else because I wanted to improve as fast as I could.
I submitted dozens of pieces for every issue, and even if only a couple made it into the magazine, I was still learning from all the rejections, too. My thought process was always: Keep writing new stuff. Don't worry about what gets accepted or rejected. Just keep moving forward and keep improving."
Mark Your Calendars:
Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest is Back on Sept. 7 & 8th!
We had a blast exhibiting at our very first Printers Row Lit Fest last year. We setup two tables right next to each other, one showcasing our entire library, the other dedicated entirely to the Safe Landing authors.
Big goal for this year: I want to do a full tent! Or half a tent. Nothing wrong with the tables, but hey, why not go bigger in Year 2? Will share updates along the way, because September's gonna be here before ya know it.
Preparing for Every Possible Scenario
Any San Francisco 49ers fans (or Chiefs haters) feel free to look away...
Okay, quick recap. Super Bowl overtime, the 49ers won the coin toss but decided to take the ball first. This would've absolutely made sense with the old overtime rules because, back then, if you scored a touchdown first, the game was over. You win.
But with the new rules, both teams get a chance to score. Even if the first team scores a touchdown. So, if you win the coin toss, it makes more sense to play defense first because -- when your offense does get the ball -- they'll know if they need to get a field goal or a touchdown. And also have a "use all four downs" mentality.
The Chiefs were ready for this scenario. They have an assistant coach on staff who ran through this exact situation repeatedly with the players all season long to make sure they were ready. But on the 49ers side, several of the players even admitted afterward not knowing about the new rule.
One of the Chiefs players said their motto is "Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance." I like that. And this is where I'm making a medium-sized jump back into the world of publishing. In today's self-publishing landscape, nothing is preventing an author from uploading all their files on their own. Amazon has DIY uploading options. Ingram too. Diggypod. The list goes on. There's software like Vellum, too, that does a really good job formatting the interior of a book pre-upload.
But there's almost always an overtime "coin toss" surprise in that final uploading stage. The dimensions are off. Spacing doesn't look quite right. Some of the text isn't going to fit on the spine. Is this PDF no bleed or with bleed? This is where we advocate for a book designer in your corner who is ready for all of these situations and won't be rattled or surprised by any of the digital proofs. It's a comforting feeling to not be on your own and to have an expert who's prepared for the big moment.
"I say always take the ball first.
Speaking of which, how 'bout some fetch?
- Crash, Team Dog
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue is a tie between our monthly newsletter and our Instagram page. If you enjoy this newsletter and know someone who might enjoy it as well, let us know, we'll make sure to add them to our subscriber list. We also got back on Facebook recently, you can follow us here.
And check out our website - Long Overdue Books. Long Overdue Books is a community for creating books. It's a place for authors (and soon-to-be-authors), readers, editors, artists, and designers to come together and move their stories from ideas to finished books.
Also, if you have any questions, ideas, stories to tell, you can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
