Please be aware of Amazon’s policy of allowing third-party book re-sellers to claim featured status in the ‘BUY BOX’ by promoting third-party bidding to “win” the spot – negating the author/publisher’s listed price, forcing it to be pushed into the barely noticeable “More Buying Choices” option that is rarely noticed by consumers.
The effect is that when a consumer goes to a book’s sale page, the first option to buy in each format may not feature the book’s publisher’s offer, but rather, a 3rd party seller!
I do not want my book to be over-priced. For this reason, while I will continue to sell on Amazon.com, I am now promoting Barnes&Noble, where Archie Finds His Voice will be reliably sold for its proper listed price of $12.99 for the soft cover and $19.99 for the hard cover. IF you prefer to shop Amazon.com, please remember to check the “More Buying Choices” section.
All the boxes are checked. The book is published. Now, marketing and advertising and publicity, OH MY! After much odd weighing and nail biting, reading a post stating that “a bad Kirkus book review is like a rite of passage,” I took the plunge. After all, Kirkus book review has been a ‘go-to’ respected reviewer for the past 90 years! Just the experience of the submission was worth the potential squashed heart.
My illustrated children’s book, Archie Finds His Voice, was submitted. Up to 3 months for feedback. My take from that was heavy on the “up to,” meaning that it could also mean “tomorrow.” So each day, I’d hold my breath checking my email for the anticipated letter. It came, (3 months later), and I still have pinch marks! And filled with excitement, encouragement, and humility.
Kirkus Book Review,
A young guinea fowl heads off to find his way in the world in this debut rhyming picture book.
Archie is now old enough to leave the safety of his mother’s care. As the bird wanders on his own for the first time, he has fears and worries, but he knows he can always go home by following the moon and looking for a “bright tree” landmark. As Archie struggles “to be strong,” he questions the appeal of his “screech” and wonders if he’ll find any friends. Luckily, he encounters new, helpful pals at every turn—including a squirrel, a groundhog, a pheasant, and an owl—and each has a trait, like Archie’s screech, which makes them distinctive. In this work, Dworetz-Sofarelli encourages children in rhythmic, rhyming verses to accept themselves for who they are. The story’s messages of self-appreciation are consistently clear, whether they …
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I am so thankful for all of the amazing and positive feedback that ‘Archie Finds His Voice’ has gotten. It is honestly extremely humbling.
So, here is the favor …
I am working very hard to get Amazon book reviews. It’s really important because Amazon has it’s own algorithm system that ranks books, and the more reviews(hopefully good) a book receives, the more the book can be discovered, ordered and read by others.
If you have read the book, and would be willing to spare just two or three minutes, would you be willing to share your honest review on Amazon(if you haven’t done so already)?
And, if you’ve already left a review of the book, thank you SO much! I can’t thank you enough!
I really appreciate all your support! You guys rock!
I just had the pleasure of watching a wonderful piece on a remarkable young man, Jory Fleming, on the Sunday Today Show. Jory lives with several disabilities, or should I say “different abilities,” including autism. He completed his Bachelor of Science at the University of South Carolina , and went on to be a Rhodes Scholar at The University of Oxford. With his service dog, Daisy, beside him, Jory takes on raising awareness about disabilities and differences and speaks openly about his way of seeing the world and the open communication that is at the heart of tolerance – not only talking and expressing ourselves effectively, but also listening and taking the time to acknowledge the opinions of others.
“I think being able to recognize someone who thinks differently, who processes the world differently, who has a different understanding and position when it comes to emotion can maybe help us to think, you know, what does it mean for someone to be different? And I think that each person is incredibly valuable because of the difference and because of the unique attributes and qualities that each person has and is able to then share with others.” – JORY FLEMING
Posts and images have temporarily slowed down while my illustrator, Rasel Rana, knocks out a fever and illness that has temporarily rendered him out of commission.
Please join myself, Archie and his friends in wishing Rasel a speedy recovery so that he can get back to feeling like himself and the artwork that he is so passionate about! Rasel, we can’t wait to see what you have in store for us as Archie and his friends are brought to life!
Check out the post below with a direct link to Rasel and his portfolio page 🙂
Apropos to the storyline, I have been thoroughly enjoying the process of working with several talented people on this project; hailing from many corners of the world, each contribute their own special expertise to help the book come to fruition. While I truly appreciate everyone involved, there is one person that I would like to highlight here. Without him, my picture book would lack the illustrations that are breathing life and emotion into my story.
I have had the pleasure and privilege to work with my very talented illustrator, Rasel Rana. Rasel is the one responsible for making my thoughts look good! He lives in Bangladesh … just about literally half way across the world from my home in New York, but there is not a bit of distance in cohesion between my words and conception, and the way Rasel weaves and connects his visual narrative throughout my story. I am beyond grateful that our paths have crossed.
Beginning the day we (myself, my wife, two dogs … and Archie, lol) got settled into our new home the story of Archie started to unfold. With the arrival of each animal, adding their own uniquity, the story took constant twists and turns. It was QUITE apparent from the get-go that Archie ran the yard. It became a joke in the house that Archie would draw this group of animals to our backyard, whom all seemed so comfortable together, as if his piercing cackle yelled out the GPS coordinates! It wasn’t until he left one day for good, very soon followed by the others, that we truly realized that what we had questioned and joked about was in fact, truth. Nature cohabitating in all its wonderment! The story though … my story … at this point, was caught between wild prophesizing and a dead-end bewilderment.
The yard remains beautiful and active with a broad variety of wildlife which we enjoy and are grateful for. But the “personality” of the yard created by Archie and his friends has been an unfillable void.
Fast forward two years …
The story of Archie, still always present in my head; and we are in the midst of doing a large upstairs renovation on the house. Unable to live in the house during the work, it was by great fortune that my in-laws were gracious enough to loan us their beautiful motor home as our temporary shelter and sanity during the construction. So, the four of us (Leslie, myself and our two dogs) lived in the motor home in our driveway for three months.
Being that we were still at a very active point in the pandemic, I was home a lot more than usual. Between the comfy living quarters, perfect for creative processing, and the fact that we were literally parked and living on the edge of what had been Archie’s hangout, the words in my head soon began to find their way to paper. Lots of paper! Big pieces of paper. Tiny pieces of paper. Literally anything that would hold ink at the moment a thought came to mind, became my part of my collection to eventually be pieced together.
It was during this time that I discovered and began to appreciate Archie’s true purpose. Archie Finds His Voice, and I found the real story waiting to be told.
Our home during construction and think-tank hotel on wheels!
