Our First Review for Stubby Pencil Noodlehead is back!
Please follow the link to Kid Lit Reviews and see our 5 star rating!

http://kid-lit-reviews.com/2012/07/18/stubby-pencil-noodlehead-by-kevin-white/

We have ventured into the wonderful world of crowd-funding.
Basically, people contribute to your project (in our case it's book printing) and in return they get great rewards when the project is finished. It is a lot like per-ordering, but there are extra's offered too.
We have posted at two of the largest sites: Kickstarter, and Indiegogo.
Some very poor projects have been fully funded, and some very good projects have missed by a mile. I don't know the determining factor, but will post regular updates regarding the progress of our project.
Printing cost and distribution are two of the biggest obstacles for independent presses with 3-8 books in a two year span. This has definite potential to solve the printing cost difficulty.
For now, check out our projects at:  
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1590909946/chasing-watermelons-chimeric-press
or
http://www.indiegogo.com/chasingwatermelons?a=844926

Even if you can't contribute yourself, please share this with your friends and change the face of publishing today.

Anyone can write a story. Anyone can draw pictures. Everyone who does so, loves the stories and pictures they've created, and they should. I want to point out though, that even if they are very good, they are not necessarily professional, and ready for publication.This is the great evil of "self" publishing: Anyone with a story can have a book printed if they are capable of paying the "self-publishing" companies for their services.

Unfortunately, the true and stringent editing services that should be provided by these companies (resulting in multiple improved revisions of text) is counterproductive to their main goal: getting people's books into print quickly. All "self-publishing" companies who do not require you to improve your "good" story into a "professional" story, is merely a vanity press in disguise. Their greatest fear is that if they require too much of you, you will simply do business with a different company. So, they make it easy to produce a mediocre book, rather than difficult to produce a great one. The price is the same for them.

When you self publish, you have removed the natural quality filters that competition with other authors provides. Too often this results in lower quality books. Face it, big publishers aren't the only ones producing crappy books; very few self-published books reach the level of "professional". You can, however, overcome this problem. Probably the easiest thing to do is join a writers group where you can exchange manuscripts for revision suggestions. SCBWI has manuscript sharing, and a few of the comment contributors are very good.

If self publishers want to be taken seriously by other authors, publishers, and the consumer, it is vital that we be diligent and ever-mindful in our attempt to produce truly professional level material. Always expect the very best from yourself, then verify that it is as good as you think. Revise, revise, revise!