Molly Crabapple to Speak at SXSW & NYC Comic Con

Molly Crabapple will be a panelist at this year's SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas March 13th through March 17th.

She will also be signing book at this weekend's NYC Comic Con at the Javit's Center, February 6th through 8th.

2008 Calendar Sale!

We've slashed the price of our 2008 Calendar from $15.00 to $10.00

They're even cheaper if you buy multiples: 2 for $18.00 or 3 for $24.oo

And for a limited time, anyone who orders 2 copies of Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book will receive 2 FREE calendars.

Order now while supplies last!

Molly's Book Signing at Comic Con

Molly will be signing copies of Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book at the Last Gasp booth (#1616) on Saturday July 28th from 3-5 pm. Stop by to if you are at the convention!

Dr. Sketchy's Comic Con Party

The San Diego City Beat is going to write up the Dr. Sketchy's Party at Comic Con, which was also just mentioned in The San Diego Beat.

Molly and I are both going to be at Comic Con, so if you're around please say hello.

Comic Con 2007

Exciting news: Molly and I will be at Comic Con this year, and Molly is throwing a big Comic Con after party for the launch of Dr. Sketchy's San Diego.

If you're going to be in San Diego for the con, stop by the party:

7:45pm - 9:45pm
The Bluefoot Lounge
3404 30th Street
San Diego, CA 92104

Molly will also be signing copies of Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book at the LAST GASP booth at Comic Con.

Dr. Sketchy's in the News (God, aren't you just sick of it already?)

More new, awesome features of Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book. This time on Venus Zine (one of my favorite magazines) and on Needled.com (a fantastic body art site).

If you're like me, you are just sick of hearing about all this media attention Molly has gotten. No one likes hearing about how popular other people are. Friends keep congratulating me on all of the coverage, like I had something to do with it.

Nada.

All of this amazing coverage is the result of Molly busting her butt -- emailing and calling every editor, writer, and blogger she can -- to get her book featured or reviewed. She deserves all the credit. The only smart thing I did was sign her up for a book deal.

This is instructive for both authors and publishers. Success in the future of book publishing (especially for what the industry calls "midlist") is going to rely heavily on the author's ability to self-promote.

The reasons for this are many, and not entirely (or even mostly) the publisher's fault. A lot of this has to do with our current level of media over-load, and our personality-obsessed culture -- neither of which publishers can control (so stop blaming them for everything!).

Publishers would be smart (when dealing with midlist authors and small print-run books in the future) to reconsider their level of internal spending on marketing versus the small amount of financial support that could help the author build his or her own empire. These could be small things, like helping them build a simple website, printing postcards or stickers they can hand out everywhere they go, splitting costs on local tours.

We can't top-down publish every book.

Dr. Sketchy's on BoingBoing

BoingBoing just posted a write-up on Dr. Sketchy's. And within minutes of that post, we sold a book. Thanks, BoingBoing! (the check is in the mail)