New book
 

I just finished my book after a year of work, called "You Can Draw!" I submitted it to the press yesterday! It has hundreds of illustrations in it, and introduces my "Line First" method of drawing. A CD which I produced with ten video demonstrations is included inside the cover. I am self-publishing through a local printer who is letting me produce a limited number for presentation to distributors and buyers. He has had some success this way, and I am very hopeful.

FYI -

I have found a publisher called 1st Books, which prints on demand. Their fee is $600, and for that they distribute through Ingram and Baker-something. They accept JPEG images and Word, unlike Northlight, which only allows 35mm and gives you no design or content control or rights. They provide ISBN and barcode, (a $400 value sparing me a real hassle) formatting and cover design, list with the five big .com booksellers, and list you on a database of 25,000 bookstores nationwide. You get 15%, and 50% through their website sales. They link your free website page to your own site for the 50% rate. They have a variety of additional promotional packages.

I am contented with this company, and will be ordering soon. With a distributor like Ingram handling my book, I can send it to book stores with confidence that they will not just pass it by. I do not have to spend anything after the initial fees.

Since I have done all the formatting and design, production will only be two months. The book price will be $19.95 with 1st Books without the CD. With CD, $39.95 through my own publishing company.

It is 190 pages with over 300 illuistrations. It is 11" x 8.25" with a perfect binding and glossy laminate cover.

Hello Lon,

I was following the thread in the Cafe section where you were discussing your working methods and so forth. I had a bunch of questions that I wanted to ask, but I never got around to posting them. Then I saw this post about your forthcoming book, so maybe I can get my answers by buying the book.

For at least forty years I've been wanting to try quick charcoal or pencil portraits in public. So why didn't I just go out and do 'em? I don't know. When I was in college I used to hang around with a guy who did these in pencil all the time. We'd go out to a bar, for example, and he'd just pull out his little sketchbook (or even take a paper napkin) and start drawing some girl he'd taken a fancy to. Before long someone would notice what he was doing and people would start looking, Sooner or later, either the girl would notice what he was doing, or somebody would tip her off, and she'd come over for a look. It was better than any pick-up line ever invented. 100% success ratio, and he never had to say a word. I guess I never tried it back then because it was his thing and I'd have felt like I was ripping off his "intellectual property".

The days are long gone when I could use such a skill for those purposes, but I'm still drawn to the idea. A couple of years ago I tried it at an outdoor party at an art gallery owner's home, but I was way too slow; everybody was moving around by the swimming pool etc. Then a year ago I started doing oil portraits. For my first one my subject was a young woman with whom I shared a 15 min. ferry commute across the San Francisco bay. I thought I'd sketch her during the ferry ride and work on the sketches from memory, and eventually get her to sit for me during the oil painting phase. That's more or less the way it went, except that I also supplemented things with photos since her schedule made it difficult to get her sometimes when I really needed to paint; but at least I had an idea of the pose I wanted by that time.

Trying to sketch on the ferry was excruciating for me. When people started looking over my shoulder I'd start sweating, and any questions or comments made me actually flinch. But it did result in a little commission job from one of the kibitzers. It had to be done from a B/W photo because that's the way they wanted it. Nevertheless, I talked them into upgrading($) to a little watercolor and they loved it. I think that if I could get enough down on paper really quickly I would cool down by the time I attracted attention and feel more confident. I'm probably going to suffer from the stage fright for a while anyway, but If I can get practiced and get a fast start at least it won't be life threatening.

So consider this a sale. If you're selling direct how can I order from you? Or is the book only going to be in bookstores? It wasn't clear to me from your post. If you're keeping a mailing list put me on it, please.

Thanks

Thank you so much for ordering a book. I am getting some tomorrow, and will send you one with a CD. Cynthia, I will cut you a percent if you like. Tell me how.

Congratulations, Lon
 

I'm delighted to hear that you've published your book. I always read your posts. Please put me on your buyers list (unless I see your book show up in the left-side column of the Forum - then, I guess I can just click on it to order it, right?)

John, I enjoyed reading about your public drawing experiences. I spent a few years drawing portraits in public spaces and I have a lot of respect for those like Lon who do it for a living. For one thing, it's an instant skin-thickener. There's nothing like an opinionated bystander to deliver the blood-curdling broadside. I feel the experience also helped me capture likenesses across a broad range of humanity.

But - to be both good and fast - that is so darned hard to do well. Every day that I drew portraits in public, I would lose 2 or 3 pounds. Not exactly sure why, but I think it had to do with making thousands of small decisions within a relatively short period of time. None of the decisions were "important" ones in the grand cosmic scheme of things but the brain still had to actually function.

Unfortunately I would gain those pounds right back again, but nevertheless... .

A new marketing angle for you: "You Can Achieve Quick Weight Loss and Draw At The Same Time!". An instant best seller.

In response to your suggestion, Steven, you have to order driectly from me now until it comes out on all the .coms in March. The book is marketed with a CD for $39.95 + $4.00 shipping. I print it in lots of twenty until it comes out. It is a spiral bound edition, printed locally by a printer in town. You can purchase it on your credit card through PayPal.com, with my email address as the recipient, ([email protected]) or just send a check to:

Lon Haverly
438 Brookside Drive
Eugene, OR 97405

I just finished the final corrected PDF files for my publisher. After I sign off on it, which will be in a day or two, it takes 30 days to get to the market! But I am having a delightful time of seeing this all play out. One of our local TV anchors is going to interview me in March when it gets to the .coms. The University bookstore wants me to do a book signing.

It is especially rewarding when I see others benefit. I never thought I would finish it. I am so glad I did.

When the book comes out, you can buy it through the major book .coms (Borders, Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks & Amazon) for $19.95 or direct from me with the CD offer as it is for $39.95. If you purchase the book from 1stbooks.com, I recieve a 50% royalty rather than the 15% thru the others. 1stbooks.com has over 12,000 books in print in their library all of which can be e-books as well. Of course, I hope to be in the SOG bookstore, too.

Hi Lon,

You may have noticed that I didn't mention the CD on the thread in the drawing critique section. That's because it won't play on my brand new iMac. It comes up in Power Point, but all I get for lesson 1 is something that looks like "Lavender Mist" by Jackson Pollack! It may be some setting on the computer that needs to be changed, but I haven't had a chance to play with it. I just thought I'd pass that along in case you find that people running Macs with OS X have problems.

The other thing is that I've had a hard time finding Staedler 4B leads. I found some labelled 4H, but since I don't understand the nomenclature (neither did the clerk in the art supply store) and they were $12 for a little box, I didn't get any. It doesn't matter for now because I've switched to drawing in charcoal, but I figured they'd be a common item. Is there some specialty source for those leads? Probably a dumb question, but I'm ignorant!

Linda,

That's a brilliant book suggestion!

I'm running two different Macs, one OS9 and one OSX, and I'd assumed that I wouldn't be able to use the CD, based on a related discussion about this book, in an earlier thread that for the life of me I cannot locate. Sorry.

Lon, I realize you're well into production (and that this issue has already been discussed -- "somewhere"), but if in future editions you can address the Mac compatibility issue, you'd undoubtedly increase sales significantly, as Macs are traditional favorites of a lot of art and graphics practitioners.

As it happens, some left-brained infidels around the house have laptops with "IBM" or something on them, so I'll likely be able eventually to view the CD(s), but it'd be great to have access for Macs built in.

You can actually run the video files on the Mac, but some features may not work such as the wav files. I have stated on the CDs that they are made for PCs. Sorry for you Mac users. You should be used to it by now. ;)

Future CDs will be much better, done in MPEG4 which is compatible with Macs. This was my first effort, and I did not know which type of MPEG format would be best to use. It isn't bad, and really does make learning to draw easier when you can actually see how the method works. Also, I will be having them copied by Sony located here in Eugene when things really get rolling. I am meeting with a multi-media specialist next week who is going to produce some new videos and DVDs for future lessons which I hope to run on TV somewhere with the episodes available on DVD and/or CDs.

I will gladly supply new CDs for you Mac users which I will have available soon in the near future. I will announce them here when they are available.

This first CD is geared more for the beginner. It has a segment for setting up a good drawing environment which reduces distortion, pencil exercises, diagrams of the head in the profile and front view, three views of the head and the respective differences in proceedures for the views, and segments drawing on eyes, noses, and mouths.

The future CDs will be primarily completed portraits in ten minutes with voice over highlighting the line first method and pencil techniques which make portrait drawing and drawing in general easy.

I have also a pastel CD completed, however it is done the very same format as the first, which is not inter-platform. I contains two completed pastel portraits.

John, you should be able to find the leads and lead holders at a university book store, or where art supplies are sold. Some artists use hard leads, I prefer soft. I do not like sharpening the wood pencils. The holder leaves the lead round, and saves time. You would be amased at how much time I have spent sharpening wood pencils in my life. It could number in the weeks, or maybe more!

Leads
 

Lon,

I was able to get the 4B leads at another store. When I tried them out I discovered they can produce a lot darker values with a lot less pressure than those pencils. I was wondering why my drawings looked so light! These leads are a lot better than the pencils, besides being easier to use.

I also discovered that three of the art supply stores I used to go to have disappeared. That seems odd in an area where there are three major art schools and a large number of artists.