Literacy Month Celebration

Glenstantia Library, Wednesday 11 September:

The Glenstantia Library is holding Literacy Month celebrations this coming Wednesday, from 15h to 18h.  Features include a young South African author speaking about his latest release; and P’kaboo Publishers speaking to an audience of school children and teachers about what we do, how we go about e-publishing and what paperback publishing entails; our books and our authors; and the competitions we have running currently.

Thank you to Therese Els for organising this!

(Image:  Library User Group, and audience at the launch in December)

Glenstantia Library and Literacy Month

Glenstantia Library, who hosted our launch in December, contacted me to see if we can't do something together for Literacy Month.  They are launching a new author and it was suggested I join forces and bring our books.  I'm off to discuss with them this morning.

This is like an answered prayer.  I can use every bit of logistic and practical help I can get, with promotions.

As I was picking up kids from school yesterday I noticed a headline, along the lines that "South Africa barely reads any books".  I had to smile.  It's no amazing new revelation; but the timing is great.  Someone is creating awareness for books.  This falls right into the time frame for our Facebook contest, our Teen writing contest and our ebooks schools giveaway.

A spacious, modern library - and so is their attitude.  (Img from launch in December)

The P'kaboo Share Contest is LIVE!

Inviting all friends and fen of P'kaboo and its authors to a share-extravaganza.

The contest works like this:

1) Go to this page

2) Click on one of the books to go to its feature page

3) If you click on the book's cover you can read a preview; optional.  Clearly people who have already read the books will know if they want to share them.

4)  Click the "FB SHARE" button!  (And while you're at it, the Tweet button and the Like button, and...)

-->  Every one of the 7 titles in the contest is trying to collect 50 shares - at 50 shares, the actual ebook becomes available for 100 (and only 100) free downloads.  

This means, everyone wins!  But once an ebook is open for downloading, you may want to hurry and get your copy - before they are gone.

The first round closes on 1 October - if a book hasn't made 50 shares by then, sorry...  no free downloads of that book.

Second round:

For those who love to write something:  

Submit a reader's review of any of the books you've read during the contest (you are of course not limited to one title!).  

3 lucky reviewing readers get to win an author-signed paperback copy of the book of their choice. 

P'kaboo has a Facebook Page

It's finally up.    Here it is:

https://www.facebook.com/pkaboo.net

And many many thanks to Marie, from Kvenna Rad, for putting content up there.  She's been busy as a bee, doing everything from updating the header pic and avatar to keeping the flow of ideas happening.  And Paul from Bookseeker Agency, our partner in UK, created the collage of titles that is now the page header.  (Image above)

We did already have the P'kaboo Book Club going, for quite a while.  That was once I had enough titles; before which there was (and is still) the Solar Wind fan club group.  I like groups better as people can interact better (and they do).

Well, those of you who enjoy Facebook, come and play!  :)  There are books to be discussed in the Book Club, and very cute posts on the Page.

Bookseeker Agency and Letterpress Cafe

http://bookseekeragency.com/

Our partner in UK, Bookseeker Agency

A highly creative literary agency who visits lots of book events in Scotland.  Bookseeker is the agent through whom we acquired "Lupa" and "Naked in the Sea" by Marie Marshall; apart from which, he represents our books overseas and facilitates them being channelled into libraries, book stores, reading corners and events.  

Bookseeker and P'kaboo have in common that we both aim to launch new authors and bring new books to the reader.

Letterpress Cafe

This is a young establishment that prints very beautiful things on a genuine old letterpress machine.  The machine has been revived, partially by the inclusion of custom-created parts where spares were not available.  It works like a dream.

The owner, Bernhard "Irthling", is a highly successful graphic designer (and one of our book cover designers).  In conventional printing, often things take a wrong turn between the designer and the printer.  Not so at Letterpress Cafe, where the designer also takes care of the printing, to give his client exactly what is needed.

We wish Letterpress Cafe all the best success and will be making use of them!

A few updates

Projects:

Immy:  The Immy project is by now available in Durban.  Please contact Leslie Hyla Winton Noble to purchase a high-quality copy of the multimedia story (complete with Peter-and-the-Wolf-style specifically composed background music) of a small girl's adventures with a dragon.

A new Magic Circle novel is also in process by our children's author, Leslie Hyla Winton Noble.  

A YA novel by the enigmatic Marie Marshall is under progress.  

The rest of the projects, as per our news page on the website.

Associations:

Bookseeker Agency (our associates in Scotland) have updated their site.  Have a look here.

P'kaboo Web Updates:

Our website gets updated in sporadic gusts.  Most of it is now in its new shape; however we are still conceptualizing how best to present you with author bios and book feature pages, as we want to update those too.  

The News page will mostly contain larger news items, such as launches etc.  Smaller updates are blogged here.

Still looking for Free Shortstories

Available in the Bookshop

There are still quite a number of people who try to link directly to the short-stories that were on display on our Freestuff page, last year.

The stories have been collected into the album, "Mercury Silver".  The stories that remain on Freestuff, are stories that are displayed elsewhere for free and have been on Freestuff long before the project of Mercury Silver.

If you are an author, you are welcome to submit shortstories or other items specifically for inclusion on our Freestuff page; however the stories in Mercury Silver were submitted for publication, and only displayed for free for a limited time period to raise reader interest.

If someone directed you to a short-story that is no longer on Freestuff, consider supporting its author by buying a copy of the ebook "Mercury Silver".  It is really not expensive, and you'll get your full enjoyment value out of these stories.

We'll do it again:

We are planning to run another such project, perhaps for something else than short-stories, later this year or perhaps early in 2014. Watch this space. ;)

Updating the website

We're updating the website.  Especially pleased with the little slide show on the home page!   We also have a page on which you can post a review.  

This is a long slow process (updating) and we value your patience, but we're definitely making inroads.

In the meanwhile have fun on our links page reading all those author blogs!

Note about Submissions

Anyone who wants to submit should please email info@pkaboo.net rather than the submissions email, as we are experiencing slight difficulties.

If your submission was overlooked, please accept our apologies and resubmit.

Regards
TheTeam

December 20, Launch of Lupa, Forest Circle Quest and Freedom Fighter at Glenstantia Library

Lovely daylilies brought by the librarian for the authors :)

Glenstantia is a spacious, modern library.  The atmosphere is beautiful; calm, organized. Foreground:  P'kaboo's books- with the 3 launch titles taking centre stage.

Small but bespoke audience.  Foreground:  The Library User Group leadership of the library.  Background:  Lovely guests, supporters, fans...  standing up: The Head Librarian Therese; yours truly; and avid young reader Robin.

The launch titles from another angle

Forest Circle Quest.  Note the sherry glass...

Speaking about each of the titles.  Note the laptops on the table.  Both distant authors were in the room via technology; Leslie Hyla Winton Noble by Skype video - though the storm in Pretoria as well as the storm in Durban messed with the reception and he often looked like something by Van Gogh.  Marie Marshall was present on Skype Chat.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signing.