Regular posting about The Pedal Turns the Crank is a goal for me, leading up to the unveiling of the pre-launch Kickstarter page, and I’ve been posting some of Khai’s rough art and writing about the project, but today it occurred to me that I could show how some of the design stuff for the Kickstarter is coming along, too.
After reading an article about how to get on podcasts at Jane Friedman’s website, I started putting together a one-sheet (aka press kit, aka media kit), following the tips in the article. So in the spirit of letting people see how things are going, even if they’re not finished yet, here’s what’s up this week on my end. I haven’t cut Khai’s bio down enough yet, and there’s some gibberish in it which is me typing key thoughts while he talked at Friday’s production meeting, but this will turn into what we send out to try to get the interest of bicycle podcasts, parenting influencers, family podcasts, book influencers, crowdfunding blogs…
I don’t think it’s focused enough yet, as a one-sheet. It’s more like book jacket copy, and I’m not sure how to better focus it, but we’re 1) maintaining momentum 2) consistently 3) in the right direction.
Which if you’re a bike person, you’ll recognize as the only way to get someplace you actually intended to go.
Khai showing off his notes from Friday’s weekly production meeting at the Danbury Hackerspace (where I base my print/ebook design company, Typeflow).
One of the throughlines in our Kickstarter kids’ picture book, The Pedal Turns the Crank, will be diversity of all kinds, with the common thread that everyone loves bicycles (and loves their families).
That means different kinds of families, different kinds of backgrounds, different kinds of locations, and everybody having adventures on bikes, with adults watching out for the children (who are the stars).
It also means different bike cultures. We’re not letting ourselves nail down exactly which bike cultures will be most featured yet (and there’s a big final spread where some of the things we couldn’t fit elsewhere can be allowed to flower), but what you’re looking at above is Khai’s notes from Friday’s weekly production meeting, showing our ideas for a rando spread!
“Rando” is (in the tiny little niche sport of randonneuring) short for “randonneuring.” It’s my sport, and I love it beyond reason. It’s endurance cycling over very long distances, self-supported (no follow vehicles, and rules about what kind of help you can and can’t get), and against the clock – but not racing. There’s a route you have to cover within a certain number of hours, checking in along the way at “controls” (checkpoints) along the way, which you have to reach within certain time windows.
One of the common types of control is a convenience store, where either you get a receipt (its timestamp will prove what time you were there) or have someone (the clerk, a club volunteer) sign and timestamp your “brevet card,” which you have to carry through the whole event.
The illustration we landed on is all about one of those convenience stores – likely a WaWa, though we probably can’t be explicit about that for trademark reasons – at 2am, where a rowdy little tribe of kid randonneurs is regrouping under the supervision of their adult(s), throwing away food wrappers, buying snacks, getting their brevet cards signed, lining up at the bathroom, taking naps on the concrete, and all the other things randos (and other children) do at convenience stores.
I originally had a different location in mind – a dirt road along a cornfield – but collaborating with Khai brought out a way better idea. We both love the visual element of headlight and taillight beams shining along the rough surfaces of walls and fences, where the bikes have been leaned. This is one of the little things I love when night riding, and he’s all about little insider details that will make the painting special.
KICKSTARTER UPDATE
The official Kickstarter page is under construction, still needs a video, a tight budget, rewards really nailed down, etc. Which is all lurching along, and will go live when I’ve got it all together. Until then, I’ll keep doing weekly “pre-launch buzz” blog posts after each production meeting, and I really hope you’ll keep checking in.
So first Fat Cyclist called me out, and then I called him out back, and then he missed his story deadline, and then I made my deadline for “The Rambler, Part 2,” and gave him more time and he got “Last Ride on the Kokopelli” done, and then November 30th at midnight, I missed my deadline for getting the whole book together and up for sale.
So…I can’t tell who won anything. I think we both lost—but we also both finished our stories, and I’m about to finish the book. That’s noble and honorable, right? Coming in under your own power after you miss the cutoff?
Here’s the cover:
It still needs its back cover and spine designed, a missing author blurb snagged, ISBNs registered, and some other stuff that somebody’s got to do and I’m the only one here. I tried. Sometimes N+1 is how long it’s going to take to finish a book.
Should be a couple more days or so.
We also never quite got around to agreeing on exactly what would happen if one of us lost, but now that both of us have, it seems to me it should be doubled.
So if we take [never really figured out this bet] and double it, we get…uh…well, I think we get “donate money to each other’s favorite charity.”
Keith Snyder 