Category Archives: Thoughts on Building a Book

Kind Words

A few weeks ago, I received an order from someone I’ve never met for several copies of The Cabins of Wilsonia.

It is always good to know how people find the book, so I asked this customer. Here is what she said:

I had been reading about your book project for awhile in the Wilsonia Times newsletter. We hadn’t been able to get to the cabin for a few years, but we were finally able to go last week. Someone bought a copy of your book to keep at the cabin and that is where I read it, which was perfect.

I love the writing and the sketches are exquisite. I like how you combined sketches of cabins with architectural details and elements of the natural surroundings. It really captures the essence of Wilsonia. I ordered a copy for myself and some for my daughters and for friends who enjoy going up there with us. Thank you so much for taking on that project and executing it so beautifully.

Aw shucks. Thank you, Lisa! Thank you for appreciating the variety in the drawings, all the efforts I put into showing details and backgrounds and getting people to tell me about their cabin experiences. My goal was to “capture the essence of Wilsonia”, and it means a ton to me that the book does that for you!

More Chairs

But wait! There’s more. . . chairs, that is.

There are several reoccurring themes in the book, but we’ll continue to focus on chairs for awhile.

A blog reader might reach the conclusion that folks in Wilsonia just sit around.

Brings to mind something my weird old uncle said once: “I can only sit in one chair at a time”. Brilliant observation, Uncle!

Learning From Wilsonia, Part V

While working on The Cabins of Wilsonia, I took 2 friends for a short driving tour of the cabins. One of them laughed at me when I said for the fifth or sixth time, “This is my favorite cabin!” She wondered how many cabins could possibly be my favorite.

There was a pattern. All of my favorites had shingle siding. Have a look at a few:

Look what happened to my own drawing studio as a result:

My studio as it looked while I was working on the book.

My studio as it now looks.

If you would like to see my studio and 14 others in Three Rivers alone, Saturday and Sunday, April 14-15, is the South Valley Artists Studio Tour.

For tickets: http://www.artsconsortium.org/sovast

Learning From Wilsonia, Part IV

While self-publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia, I learned new skills, which equipped me for new experiences, added fantastic people to my life, and discovered some new places.

Well duh. Wilsonia itself was a new place in my life. The first time I remember going there is the first time I went to spend some time in order to decide if this was a project worth pursuing. And it is right here in Tulare County, where I have lived my entire life, minus a few misguided years during college.

These are the two cabins where I stayed while becoming familiar with Wilsonia’s roads, cabins and people

I had no idea how big the place was! 212 cabins, 29 roads, 100 acres!

It gave me the chance to become more familiar with Kings Canyon National Park, particularly the Grant Grove area. Most of my mountain time is spend in Mineral King, on the Sequoia end of the parks.

Learning From Wilsonia, Part III

Self-publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia led me to new skills, experiences, people, and places.

As with most things in life, it comes down to people. Think about jobs you’ve had: if you are like me, you have probably learned that it is better to do difficult and unpleasant tasks with great people than to do good jobs with awful people.

Publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia was a great project with fantastic people. I took very few people photos while working on the book, but here is a little peek at a few of the folks who influenced, assisted, and added joy to the project.

Learning From Wilsonia, Part II

The new skills I acquired by publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia led to these experiences:

Editing, photo-editing, designing, and publishing with Louise A. Jackson Trail of Promises, the account of a stock party’s attempts to complete the John Muir Trail.
Designing, drawing and publishing five coloring books for grownups: Heart of the Hills, Heart of Mineral King, Heart of Exeter, Heart of the Parks, and Heart of Agriculture.
Editing, photo-editing, designing, and publishing with Louise A. Jackson the second edition of The Visalia Electric Railroad: Stories of the Early Years.

Almost all of those books are available for sale on the Books page of my other website.( It is slow to load because of all the images – don’t give up!)

Learning From Wilsonia, Part I

Publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia filled my life with new skills, experiences, people, and places.

Look at this list of skills:

Using a laptop – before this project, my sole computer experience was on desktops.
Preparing pencil drawings using a scanner, a real scanner, not just a bargain print/fax/scan/copy thing that sounds like a deal until it needs ink (a week after you buy it).
Adobe Photoshop Elements – Adobe is completely non-intuitive to this Apple-girl. Elements is the “easy” version of Photoshop. . . fall down laughing.
Adobe InDesign – even now, seven years after beginning the book, each time I open up InDesign to begin a new project, it feels almost as if I have never seen the program before. I say that I “learned” to use it, but those lessons were hard won and hard to hang onto.

Next time, you’ll see a list of what these skills led me to.

The Blog Awakens From a Coma

The Cabins of Wilsonia was published and arrived in December, 2014. After about a year, this blog went into a coma. A series of phishy sounding emails arrived, which caused me to make one of those long-waits-on-hold type of phone calls, and as a result, this blog has been revived!

Just over 3 years after receiving the book, I’m happy to resume writing about it.

I sold enough to cover my expenses; thank you for asking.

Many of the original drawings remain; again, thank you for asking. You may email me at cabinart at cabinart dot net (written that way for web security purposes) if you are interested in a particular cabin drawing. Why email? Because the contact form is not working, and I’d rather write a blog post than make another one of those long-waits-on-hold type of phone calls.

(Yes, I assume a great deal about the thoughts of my readers. Don’t worry–I am not a mind-reader.)

There are still books available, now at the bargain price of $50, including tax and mailing (in the USA only). This is the page for that transaction.

The process of publishing the book was HUGE. It took four years, and in another post I will list the things that came out of the experience.

To Frame or Not To Frame

272 pencil drawings are a lot to frame, so I’ve only been selling them unframed.

Framing is tricky business. People may not like the frame choice, the mat size, the mat color, or even the mat style. Mats can get fancier than the art if one is not careful, and that would overpower the simplicity of pencil very quickly.

However, I have several events coming this spring, two that involve The Cabins of Wilsonia.

A book signing in Three Rivers at the Historical Museum with my good friend and local historian/author Louise Jackson. Seems to me that a few framed originals will enhance our display.
A show at the Visalia Convention Center. It is a juried show, which means someone decides which pieces are in and which are not. This is a little nerve-wracking, but it is part of the business of art. I will enter 5 of the Wilsonia drawings, the ones that really stand out to me as exceptional (So how do you choose your favorite children??) Ahem. These are drawings that I am proud of and already had frames and mats to fit.

Doesn’t it feel good to tell the truth?

You can see the latest ones added to my website on this page: Original Wilsonia Drawings. If you use the Sort by newness button, you will see the latest ones.

Here is a sneak peek. However, if you have a copy of the book, you will have already seen this. This version is enhanced. If I had printed the book with this sort of enhancement, the price would have tripled! It would have looked mighty fine, but I took price into consideration when making those decisions.

Flagged Cabin #1, framed and matted to 11×14, $250

A Typo Psycho Takes a Personal Hit

The Cabins of Wilsonia, available on Amazon

I hate and despise typographical errors. They pop up EVERYWHERE, and strike me between the eyes in library books, menus, signs, business cards, and websites. It isn’t always that people are typing wrong; it seems that fewer people notice or care about spelling.

It isn’t possible to successfully proofread one’s own writing or typing, because one knows what one meant to write and thus, that is what one sees. By “one”, I mean me.

So, I enlisted the help of 3 other readers. Four of us proofread The Cabins of Wilsonia. All four of us are vigilant about typos. I felt very very certain that my book would be the exception to the current sloppy way that things are printed.

My mom has been reading The Cabins of Wilsonia. She asked me if there is a prize for finding a typo.

I was gobsmacked, stunned, and horrified when she pointed out one to me. It was bound to happen, and I find it fun that my very own mama found it.

She showed me the word. I typed the book. I know how to spell. That word was mis-typed and misspelled. It is a true typographical error.

A foul word may have escaped my lips. Then we laughed and laughed and laughed.

I am my mother’s daughter. We are typo psychos! I am also my father’s daughter. He often said, “It is better to laugh than to cry.”