Penguin Cha-Cha Release Day

Today is my Book Release Day! Penguin Cha-Cha has hit the store shelves. Send me a photo if you find my book in your store or library. I'll be heading to Barnes & Noble tonight to see it there in the wild!

Dance on over to Tara Lazar's blog to read a guest post I did on illustrating my own manuscript versus illustrating other authors' manuscripts. Comment on that post for a chance to win a Penguin Cha-Cha prize pack! And then check back here in the coming weeks for other places to win.

If you buy Penguin Cha-Cha, you can still send me a self-addressed stamped envelope and I'll send you a signed bookplate with your name on it, a magnet, a sticker, and a bookmark. (Kristi Valiant, PO Box 8211, Evansville, IN 47716)

Happy Birthday to my dancing penguins! Let's all eat some chocolate! (You know you were looking for an excuse to anyway.)

Illustration Friday: Rescue

Swag giveaway

My picture book, Penguin Cha-Cha, comes out in 2 weeks, and I have some fun swag for you! 

If you pre-order the book from online or your local bookstore, send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope and I'll stuff your envelope with a signed bookplate to stick in your book (it's a way to autograph your book without me needing the actual book). Tell me who you want the book signed to. I'll also throw in a bookmark, magnet, and sticker. Yay!

Send to:

Kristi Valiant

PO Box 8211

Evansville, IN 47716

Please let others know too. Thanks and happy reading!

International SCBWI Conference in LA

Thank you, Lin and Steve, for creating SCBWI! I drew Lin Oliver, Steve Mooser, and their grandbabies in my Penguin Cha-Cha book to thank them for the marketing grant for that book and all SCBWI has done to help me with my career. 

Last weekend was the international SCBWI conference in LA. It's a crazy huge conference with over 1200 attendees, lots of keynotes, breakout sessions, parties, and the works. You can read some notes from each of the sessions on the extensive conference blog: http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com

My favorite session was Mac Barnett's keynote. He told us that kids who read his picture book about a boy with a pet whale can send in for their own pet whale. In reply they receive a letter from a Norwegian law firm saying the whale was held up in customs, but they can leave messages for their whale by calling a 1-800 #. The phone number has whale sounds and then a beep. Kids would call and leave messages for their whales, and Mac played a number of messages left by a sweet boy. Kids are so willing to suspend disbelief!

Loved the photo booth at the SCBWI Black & White Ball!
With fellow Regional Advisors: Anushka Ravishankar from India, Leslie Helakoski from Michigan, and Susanne Gervay from Australia.

The winners of the Black & White Ball costume contest.

We headed to the Santa Monica pier at sunset after the conference was over. Ahhh... 

Picture Book Trailer for PENGUIN CHA-CHA

Below is my book trailer for my picture book, PENGUIN CHA-CHA! A book trailer is like a movie trailer giving a glimpse of what the story is about and hopefully it'll make you interested in reading the book. The book is available for pre-order from bookstores. 

I made the book trailer myself in Photoshop CS6 and then Random House uploaded it to their YouTube channel. Yes, Photoshop does video! I illustrate digitally in Photoshop, so the jump to making a video in Photoshop wasn't too hard for me. I read up online and watched some YouTube videos on it. I found a great music site called Incompetech in which you can use royalty-free music in any project and either give credit or pay a small fee. I chose not to have credits in my book trailer, so I paid the small fee for the music. I'm not sure if having a book trailer will help sales of my book, but it sure is fun and the trailer is already spreading on Facebook. Have you ever seen a book trailer before? 

Illustration Friday: Children

From a picture book I illustrated called DO YOU LOVE ME MORE?

Illustration Friday: Sweet

My daughter had her very first dance recital a few weeks ago. It was super sweet! This is part of a painting I did of her and the other 4 little gals in her class in their bunny ballet costumes.

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing is a blog hop that was started in Australia and has gone global. The object is to bring awareness to authors and illustrators and their current work. Thank you, Leeza Hernandez, for tagging me! I'll answer the 10 questions about my next children's book and then tag another author/illustrator to answer these questions about her newest book. Here goes...

1) What is the working title of your next book?

PENGUIN CHA-CHA. It's available for pre-order from Random House (or Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or your favorite indie bookstore).

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
I had drawn an illustration years ago of dancing penguins for my portfolio. I used to be in a performance and competition dance group and I like penguins, so I had combined the two for that sample piece. Numerous editors and art directors asked if I had a story to go along with that sample illustration. I said yes. Then I wrote story after story about dancing penguins. Some of my stories were good, but not great enough to be published by a major publisher. It took years and lots of critiques before I got the writing part right. In the case of this book, the illustrations came first before the writing.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
It's a funny picture book.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
The little girl, Julia, could be played by my dancing daughter in another couple years, and I think Dreamworks would need to handle the penguins unless you know of some quite talented penguins.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Follow a determined girl named Julia as she tries to join in the fun of a mischevious group of dancing penguins.

6) Who is publishing your book?

Random House Children's Books

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I first drew dancing penguins in 2007. Writing the first draft of a dancing penguin story was quick, but then came complete rewrites with entirely different plots. This version was acquired in 2011 by Random House after an editor saw an illustration of my dancing penguins on my website and asked if I would submit my dummy to him. It will be published in August, 2013.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Dancing animal theme: Hilda Must Be Dancing and Prancing Dancing Lily

Penguin theme: One Cool Friend and Lost and Found

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

For years I performed and competed in a swing and Latin dance group called The Fourth Street Alley Cats. I loved it! Since being in that group inspired me to draw and write about dancing, I included my dance group in the first spread of the book.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Illustrators often put small personal touches in the illustrations that most people aren't aware of. I always stick a mouse, monkey, or hippo in each of my books. You'll find all three in this book if you search. For the random background people at the zoo in my illustrations for this book, I used a lot of my friends and family. Maybe you should become a close friend to a children's book illustrator and see if you end up in a book!

Now that I've answered, I'm tagging:
Angela Dominguez, the talented author/illustrator of LET'S GO, HUGO!

Illustration Friday - Swim

New Book Deal

I had mentioned in my last post that I took a trip to Paris for research for my upcoming picture book. Well, the book has been announced in Publisher's Weekly, so I can officially sing out my excitement for it!

I'm illustrating a picture book that was written by Danielle Steel about a stylish teacup chihuahua called PRETTY MINNIE IN PARIS. It'll be published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers/Random House in fall 2014. Cute pooch, fashion, Paris, super fun picture book! My husband and I took that trip to Paris in January so I could get a real feel for the city of lights. I took thousands of reference photos to make sure I draw Paris right in the illustrations - small things like electrical outlets look different there and I want to make sure I draw those details correct in the book. We also visited Danielle and her own sweet chihuahua named Minnie at their home in Paris. Danielle was so warm and friendly, and we had such a lovely trip.

Thanks for sharing in my excitement with me!