Bulk Print & Updates!

Some updates! I didn’t want to post a blog mid October but as you all know, time can get away from you. 

A Wondrous Night is officially in the stage of print. Bulk print!

I picked up the proof last week and I was really impressed with the quality of it. It’s amazing what you catch when you see your images printed and in hand. So I took a few more days to tighten up images, double and triple checked spelling and grammar of Mom’s words. Mom and I had a few texts and calls back and forth about confirming a few commas throughout the book. Important stuff for sure!

I also asked Mom about writing up a bio about herself for the eventual Amazon author page and other outlets.

I’d like to share her bio today here in this blog post, to give our audience some background about Author Sandra J. Ackerman. 

Sandra J. Ackerman has come to believe she might have ink in her blood because written words have always been her life. Sandra, better known as Sandy, grew up in northwestern Minnesota where her parents, Ernie and Sally, published a small-town newspaper called the Marshall County Banner. Growing up she spent hours and hours around the huge printing press and the smell of ink. Upon graduation from high school, Sandy attended the Minnesota School of Business in Minneapolis, graduating as a Court Reporter and soon meeting fellow Court Reporter and future husband, Doug.  After 36 years and writing miles and miles of words on inked stenograph paper before it becoming computerized, Sandy retired as Chief Court Reporter from Toledo Municipal Court in 2010 while continuing to freelance before fully retiring in 2017. During the span of her career, Doug and Sandy raised three sons and each Christmas she would write a Christmas letter to extended family and friends. She would highlight the yearly activities of the family. In addition to the updates on the family she would find inspiration of the season to end the yearly letters with a Christmas poem. “A Wondrous Night” is one of these poems. May “A Wondrous Night” fill your family with the Christmas spirit each and every year as it did ours.

Working with Digital City Printing here in NYC has been great. I can say that they have been very accommodating. It helps that their printing facilities is in Long Island City. A stones throw away from my neighborhood in Queens. 

I’d like to mention we are going to do a Preorder of “A Wondrous Night.” 

The launch day is Tuesday, November 8th!

This limited Preorder is an opportunity for people to get a signed copy from both of us. I’m limiting this preorder to 50 books and it will run for 1 week starting Oct 24-31st. So if you’d like a signed copy be sure to head to picturedaypress.com

What is Picture Day Press?

So this book will be published under the umbrella of Picture Day Press. The imprint I created for publishing. The sequel, a Christmas themed children’s book (another wonderful poem from Mom) will be out this time next year or earlier, published by Picture Day Press. Currently this site is under construction and will redirect you to artbytra.com to the product page to buy the book. I am also working on the logo for Picture Day Press too.

I will ship these signed books starting November 8th.

Speaking of Amazon, we will also offer the book as a paperback and a kindle ebook. These options will be a little cheaper.

Our 8.5 x 8.5 square hardcover is $14.95 and if you purchase on Amazon the paperback option will be $8.95 and ebook will be $6.95. 

Also! I have a BookStop Page on SCBWI for anyone who is not friends and family and does not know we are self publishing “A Wondrous Night” haha. This BookStop page is an annual promotion from SCBWI for published and independent published books. It is a space for any SCBWI member to provide info about their published works to book buyers. https://www.scbwi.org/scbwibookstop-display/?id=865770 the promotion for book buyers (anyone and everyone are book buyers!) lasts from October 18 to December 5th. I encourage you to check this out too!

So keep an eye out on social media from me. I will be posting and sharing the look of it and a couple pages from the book!

Be sure to stuff those stockings this Christmas with “A Wondrous night!” Thanks for reading and we hope you will enjoy this Christmas children’s book with your little ones. -TRA