International Reading Association
For 50 years, the International Reading Association has been a professional home for those who help others learn to read. Their network and resources reach hundreds of thousands of teachers, researchers, students, administrators, tutors, and parents all over the world. The IRA accepts proposals and manuscripts for books on topics of practical interest to classroom teachers. Getting involved with your State or Provincial Reading Association chapter is a great way to reach teachers and educators who might find your book of interest for classroom use, or invite you to make presentations to students and teachers. Many reading association conferences take place in March and April.
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Feature
The Palmetto Tree and the Swamp Fox
Publishing and Marketing Picture Books about the Rich Revolutionary War History of South Carolina
I'd have to say that I'm a publishing and marketing "work in progress," since my wife, Kate Salley Palmer, and I launched Warbranch Press to publish her picture books. Kate had a successful career as a syndicated editorial cartoonist, and also illustrated books for Simon & Schuster, Boyd Mills and others. I was a college professor and worked as an agronomist for over 30 years with Clemson University. When I retired, I came into the publishing business very much an amateur.We started our publishing company by reissuing a picture book Kate wrote and illustrated for Simon & Schuster in 1991. It's called A Gracious Plenty and is about Kate's great-aunt. It got good reviews, but Simon and Schuster didn't want to go into paperback with it so we got the rights back and published it ourselves. Kate's next book, The Pink House, has become very popular in schools, gift shops and book stores. We've now sold over 15,000 copies - mostly in South Carolina. Kids really like the story because it talks about a whole family on their annual beach vacation, when all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and "even Grandma," come to the "Pink House" where they swim, go fishing, sing songs, read books, eat the fish and crabs caught in the surf, play games, and then go to bed to await what surprises are washed up by the surf the next morning.
One of the reasons we've been successful marketing to schools is by exhibiting, as well as by sponsoring Kate as a featured author, at the various teacher conferences, e.g., International Reading Association, SC Association of School Librarians, and SC Council of the Teachers of English. Through these meetings, teachers, media specialists and administrators have been exposed to Kate's books and to Kate as a potential visiting author at their schools. She has been to elementary schools all over South Carolina and also to schools in neighboring states.
In her presentations at schools Kate reads her stories and shows pictures from her books with an LCD projector. She encourages the students to ask questions and challenges them to write their own stories.
New horizons
When visiting schools a couple of years ago, many teachers suggested that Kate write some stories about South Carolina history. Large New York publishers, for example, have done very little about the Revolutionary War in the southern colonies. Yet, the outcome of the war was determined, at least according to some historians, by the many battles and skirmishes fought in South Carolina and North Carolina, for example. Kate and I are both natives and have always had an interest in South Carolina Revolutionary War history and the important role our state played in defeating the British. So, in late 2004 Kate decided to write and illustrate a story about how we got our beautiful state flag and the symbols depicted on it.
We have one of the most beautiful state flags in the US, and everything about it means something -- the indigo blue color, the silver crescent and the white palmetto tree. Kate wrote Palmetto - Symbol of Courage about our state seal, our flag and our state tree -- the palmetto tree. This tree actually helped win the first important Revolutionary War victory over the British in the South on June 28, 1776, exactly one week before the Declaration of Independence was adopted. South Carolina patriots in a little palmetto log fort on Sullivan's Island defeated a heavily armed British fleet determined to capture Charleston. Kate wrote and illustrated the story, and we published Palmetto - Symbol of Courage in January 2005 with a first printing of 5000 copies.
Shortly thereafter at a teacher's conference, an administrator with the SC Department of Education saw the book and came to Kate's presentation. He became very excited about how it could help elementary teachers with teaching SC history. He ordered copies to use when talking to various school curriculum specialists and soon we were getting orders from all over the state and in adjacent states. In early '06, Palmetto - Symbol of Courage is already into its second printing.
A family affair
One of South Carolina's most famous Revolutionary War heroes was Francis Marion, also known as the “Swamp Fox.” Since he saw Mel Gibson's movie, The Patriot, our son, James, an artist, writer and freelance illustrator in Atlanta, wanted to set the record straight about the "real" Swamp Fox. About four years ago James started writing and doing artwork for a video documentary about Marion, and in 2003 made a proposal to SC ETV. They approved the idea and provided him a producer who turned out to be an old college classmate and friend, Sanford Adams. James and Sanford did a huge amount of research -- reading, talking with experts, and doing lots of on-location work. During the winter of 2005, the documentary, Chasing the Swamp Fox, premiered on SC ETV to very good reviews. Since then, ETV has made the video available to schools around South Carolina.
Then, Kate and I thought that after the success and good teacher reviews of Palmetto - Symbol of Courage, why not a picture book about the Swamp Fox? And what about James as the illustrator? After months of research on Marion's life by Kate -- and much story editing of Kate by James and art editing of James by Kate -- we published Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox. James did all the illustrations for this book on his Mac computer. Kate wrote the story, designed the book, and we turned it over to the printer on her I-Pod -- thank goodness for digitalization!
The Swamp Fox book has been well-received by schools across the state and also in book stores and gift shops. We're looking forward to a very promising year with our lineup of books.
Connecting with readers
What I’ve learned about publishing and connecting with readers is that it helps to have a good author, illustrator and book designer. We're very lucky that Kate does all of these very well. She also makes excellent presentations of her stories and connects well with the public. Our son, James, is also a very good writer and artist, and we're excited about our company's future with him as a creative partner. He and his mom spoke late in '05 at a school in Atlanta and did a great job playing off each other and interacting with the students.
Like I said earlier, our publishing company is a "work in progress," and I don't have all the answers -- especially in the marketing arena. That takes lots of work, a thick skin, and an open mind. Best of luck to everyone in this publishing "adventure!"
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The Pink House
written and illustrated by Kate Salley Palmer
Warbranch Press 1999
ISBN 0966711416
Grades K-5
Palmetto: Symbol of Courage
written and illustrated by Kate Salley Palmer
Warbranch Press 2005
ISBN 0966711440
Grades K-5
Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox
written by Kate Salley Palmer and illustrated by James H. Palmer
ISBN 0966711459
Warbranch Press 2005
Grades 3-8
More info about Kate and her books is available on our website: www.warbranchpress.com