The Gracie Press Newsletter - BücK-a-bwawk-BôcK!

What would it be like to have the same story told in a series of thinner, smaller books along with its original bigger, thicker books?!?

So what if we very quietly released an additional separate series titled “BücK-a-bwawk-BôcK!” with color covers…just to see how it goes? The interior story will be exactly the same, word-for-word, just split in half. The books will have more colorful covers and not as many pages.

This has been extremely challenging, and we appreciate your understanding and kindness throughout this process.

What may have made it so challenging is that we have needed to think about the series in parts and also as a whole—what we have written and what we have yet to write. (After all, Amelia still needs to fly to the moon and back and Gracie needs to dance ballet on the stage of the Paris Opera Ballet! Who knows what Pearl will do?!?)

This challenge of seeing the parts and the whole simultaneously was compounded when we discovered Barnes & Noble Press and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing cannot upload our files due to the size required for full page illustrations.

While any books we publish through IngramSpark will appear with these two book sellers, they will not have the important “look inside” preview feature. And I really do think people want to see how a book looks on the inside and read a few pages to get a feel for the book.

See? Kind of nice.

As my chickens have taught me—be persistent! Sometimes a setback can be an advantage! Let’s hope that is true if we release a separate series titled “BücK-a-bwawk-BôcK!”

What if you can read about Gracie and the others in a series titled “Once Through A Garden Gate” which will have thicker books and a more “grown-up” cover? (This might be good for upper grade readers whose reading level is not as high as their peers. The average reading level is 4th grade.)

What if you can also read about Gracie and the others in a series titled “BücK-a-bwawk-BôcK!” which will have thinner books and more colorful covers? (The series title means “Feed The Chickens!” which is something I hear every day!)

I really like the idea of having two separate books with covers that will make one complete scene when placed side-by-side. To me, that is just really fun! Other books in the series could help create one very long panoramic scene when stretched out side-by-side! How cool would that be?!?

The colors are a balance of bright and cheerful with dark and gloomy, but not too gloomy. They are all colors used in A Most Wondrous Place, and so I am expecting the printing to be very close to what you see on a screen without any unexpected irregularities like I have experienced so far.

The Sewer Rat, who is The Biggest Scary Thing for Gracie, is much more comical in color. He is still introduced in the interior illustrations as a black silhouette, but having him on the cover in color makes him less threatening. (We really don’t want anyone to have bad dreams because of the book cover.)

Oh! And did you see that the title for the series and the two book titles are all in the Chicken language? I think this adds an additional fun element to the books that was missing before. Secret language. Secret words. Those are both pluses in by opinion.

It is probably fair to say that this is the first series of books ever to have been given a title in the Chicken language and to be made of books which have titles in the Chicken language! I think this helps to make the series and the individual books much more friendly to children. It may even help to create a mysteriously secretive feel to the books.

PeeP! should be about 134 pages, and BwÖwK! should be close to 150 pages.

PeeP! sets the stage by introducing the main chicken characters and their friends. It also explains how the narrator learns the Chicken language and forms friendships with the chickens. It introduces two friendly characters, The Robin and The Wren, who help Gracie to step out of the shadows. It tells how Gracie faced The Big Scary Thing and The Bigger Scary Thing but is hoping there is no Biggest Scary Thing.

BwÖwK! has much more action because the characters are all established. It introduces two not-so-friendly characters, The Tuxedo Cat and The Sewer Rat, who force Gracie to finally confront The Biggest Scary Thing. With the help of one new friendly character, The Raven With Blue Eyes, Gracie learns that she really did have what she needed within her heart all along and that she truly is much more than good enough.

I honestly don’t think I do! The adult in me likes the mysterious black-and-white cover. The child in me wants to jump into the world of the characters on the color cover.