I find talking on the radio much easier than television. Not that I have done many television interviews for this book — three to date, I believe — but find I am much more self conscious when in front of a camera.

Need to work on that if many TV interviews lie ahead, but it was nice last week when the opportunity to do a radio interview came along. Compared to how comfortable I feel on radio, I realized, the difference of being on television is kind of shocking.

An old college friend, who fills in on the morning show on KEZW in Denver, invited me to be a guest on the show. And I went to the station instead of simply calling in on the phone.

The studio, on the 11th floor of a building in the Denver Tech Center, offered a grand view to the northwest on a perfect fall day in Colorado. The Flatirons near Boulder, with the Rockies lined up behind them, both stood out against a ideal blue sky.

The interview involved a nice back and forth, covering where the “Jesus From A To Z” book idea came from, how it was created and where things have gone since. Since I have done mostly phone radio interviews in the past, speaking into a big microphone with headphones on was a little different, but the experience was a great one. Thanks to Pat for making it an easy ten minutes and for the exposure to a great Denver audience.

Technorati Tags: radio interview, children’s religious book

Although it’s been a couple of weeks now, memories of the Book Expo in New York City remain fresh. It entailed quite an experience in the mainstream book world, and the feedback we received for our new book, Jesus from A to Z, made the trip more than worthwhile.

We started the first day, Friday, at the Children’s Book Breakfast, which was hosted by Julie Andrews, who has a new book out that features 150 poems and other children’s pieces chosen by Julie and her daughter. We made several nice contacts at this first event, and the three authors who also spoke at the breakfast were each impressive in the their own right. My favorite was the author Meg Cabot, with her interesting journey to becoming a children’s author.

The most rewarding part of the Expo, however, involved working out of our distributor’s booth, Midpoint Trade Books, to share our new book with any and all interested passers-by. It felt intimidating at first to just hold the book up and wait to catch someone’s attention. But after several great conversations and some nice feedback, it became much easier to wait around for the next interested party to talk to about the book.

We ended up with a nice list of contacts and people to follow up with for promotional and sales opportunities. And we entered an awards contest, the Mom’s Choice Awards, which will hopefully prove to be beneficial if we are lucky enough to win an award.

Signing copies of the book and giving them away to interested and interesting people was one of the highlights of the Expo. In fact, we made friends with one of the show’s security gate checkers, who noticed us carrying the book the first day and stopped us to have a look at it. She had a young daughter, and on the second day, asked if we might have an extra copy for her.

Leaving the Javits Convention Center on Sunday afternoon, we were able to give her our last copy of the book, just before we jumped in a cab and headed for LaGuradia. She was very happy to receive the book, and it felt great giving someone the last copy to share with her little girl.

Onward now we head to the International Christian Retail Show, which will be held in Denver the middle of July. Hopefully even more contacts and interested readers lie ahead.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

We are off to New York City and the Book Expo of America tomorrow, and hoping that good things await us there. This annual trade show attracts tens of thousands of bookstore owners, librarians and all kind of people in the book publishing industry.

We should have a good idea of what might be possible with our book, Jesus from A to Z, after visiting with — hopefully — hundreds or even thousands of people over the next four days. Should make for a few interesting posts up on my return next week.

In the meantime, thought I would share a great review we received from a big industry publication, Kirkus Reviews. This is a big publication for libraries, so we’ll hope it leads to many sales from that arena. Here’s what they said:

(From “Kirkus Reviews”)
Stunning oil paintings with glowing colors and a flattened perspective provide memorable visual impact in this alphabetical introduction to important people, events and stories from the life of Jesus. The book’s striking design has a large trim size with an unusually wide horizontal orientation, using double-page spreads to showcase the art in a size that will work well for reading to a group.

Each letter focuses on one word that relates to the life of Jesus, with a brief, easy-to-understand paragraph of text about each term. The book’s alphabetical structure, however, shuffles the traditional chronology, which may require some additional explanation for younger readers.

The pages for the problematic letter Q step outside the framework of the text to discuss quiet time for the reader to think of God and Jesus, a departure (though a quiet one) from the rest of the alphabetical choices. A great deal of information is packed into the short text blocks, but Yoswa’s compelling art is the star of this alphabetical show. (Picture book/religion. Ages 4-9.)

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

A few days ago, I decided to call some newspapers and publications in Alabama to see if there would be any interest in covering our Jesus from A to Z book. Working from a lengthy national media list, I decided to start with the first state on the list. Plus, it didn’t hurt that Alabama is obviously part of the Bible Belt, and that I had spent some time there as a child visiting relatives.

I’m happy to report that the resulting reactions and discussions were quite positive. The effort didn’t involve but five or six contacts, but two immediately were enthused and wanted to talk about the book in their publications – one in the northern city of Huntsville and one in the southern city of Mobile. One reporter responded to a voice mail I left her after visiting our website and being impressed.

We’ll have to wait and see what the eventual outcome is around the reviews of the book or other mentions that may result, but it was a promising start. And the conversations with these people were enjoyable and easygoing. Hopefully, many more such discussions lie ahead.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham

We received a great review in the Durango Herald last week. It’s the local paper in the town where I was raised in southwest Colorado. But nonetheless, the reporter liked the book and did a nice job describing it.

An interesting part of the experience for me involved talking to her about my time growing up at the United Methodist Church there, recalling some of my formative years there in learning about Christianity and spirituality. In a small town like Durango, members of the youth group crossover into middle school and high school, so those friendships can span quite a large swath of one’s life. Many happy memories remain from those years, and it was nice to think back on them.

Back to the review, however, here is my favorite part: “Graham, who has had 10 other books and a number of freelance articles and columns published, has achieved his goal. Parents, grandparents and even Sunday school teachers will find the book a valuable and enjoyable read and teaching tool.”

But she also wisely noted the book’s beautiful illustrations by Jennifer Yoswa. That part included the following: “You’ll have to read the book to find out the rest of the letters, but be sure to take time to look at the deceptively simple, rich illustrations by Jennifer Yoswa. While she appears to paint in broad strokes with simple drawing, the detail in shadings, colors and portrayal of the lesson at hand had me going back for second and third looks. I imagine children would have great fun looking for all those fine points in the art.”

If you are interested in the rest of the review, please see the full Durango Herald article.

Technorati Tags: Christian books, stories of Jesus Christ, children’s books, Kevin Graham, book review, children’s Bible book