{"id":15102,"date":"2016-03-23T05:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T12:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=15102"},"modified":"2016-03-22T22:40:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T05:40:58","slug":"sewing-happiness-pre-launch-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=15102","title":{"rendered":"Sewing Happiness Pre-launch Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sewinghappiness-prelaunch2\"<\/p>\n

Look what came in the mail! My advance copies of Sewing Happiness<\/em>!! As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, that indigo you see on the spine is the\u00a0fabric that my friend Rachel<\/a>\u00a0hand-dyed for the book (Rachel styled most of the book and did a spectacular job).<\/p>\n

The countdown has begun. Sewing Happiness<\/a> launches on April 19th, and in the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing tidbits about the book process (Furoku members<\/a> got the full-on behind the scenes a couple months back, one of the fun parts of the membership).<\/p>\n

\"sewinghappiness-prelaunch1\"<\/p>\n

My editor gave me an unbound proof copy of the book a\u00a0couple of weeks ago\u00a0(from what I understand, this is the copy sent by the printer to the publisher\u00a0to make sure the colors are right and that there aren’t any printing mistakes).\u00a0There’s something raw and magical and\u00a0gratifying\u00a0to see my book in its many stages from handwritten notes\/sketches to final product.<\/p>\n

\"sewinghappiness-prelaunch3\"<\/p>\n

The book is starting to get a little bit of press and the Q & A\u00a0in the April issue of Seattle Magazine<\/a> is thrilling to see. As exciting as the feature is, what I loved about it is that the editorial assistant of the magazine contacted me personally to tell me that reading the book inspired her to start sewing again after a long hiatus. That made my week!<\/p>\n

You know how marketing and promotions have historically been my Achilles’ heel? I’ve stopped using that as an excuse and am exploring ways to do them better in a way that’s not blood-curdling. I’m so very proud of my book and want it to fly out into the world, to the homes of as many sewing-loving (or future-sewing-loving) people as possible. I do hope you’ll buy a copy from your indie bookstores when it’s released because that’s my favorite type of venue for book-buying and I will forever support independent bookstores. Not everyone has access to a charming neighborhood bookseller, however, and Amazon is the giant in the industry as we all know. And I found out from my publisher that a key factor of helping sales is to get pre-orders on Amazon.\u00a0It would be wonderful if I could get as many pre-orders as possible and I’m thoroughly open to non-icky suggestions on how to go about doing that!<\/p>\n

In addition to press, if you go to Amazon, you’ll see that the book has already gotten some reviews. Horror seized my body when I saw that I’d gotten a very negative one — okay, that’s pretty dramatic but my reaction\u00a0was<\/em> intense. I quickly averted my eyes after glimpsing The Very Bad rating and\u00a0refused to\u00a0read the review itself.\u00a0I figured, what good will that do<\/em>? It would simply make me sad and worried and I’m no use to anyone when I’m sad and worried. I know that you will probably go read it\u00a0(I would totally read it, if it weren’t my book). It’s a shame because even a single negative review can have such an impact on future reviews and how people experience the book. As much as I would hope that folks\u00a0will suspend their judgement until they’ve read it themselves,\u00a0I know that I<\/em>\u00a0get influenced by reviews all the time. Every person is, of course, entitled to his or her own opinion.<\/p>\n

When Little Kunoichi<\/a> came out last year, my dentist told me to avoid reading my Amazon reviews at all cost. Yes, my dentist. I really like my dentist; he’s an upstanding guy and\u00a0runs a tight teeth-cleaning ship.\u00a0I didn’t follow his sage advice and was upset\u00a0every time a less-than-flattering review was posted about Little K (thank goodness there weren’t many and the beautiful emails I received from people from around the world more than made up for it), but over this last year I do think I’ve developed a slightly thicker skin. Or at least more willpower not<\/em> to read the reviews.\u00a0I clumsily and earnestly poured heart and soul into Sewing Happiness<\/em>, I feel good about what I’ve done, I’ll give it my all to spread the word and the rest is none of my business. I’m content, with no regrets. I mean, I got to publish two books in two years in two totally different genres! How mind-boggling is that?<\/p>\n

The release date is so so soon, my friends! I’ve been working with the publisher to brew up some awesome offerings and have a slew of events in the works, so stay tuned!!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look what came in the mail! My advance copies of Sewing Happiness!! As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, that indigo you see on the spine is the\u00a0fabric that my friend Rachel\u00a0hand-dyed for the book (Rachel styled most of the book and did a spectacular job). The countdown has begun. Sewing Happiness launches on April 19th, and in the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing tidbits about the book process (Furoku members got the full-on behind the scenes a couple months back, one of the fun parts of the membership). My editor gave me an unbound proof copy of the book a\u00a0couple of weeks ago\u00a0(from what I understand, this is the copy sent by the printer to the publisher\u00a0to make sure the colors are right and that there aren’t any printing mistakes).\u00a0There’s something raw and magical and\u00a0gratifying\u00a0to see my book in its many stages from handwritten notes\/sketches to final product. The book is starting to get a little bit of press and the Q & A\u00a0in the April issue of Seattle Magazine is thrilling to see. As exciting as the feature is, what I loved about it is that the editorial assistant of the magazine contacted me personally to tell me that reading the book inspired her to start sewing again after a long hiatus. That made my week! You know how marketing and promotions have historically been my Achilles’ heel? I’ve stopped using that as an excuse and am exploring ways to do them better in a way that’s not blood-curdling. I’m so very proud of my book and want it to fly out into the world, to the homes of as many sewing-loving (or future-sewing-loving) people as possible. I do hope you’ll buy a copy from your indie bookstores when it’s released because that’s my favorite type of venue for book-buying and I will forever support independent bookstores. Not everyone has access to a charming neighborhood bookseller, however, and Amazon is the giant in the industry as we all know. And I found out from my publisher that a key factor of helping sales is to get pre-orders on Amazon.\u00a0It would be wonderful if I could get as many pre-orders as possible and I’m thoroughly open to non-icky suggestions on how to go about doing that! In addition to press, if you go to Amazon, you’ll see that the book has already gotten some reviews. Horror seized my body when I saw that I’d gotten a very negative one — okay, that’s pretty dramatic but my reaction\u00a0was intense. I quickly averted my eyes after glimpsing The Very Bad rating and\u00a0refused to\u00a0read the review itself.\u00a0I figured, what good will that do? It would simply make me sad and worried and I’m no use to anyone when I’m sad and worried. I know that you will probably go read it\u00a0(I would totally read it, if it weren’t my book). It’s a shame because even a single negative review can have such an impact on future reviews and how people experience the book. As much as I would hope that folks\u00a0will suspend their judgement until they’ve read it themselves,\u00a0I know that I\u00a0get influenced by reviews all the time. Every person is, of course, entitled to his or her own opinion. When Little Kunoichi came out last year, my dentist told me to avoid reading my Amazon reviews at all cost. Yes, my dentist. I really like my dentist; he’s an upstanding guy and\u00a0runs a tight teeth-cleaning ship.\u00a0I didn’t follow his sage advice and was upset\u00a0every time a less-than-flattering review was posted about Little K (thank goodness there weren’t many and the beautiful emails I received from people from around the world more than made up for it), but over this last year I do think I’ve developed a slightly thicker skin. Or at least more willpower not to read the reviews.\u00a0I clumsily and earnestly poured heart and soul into Sewing Happiness, I feel good about what I’ve done, I’ll give it my all to spread the word and the rest is none of my business. I’m content, with no regrets. I mean, I got to publish two books in two years in two totally different genres! How mind-boggling is that? The release date is so so soon, my friends! I’ve been working with the publisher to brew up some awesome offerings and have a slew of events in the works, so stay tuned!!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15102"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15114,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15102\/revisions\/15114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}