The Beacon

Hello everyone and welcome to the online home of Flashlight Comics!

It’s been a busy time and at the moment we’re gearing up for another push forward to appeal to educators and sponsors to publish and get Flashlight Comics into the hands of students across Canada.

A QUICK ADDENDUM: A few educators have written in asking about the status of Flashlight, which leads me to think that my original message was not clear. As of this writing, we are still waiting for funding for the first issue, and we’ll be printing and shipping it as soon as we can get financed.

Everyone involved in the project has done amazing work so far and with this latest stage of development we’re looking to educators, librarians, and other interested parties for ideas, suggestions, and help.

Essentially the work ahead falls into two categories:

• Getting more schools and libraries signed up and;

• Getting more sponsors on board with what we’re doing.

As of this writing we have over 88,490 students set to receive Flashlight when it’s published, through 760 orders comprising 3034 classrooms across Canada [see our handy map which breaks our orders down by Province].

As you can see, we’ve generated a lot of interest from the educational field [and on an extremely limited budget]. The inherent worth of the project is obvious to many Teachers and Librarians, Principals and Curriculum Coordinators across the country.

However, now comes the hard part. We’re working towards publishing our first issue in the spring, so we’re looking for an optimum number of 500,000 signups over the following weeks. This is where you can help us out the most.

Talk with other educators, and let them know what we’re proposing. Ask them to check out our company website and encourage more classrooms and libraries to sign on. We believe that what we’re proposing is of benefit to everyone involved.

We’re also looking for appropriate sponsors and our page rates are reasonable and flexible. Our criteria and our mandate are both pretty straightforward:

• We are looking for companies and organizations who share an affinity with our editorial mission to provide exceptional reading material to young readers.

• We are committed to paying good contributor rates, enabling them to earn a living wage for their work.

• We are striving to give parents the peace of mind that what we’re providing their children is safe and appropriate.

• We are giving educators a valuable tool from which to teach.

So if you have any suggestions, contacts or questions on who or how to approach a company or organization, please drop us a line.

We’d love to hear from you.

- Dave

It’s been a long haul this past month, so I’ve been avoiding this journal in the interest of keeping everything else up-to-date.

Juggling chainsaws is what I call it.

We’ve had word that Flashlight Comics can be distributed to U.S. schools without much legal export wrangling, which is a huge relief for us. More on this as it develops.

I got a new printing quotation and the rates look good, which will please our sponsors as it drops their price considerably.

We’ve formed a partnership with the Adopt-a-Library Literacy Program recently, which will be beneficial to both parties I’m sure. Essentially, we’ll be providing them with copies of Flashlight Comics Magazine for distribution to public libraries across Canada, in addition to the Elementary Schools we’ve already signed up. So far, our subscriptions have been pouring in and we’re flooded with interest!

I’m now situated in Northern Ontario, although I make frequent trips down South every month. This next three weeks sees me in Toronto for pitch meetings with several Media Planners. Fingers crossed!

The initial print mock up is done and it looks beautiful! Here’s a quick look at the cover for all of you curious types:

The cover story is by our own inimitable Jeff “the Machine” Wasson, and it’s an original Rocket Girl & Kid Danger piece, created just for our first issue! Pretty amazing stuff, don’t you think? Thanks Jeff!

We’ve had a number of requests from school boards and the Ministry of Education of several provinces this month for more information about the book and we’re almost set to launch the new site and give them the inside peek at the inaugural issue.

This is an incredible month so far! I can hardly keep up!

PERSONAL STUFF:

This is kind of a bittersweet week coming up for me.

• On the one hand, I have to leave Carla up here in the North to make the trek back to the Ottawa area for the next three weeks.
• This is so that I can gather my gear and head back up there in a semi-permanent fashion though. Once I have the packing taken care of, I’ll be primed to handle the craziness of a Northern Ontario winter, and I’ll be able to spend most of my free time with her. Which is the big payoff for the short-term heartache.
• In addition to packing, I also have to contend with my taxes and other outstanding red tape that I’ve been dreading for months. An old adage of Mark Oakley’s comes to mind: it would be nice to just throw money at the problem and make it go away. Sadly, we’re still in the bootstrap level of operations, so I have to take care of it myself.

FLASHLIGHT STUFF:

• Trying to keep on top of stuff. I’ve been successfully answering all inquiries within the same day so far, despite the mass of questions. The best part of giving personal attention to these matters though is that the answer is always my words, not an interpretation of them. Teachers have been so supportive of the project and understanding of what we’re providing. It’s totally worth it and I don’t ever want to delegate this part to anyone else.
• The email list is cleaned up and all of the schools that have replied are now removed from it. Ready for round two, as soon as Rob and I can figure out how to resolve some of the bouncebacks and prevent the same thing happening again.

UPCOMING FLASHLIGHT STUFF:

• Once I’m down South I have to prepare a special, password-protected, invitation-only PDF of the entire contents for the Ministry of Education and Curriculum Services to view. I really want them to see what Flashlight Comics Magazine is going to be, so they will be able to confidently explain it to anyone in the Education field who asks them about it.
• Preparing to pitch the book to potential sponsors. Every scrap of information in Guy Kawasaki’s “Art of the Start” has either been insanely useful or reassuring to me because that’s what I’m already doing. I’m planning a trip to Toronto for the week of the 18th to the 24th, and I hope to set up some meetings before I go.
• Also while in Toronto, I hope to get hold of some of the people at the various media outlets [television and newspapers primarily] and let them know how we’re doing now! It’s still within the back-to-school news cycle, so I may entice them a little with what’s occurred since we last spoke.
• Also, that Sunday is The Word on the Street. A super-cool, cross-Canada, day-long outdoor literacy celebration. I haven’t been to this since my self-publishing days, and only as an exhibitor, never as an attendee. There’ll not only be my favourite stuff there [great things to read], but also a lot of people who can help us get the word out… onto the… street.

I can’t believe I wrote that.

UPCOMING PERSONAL STUFF:

• Heading to Toronto also means I get to touch base socially with most of the Ironlungfish Press/Flashlight gang. That’ll be terrific, since they’re some of my best friends, as well as some of the most talented, enthusiastic people anyone could ever have the good fortune of working alongside.
• Finally, the dessert to this great feast. I’ll be heading up North at the end of this and get to spend the rest of my time with Carla.

Life is pretty good, I’d say.

We’ve been in the public eye for eight business days and so far response has been overwhelming.

Right now, I’m looking at the initial data.

And blinking.

A lot.

Still left to do on Marketing Phase I? I have to go through, kern out all of the schools that have signed up so far, in order to generate a new list and send out the HTML version of the email to the remaining schools.

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that.

The entire interest generated so far has been acheived through a SINGLE PLAIN-TEXT EMAIL.

Teachers and Librarians, Principals and Superintendents: thank you for validating the past 18 months of my life. I have never wavered in my belief that what we’re doing is worthwhile and thoroughly useful, and your show of support has validated that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go reply to another 3 billion emails…

Now I’m trying to keep on top of it all, but I’m at the point where communications are a really low consideration for me.

That doesn’t mean they’re a low priority though. So, at Stephen’s behest, here’s some news:

I am currently firing off the 7,300 emails to the schools for whom I have email addresses.

I’m getting a disproportionate number of bouncebacks however, and Rob and I discussed how to proceed from here. I’ve received 17% undelivered, and Rob says the typical expected number is around 5%, so it’s either the list, the program or the content of the message. I’ll be re-sending those failed messages again on Monday/Tuesday.

Rob tweaked settings for Mac/Safari users, so hopefully I won’t get as many emails and calls from frustrated Apple users anymore [of which there appear to be many].

I got a call back from Keith Clark at Curriculum Services. They’re unable to approve the content of the magazine [due primarily to the sponsors], but he’s going back to bat for me on the Educator Resource content. I’ll need to get some put together for him to look at…

Finally, Rob asked me to mention the terrible news about Lea Hernandez. Her house burned down recently, and there’s a campaign afoot to help her out. From the websnark posting:

“Lea Hernandez, author and artist of the epic and wonderful Rumble Girls books, a former Transmetropolitan artist, as well as the former editor of Girlamatic, has suffered a terrible house fire. Her family is safe, though they lost some of their pets (two dogs and four cats). They have also lost an incredible number of the necessities of life and of Lea’s business. They have lost most of their clothes. They have lost shelter. They have lost almost all of their media collection. They do not yet know how much of Lea’s original art is gone.”

Read about it and let others know. Additional news listings are:
Comixpedia

Comic Book Resources

Rob mentioned something about proceeds from September’s ModernTales going to the cause, but there’s nothing on their site about it yet.

Sorry to end on such a sad note, but I think it’s important that people hear about it and lend their support if possible.

Well if this isn’t THE week for “stuff happening”.

I can barely keep track of it all. I’ll do my best to bring everyone up to speed though.

PERSONAL STUFF:

• Carla & I made the trek up North the very morning I showed my mug on-camera. 8 hours of driving and very few stops made Dave a very tired boy.
• The next day, we headed into the school to see what surprises awaited her for the new school year. We spent a great deal of time cutting out letters and pinning them to bulletin boards, making name tags, etc.. A long day.
• Wednesday also saw me become 37 years young. Carla got me some awesome, thoughtful gifts. Related to the Flashlight Comics project, she got me a copy of “The Art of the Start” hardcover by Guy Kawasaki, which is a great read. It’s given me lots of food for thought. I also got a new thesaurus [a big one], so that I can find another word for describing my girlfriend besides “awesome”.
• We got the class pretty well set up by Friday and only have to go in for a few hours tomorrow to finish up.
• I submitted my resumé to the local library. They’re looking for part-time staff for evenings and weekends, which would suit my schedule well. Don’t know if I’ll get it though, since interviews take place while I’m back down South for a few weeks. We’ll see.

FLASHLIGHT STUFF:

• Wow. What HASN’T happened this week? After my appearance on A-Channel I had a number of sign ups from Ottawa area schools. That was pretty cool.
• The real surprise though, was when my mom was on a scrapbooking chat site (!) and started telling a woman in Missouri about our little venture. She was a school librarian, turns out, and listed Flashlight on the teacher-librarian listserve. That’s why I suddenly started getting hits from across Canada & the US.
• To date: Over 1500 students are signed up over 20 schools across Canada and nearly that again from the US are asking their local reps about authorization to receive it. This is crazy. One of the teachers was a good friend of our very own Jay “Clan Apis” Hosler. She’s excited by the prospect, to say the least. The librarians are on our side!
• Got an email from a media agency which I’ll follow up on Tuesday. He’s asking about opportunities, so it’s looking really good [fingers crossed].

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey everybody,

This missive finds me working on the mock up. Things are going well, as you may have guessed. Here’s my week-in-brief:

PERSONAL STUFF:

• Pushed my departure up North by a day because of the TV spot. I’ll be leaving directly from the studio around 8 a.m. Tuesday and heading to my place to pick up my gear.
• My oldest friend’s barbeque picnic was really cool. Had a chance to touch base with he and his family, and Carla got a chance to meet everyone. Good eats, restful environment, too short. Had to get back early to keep working.
• Haven’t even thought about packing yet…
• It’s my birthday on Wednesday the 30th. I’m certainly not feeling my age this week!

FLASHLIGHT STUFF:

• Today is a crazy day. Don’t know how much time I have to do stuff, but I’ve managed to optimize what I need to print down to fewer pages. I’m printing this copy onto 32 lb. Laser stock, so there’s a bit of bleed-through from the inkjet. Essentially I will be printing every second spread and marking the “on camera” ones with post-its. Looks beautiful so far!
• I’ll be working on my responses at every convenient moment over the next forty hours, to pare it down to the requisite 40 seconds per answer.
• Gotta get my suit pressed, my shoes shined, etc.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’M ON TV!

Yup it’s confirmed. Next Tuesday morning, I will be appearing on A-Channel Ottawa’s Breakfast Television/Morning Show. This is the first of hopefully many media pushes over the next few weeks.

I had an email confirmation from an Ottawa newspaper already, so as long as I perform well, I may be able to use it as a springboard.Had a good day on Friday [they’re all turning out that way lately]. The A-Channel information is as follows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today was fraught with busy.

I shot off about a bazillion emails. Mostly to Greg and Jeff about the mock up. We had a little problem with respect to Greg’s burner being on the fritz and him having to FTP the files to me for placement. Might take a bit to get it done, but I should have everything ready for placement once I’m up north and I can take it to Staples for production.

I Called media companies out of Montreal and Toronto. The president of the Montreal agency was really helpful. Because they represent a lot of Quebec companies, we talked about the English-heavy content and the Quebec sponsorship policies in the education system there. Hopefully it’ll help me to refine my approach to Quebec schools.

He also gave me the names of agencies for different interests. We got talking about the fact that they’re starting to represent the Quebec Milk Board [as a possible regional sponsor] and he mentioned another media company, who handle some of the Ministry campaigns. Which is where he dropped the notion of approaching Social Services. I forgot that they do a lot of PSA’s for children. Wicked suggestion.

Additionally, he provided me with contact information for five more companies.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s topic is related to establishing additional credibility and accountability.

GRANTS:

I haven’t pursued this much lately for the following reasons:

• The circuitous labyrinth that the government has set up for their grant system is daunting. I have a limited amount of patience for clicking here, reading eligibility requirements there and finally finding out that you need to have published two consecutive issues before they’ll look at you.
• There’s Arts, Publishing, Magazine and Small Business grants, so there are actually too many to spend time reading.
• There’s a structure for Provincial vs. Federal and the two rarely meet in the same place.

Anyone who feels the urge to filter for my eligibility is more than welcome, I’ll gladly accept URL’s on this one. It all boils down to time for me. Once I find one that I’m eligible for though, I have to prepare a package for them too.

At my per-sponsor page rates, my time is far better spent speaking with “private money” people right now.

Read the rest of this entry »