A few weeks ago I sent a copy of the book to Olivia (aka @theRealAdventure on Instagram) for review.
She gave it a nice review including a great photo of the book as well. Screen shots are below. The link is here.
WANAR Facebook auction.
I’m happy to have a book as part of the WANAR (We All Need a Rescue) Facebook auction. In 2017 we picked up Agnes from WANAR when they had an influx of 60 rescue dogs. They do good work for rescues in Saskatchewan, but are currently financially hurting because COVID has impacted their main source of income.
Drop by the auction for a chance to bid on great dog and non-dog related items. Bidding ends November 14th at 10pm.
Australian Dog Lover Book Club
I received a little bit of love from the other side of the world. The Australian Dog Lover’s web site included the Dogversations Book in their August book club. I’m personally pretty excited about this. Bruno, Eva, and Agnes want to know if my personal excitement will translate to more treats for them.
Dog Evals book review
A while age I sent a copy of the Dogversations book to Skye Anderson at DogEvals to see what she thought of the book. It turns out that she loved it.
I particularly like her comment on the top of her facebook post for the review:
“Is is too Early to announce my favorite book of 2020 yet?”
A link to the full review is here: Dogversations book on Dog Evals.
Screen shots of the review are also provided below.
WCVM Today Article
I am quite fortunate to have a good relationship with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. Both of our initial retrievers spent time at the Vet college as Kael had elbow dysplasia and Oliver was anaphylactic to peanuts (thankfully only one visit) and received diagnosis of osteosarcoma which was treated with amputation and chemotherapy.
After Oliver’s I started working with the vet college and have since had photos of all five of our dogs in their fundraising, cards, and calendars. When I was putting together the Dogversations Book I knew that I wanted to again work with the vet college on this project.
As mentioned before, $5 will be donated to the WCVM Les and Irene Dube Good Samaritan fund for each copy of the book sold through the USask store .
Lynne Gunville with the WCVM put together a nice article about the book which was recently published online in the WCVM today. The online version of the article is linked, but I’m also sharing it as screen shots below.
A Head Shot of Me and Three Dogs in the Park. How Hard Could that Be?
It recently became apparent that I need a headshot of myself with the three dogs. I thought that I might be able to pull this off with a tripod and self timer - but then I realized that was insane. So I contacted the talented Emma Love and she met us in the park to do the photos.
Now just in case anyone thinks that my dogs are perfectly trained - they aren’t. Bruno has impulse control issues and Aggie doesn’t like other dogs on leads in the park. Eva is not bad, but there’s always the potential for a bird related incident.
Karen was working so the kids came to the park with me. I’m not sure if they were there as emotional support for me or as handlers for the dogs. Emma is talented with the camera, but her biggest skill at this shoot may have been her sense of humour and abundant patience.
I’m not as comfortable in front of the camera lens as behind it. Butt fortunately the dogs are more the starts of the photo than I am. And also fortunately they have been conditioned to pay attention to the sound of a camera shutter so they were looking at the camera more often than not.
At the end of the day - these are the four best picture. And hopefully I won’t have do do another one of these for a long long time.
Apple Books Giveaway
I’m excited to be doing an ebook giveaway. I have 5 ebook codes to give away. It’s easy to enter, just head to my instagram account (@theDogWearsPantlers) and follow the instructions on the post.
There are of course some small print details.
These codes will only be valid until July 26th. The end user can redeem the codes through the redeem feature on their Apple App Store app. They will then be able to read the ebook on the Apple Books app on their iPhone, iPad, iMac or Macbook.
This will unfortunately not work on non-apple devices.
Further instructions are as follows - https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201209.
Edit. It’s now Monday and there were conveniently 5 people requesting ebook vouchers, so each has received one. I did not expect the personal tones of the comments received, but they were certainly appreciated!
Somewhat Less Biased Book Reviews
Some more unofficial book reviews have come in. I am well aware that these are mildly biased reviews, but all reviews are fun so I thought that I would share opinions of some of the people who have bought some of the early copies of the books. And just so people know, I asked permission to share all of the following pieces of feedback on the blog.
The following words are from my on-line friend Karen who I met though dog photography groups on Flickr.
And this review is from the owner of Bruno’s litter mate Sawyer…
“I loved it! It was so fun to read the conversations and see how well they related to each photo. I got to know the personalities of Agnes and Eva. Bruno is a lot like Sawyer. LOL … Such great Photography. It’s a great coffee table book and really fun to look at with children and let them come up with their own story … it’s a great book for all ages. You have a great sense of humour, and imagination for the dialogue between these adorable dogs”
This review is from Rob, my high school buddy and comic book artist from Toronto…
When I told my friend Brent that the book was published and available at McNally Robinson he went to check it out,. He bought one copy that day then went back to buy more for some of his friends and family. His emailed comments are as follows:
“Thanks so much for letting me know about the book. I bought one at McNally yesterday and Sue and I spent a very pleasant evening going through it. I’ll give you my one word review. IT’S EFFING BRILLIANT!!! Hmm, I guess that’s more of a phrase isn’t it.
I was well aware of your impressive skills as a photographer and the book certainly doesn’t disappoint on that front but I didn’t know what a terrific writer you are. I should have known though, having always enjoyed your quick wit and sense of humour.
Congrats Dave. A grand work of art to be very proud of.”
The last for this set of somewhat less biased book reviews is from my friend Tina. This was her initial review:
And when I asked if I could use her words on a blog post she decided to go with something more creative. Following which is my response showing why I needed a good book editor.
McNally Robinson
Book stores are starting to open again! The premium edition of the book is currently on the shelves at McNally Robinson in both Saskatoon and Winnipeg.
I’m not sure if the book truly qualifies as ‘Non-fiction’, but I am grateful for the prominent placement at the front of the Saskatoon store.
Kirkus Book Review
The first non-biased review of the book it in!
It’s from Kirkus book review and it is very positive. My favorite parts of the review include:
Cuter than the cutest Facebook memes
Easy to read and comprehend … these simple exchanges are squeaky clean and appropriate for the entire family.
Lighthearted human-animal misunderstandings take center stage in several of the animals’ pithy quips.
To read the full review head over to KirkusReviews.com and search for ‘Dogversations’ or click the button below.
Totally Biased Book Reviews
Well, the early reviews are in. And they are all super positive. All of these were spontaneous emails or texts. Except for the one from my wife but no set of biased reviews would be complete without one from my wife.
Admittedly the positive nature of the reviews may be because of extreme bias - but that being said here they are …
From my lovely wife …
From my parents …
From my excellent and enthusiastic editor Cynthia …
From my friend Rod (who may or may not have been the first person to buy the book at McNally Robinson) …
From my friend Anita. Rod had lent her his copy of the book, and the second bubble is describing how much her daughter loves it.
Thanks to everyone for these totally biased reviews. And the fact that they are biased makes them even better.
A Little Social Medial Boost
I received a little social media boost from Friesen Press on their social media feeds. Nice to get the word out about the books arriving. It’s also nice to share a photo of Eva doing her best queen of the mountain pose.
www.friesenpress.com/instagram
The books are here!
The books are here! And this is what 1,000 books looks like. For some reason I decided to take a photo of the pile of books in my garage with Eva lying on top of it before moving them down to the basement and getting them ready for sale.
These premium edition books will be available for sale before the end of the week. Hardcover landscape formatting with glossy pages. They look amazing. Retail pricing is $37.95 and they will be available at local the Saskatoon Indigo and McNally Robinson stores. I’ll also be doing sales through the University of Saskatchewan book store where $5 from the sale of each book will be donated to the University of Saskatchewan Veterinary College companion animal charitable fund.
Print Ready
It seems like a long time in the making, but I now have ‘print ready’ files for the book! That means that all of the writing, editing, and layout are completed and that we will move on to printing in the very near future.
I guess that means that details regarding distribution, sales and availability will be coming soon!
It's what's inside that counts
They say that “it’s what’s inside that counts.”
And they also say that “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.”
I don’t know who “they” are, but this collective wisdom must mean that the interior of a book is the most important part.
It is starting to take shape to the point that I now feel happy to share a screen shot of the interior. There will (likely) be 67 dogversations within the book, which have been collected from over 4 years of dog photography projects. The yellow sticky notes on the text are there for editing purposes.
To say that I have learned a lot during this process would be an understatement. I also severely underestimated the time requirement to move this forward. That being said, I do like how the book is coming together.
A big thanks to the folks at FriesenPress for the helping make this a reality.
A screen shot of the PDF file during editing of the book interior pages layout.
It's starting to feel real
I decided to go ahead with this book project in the summer of 2018. It is now one year later and things have really progressed.
Although seeing the manuscript and images come together has been nice, it didn’t feel real until I received this revised version of the cover. I’m starting to get excited about seeing this in print.
A near final version of the case-bound cover as provided by Friesen press. The colour boxes will no be printed, but are in place to illustrate hinge points and centre lines.