Melt Them Down - Preface
In 1994 I was approached by a salesman for Kendall-Hunt Publishing, Inc.
He was contacting all the Georgia Speakers Association members to sell the publishing services of K-H to as many as he could.
My fellow GSA member and friend was also approached and the two of us decided we would publish with K-H through their CONTRACT PUBLISHING approach eliminating all the middle people between starving author and finished high quality published book.
This process was often called VANITY PRESS in the past.
K-H was a high quality publisher with an excellent reputation.
Both Keith and I signed up.
Him with his book ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING that took him to fame around the US. Got him a large article of the front page of the Marketing Section of the Wall Street Journal and many other publications plus on many regional and national radio, tv shows, including his own Channel 8 NPR fundraising show.
In my case my book BROKEN CRAYONS was published by K-H.
It has taken me around the world many times during the past 22 years. Gotten me on a few radio interview shows but alas not tv yet. I did get 2 lines in an article in WSJ about strange speakers and 4 seconds on an episode of 60 Minutes once when they did an attack story on the professional speaking profession.
BROKEN CRAYONS was published in 1995 and has had some mild success. Thanks to colleagues in Turkey, Slovenia, South Africa it has been republished by other publishing companies. It also was taken on by a Japanese businessman to publish who ended up wanting me to turn it into a complete cartoon/comic style book, Manza I think is the style's name. I thought about it for months but then declined, simply in my whole life of cartooning and drawing I had never done that many drawings for a single project and I was very busy speaking around the globe at the time.
I simply didn't think I could do it.
Like many FAILURE STORIES about
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES I turned him down.
You are now reading a new book about creativity that I have decided to publish.
MELT THEM DOWN
using another of my wax crayon analogies or metaphors.
I grew up learning from my all time favorite elementary school teacher: MRS. JOHNSON; that you can do more with BROKEN CRAYONS than you can with perfect, wrapped, right out of the box crayons. I took that analogy or metaphor and applied to the last 41 years of my life. When the K-H salesman contacted me to ask
"DO YOU HAVE A BOOK YOU WANT TO PUBLISH?"
I had been doing workshops and keynote speeches from 1976 to 1994 using the analogy, the metaphor, as the title for varied programs for public workshops or in-houe workshops for individual clients.
Since 1995 when BROKEN CRAYONS was published I have been traveling around the globe doing workshops on creative thinking that grew from my original ones in the 70s up to 1995.
This book has been written to capture much of what I have Learned and Created in the past 22 years in addition to the previous 19 year of studying creativity and 32 of living as a creative person or a person doing things creatively by choice.
In 1976 I volunteered to be a Gifted Education Teacher for 23 academically gifted elementary school children. My oldest and late son, Jeff was one of the 23.
Within a month of beginning my Tuesday, "VENTURES UNLIMITED" sessions with the children, K to 2nd grade in the morning and 3rd to 5th in the afternoon, I had begun reading many books about teaching, education, learning, children including two specific articles by the same author/researcher/professor, Dr. E. Paul Torrance, originally from central Georgia, who began his 50 years of devotion to the development of creative thinking in school classrooms in the 50s.
In the first article he wrote about how every human being is born with capacities to think creatively.
In the second article he wrote about how creative thinking skills could be taught or trained.
Those two articles began my 41 year journey or pilgrimage focused on the Development of Creative Thinking Skills, Traits, Behaviors, Tools and Processes that has taken me to over 40 states and 93 countries.
Come along as I share much of what I believe can
help you,
your children,
your friends,
your fellow employees
and if you are a leader from supervisor to CEO or owner of a small company to a large corporation help ALL of your employees
become the
CREATIVE THINKERS you/they were BORN TO BE!
In 1994 I was approached by a salesman for Kendall-Hunt Publishing, Inc.
He was contacting all the Georgia Speakers Association members to sell the publishing services of K-H to as many as he could.
My fellow GSA member and friend was also approached and the two of us decided we would publish with K-H through their CONTRACT PUBLISHING approach eliminating all the middle people between starving author and finished high quality published book.
This process was often called VANITY PRESS in the past.
K-H was a high quality publisher with an excellent reputation.
Both Keith and I signed up.
Him with his book ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING that took him to fame around the US. Got him a large article of the front page of the Marketing Section of the Wall Street Journal and many other publications plus on many regional and national radio, tv shows, including his own Channel 8 NPR fundraising show.
In my case my book BROKEN CRAYONS was published by K-H.
It has taken me around the world many times during the past 22 years. Gotten me on a few radio interview shows but alas not tv yet. I did get 2 lines in an article in WSJ about strange speakers and 4 seconds on an episode of 60 Minutes once when they did an attack story on the professional speaking profession.
BROKEN CRAYONS was published in 1995 and has had some mild success. Thanks to colleagues in Turkey, Slovenia, South Africa it has been republished by other publishing companies. It also was taken on by a Japanese businessman to publish who ended up wanting me to turn it into a complete cartoon/comic style book, Manza I think is the style's name. I thought about it for months but then declined, simply in my whole life of cartooning and drawing I had never done that many drawings for a single project and I was very busy speaking around the globe at the time.
I simply didn't think I could do it.
Like many FAILURE STORIES about
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES I turned him down.
You are now reading a new book about creativity that I have decided to publish.
MELT THEM DOWN
using another of my wax crayon analogies or metaphors.
I grew up learning from my all time favorite elementary school teacher: MRS. JOHNSON; that you can do more with BROKEN CRAYONS than you can with perfect, wrapped, right out of the box crayons. I took that analogy or metaphor and applied to the last 41 years of my life. When the K-H salesman contacted me to ask
"DO YOU HAVE A BOOK YOU WANT TO PUBLISH?"
I had been doing workshops and keynote speeches from 1976 to 1994 using the analogy, the metaphor, as the title for varied programs for public workshops or in-houe workshops for individual clients.
Since 1995 when BROKEN CRAYONS was published I have been traveling around the globe doing workshops on creative thinking that grew from my original ones in the 70s up to 1995.
This book has been written to capture much of what I have Learned and Created in the past 22 years in addition to the previous 19 year of studying creativity and 32 of living as a creative person or a person doing things creatively by choice.
In 1976 I volunteered to be a Gifted Education Teacher for 23 academically gifted elementary school children. My oldest and late son, Jeff was one of the 23.
Within a month of beginning my Tuesday, "VENTURES UNLIMITED" sessions with the children, K to 2nd grade in the morning and 3rd to 5th in the afternoon, I had begun reading many books about teaching, education, learning, children including two specific articles by the same author/researcher/professor, Dr. E. Paul Torrance, originally from central Georgia, who began his 50 years of devotion to the development of creative thinking in school classrooms in the 50s.
In the first article he wrote about how every human being is born with capacities to think creatively.
In the second article he wrote about how creative thinking skills could be taught or trained.
Photo of my mentor, teacher, colleague, friend: Dr. E. Paul Torrance the day I received my diploma for completing my PhD with him as my major professor in 1984.
Those two articles began my 41 year journey or pilgrimage focused on the Development of Creative Thinking Skills, Traits, Behaviors, Tools and Processes that has taken me to over 40 states and 93 countries.
Come along as I share much of what I believe can
help you,
your children,
your friends,
your fellow employees
and if you are a leader from supervisor to CEO or owner of a small company to a large corporation help ALL of your employees
become the
CREATIVE THINKERS you/they were BORN TO BE!
No comments:
Post a Comment