It’s the Peschel Press Newsletter for September 2022!
The next four weekends are going to be busy, busy, busy. We’ve got a wide range of events coming up, in different locations. If you’re in the Central PA area, this is your chance to see our Print-On-Demand books and evaluate them for yourself and see how they compare to traditionally published books. Keep in mind that we have show specials that aren’t available online.
First out of the starting gate is Saturday, 17 September 2022.
We’ll be at Books, Books, Books at the Groff Center on 234 West Orange Street in Lancaster. You’ll have plenty of authors and genres to choose from, with over fifty of us. It should be a fun event. There’s plenty of free parking. If you don’t want to buy your ticket in advance, they’re available at the door. It’s indoors, from noon until 4pm. There’s plenty to see and do in downtown Lancaster so you can make a day of it.
Then, on Saturday, 24 September 2022, we’ll be in Carlisle, PA!
We were accepted to the Downtown Carlisle Association’s annual Harvest of the Arts festival. High Street from Hanover to West Street will be filled with canopies featuring all kinds of artists. We’ll be in front of the Bosler library so we’re easy to find. There’s live music all day, plenty of activities for the kids, and food of every description. It’s rain or shine, from 10am until 5pm. We’ve never done this show before so we have no idea how we’ll do. It’s juried, so you’ll see some great arts and fine craftsmanship.
For more information about the show: https://harvestofthearts.us/
Next up is Saturday, 1 October 2022; the Chocolatetown Book Festival!
We’ll have our canopy somewhere in the park at the intersection of Chocolate Avenue and Cocoa Avenue. There’s fifty to sixty authors, but not much duplication with Books, Books, Books so feel free to attend both events. This event runs from 1pm to 5pm. The Hershey Public Library and Cupboard Maker Books hope to make this an annual event so the more people who come out, the better.
After that, on Saturday, 8 October 2022, we’ll be at Kensington’s Books CozyClub Mini-Con, hosted by the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop. This event is also free, but does require you register in advance. Visit the bookshop’s page to register and for more information: https://www.mysterybooksonline.com/kensington-cozyclub-mini-con-preview
The con takes place at United Methodist Church on 125 East Main Street, Shiremanstown, PA. If you love cozies, this is the place to be. I know there are more authors attending than are listed on the poster, so be prepared for surprises.
Will Bill and I be selling books at CozyCon? No. We won’t. Instead, Bill will emcee the event, as he’s done many times in the past for the bookstore. If you’ve only seen Bill on their podcasts, you can now watch him in action in person! I’ll be along for the ride, with the thermos of ThroatCoat tea, his snacks, camera, and anything else he needs to help put on a good show.
After that, we’ll have a few weeks off until the Winter Arts and Crafts Show at Hershey High School. That’s Saturday, 5 November 2022, if you want to mark your calendar.
We won’t handle these events the same way. For Books, Books, Books and Chocolatetown Book Festival, I’m going as Odessa Moon. That’s how I’m listed in the program. For Harvest of the Arts and the Winter Arts and Crafts Show, I’m going as Teresa Peschel since we’re described as Peschel Press. For CozyCon, I’m the loyal spouse waiting at the stage door, holding the star’s coat.
Bill will be his own sweet self, but he, too, will dress differently for CozyCon. He needs to stand out there, but not advertise our books because it’s not that kind of show for us.
This is where being flexible about your brand colors and show uniforms can be useful.
Way back when, Peschel Press didn’t have a brand or brand color or logo or anything. We had our card tables, some books, and, purely by chance, I’d sewed Bill a shirt that’s white with rows of black letters. He still wears it today. At about the same time, I found a salvaged multi-colored plaid tablecloth, which we used for several years. It was garish, all orange and green and black. We had our first stand-up banner, with a black background and six book covers on it.
That was us. We were trying but it was obvious we didn’t know much.
A couple years later, we signed up for our first outdoor show. We bought the canopy. Purely by chance, this canopy came with a sign attachment for the front. So Bill designed a sign and he chose a sky blue/robin’s egg blue for the background because it looked pretty from the range of colors the printer offered. At about the same time, he designed our logo.
We chose a font and colors that said what we hoped to achieve: earning money. That’s why the green, gold, and silver.
The blue was a nice blue. Distinctive, in fact. So we started using it whenever we needed a background. Bill matched the blue to Pantone’s colors so we could get that exact shade. For my part, I wanted everything we did to be the exact same shade; the tablecloths I planned to sew someday, the matching shirt for shows, and so on.
I really wanted everything to match.
Instead, we were given three medium shade cadet blue tablecloths. Did I want to use these tablecloths or did I want to purchase fabric — which would never be the exact shade I wanted — and spend the time sewing them? I got smart and got over my desire to have everything matchy-matchy. A good thing, as it turned out because when we order signs, the background color never quite matches! When I do Instagram posts, the background color never quite matches either. In fact, nothing I do remains the exact blue that we got on our very first canopy banner. Not the shirts, not the labels we bought to sew into bookmarks and tote bags, not anything.
But they’re reasonably close. They’re all shades of robin’s egg blue, sky blue, or cadet blue, and they harmonize. And that’s all I want. It’s easy to get hung up on everything being the exact shade of blue, pink, or green but unless you’ve got buckets of money and can get everything you need all at once, you won’t get the exact shade you have in mind.
Once I got out of my own way and said blue is blue, I relaxed. I was free to work on my Odessa Moon persona. Odessa, like me, always dresses for shows. The difference is I wear some variation of Peschel Press blue. Odessa wears cobalt blue or royal blue, a much darker, saturated blue. But it’s still blue!
Bill currently owns five show shirts. The type font, the yellow dictionary, an aqua shirt that’s close enough to P.P. blue because the fabric was free, a P.P. t-shirt complete with oversized logo, and a royal blue long-sleeved shirt that he wears for podcasts and when he’s assisting Odessa at her signings. They’re blue.
For CozyCon, he’ll be wearing either the aqua or the royal blue. They signal us, they’ve got a very discreet version of our logo on the pocket, and they don’t scream that we’re there to sell books. We aren’t. We’re there to facilitate CozyCon for Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop. I’ll wear a similar blue shirt, enough to say who we are without it getting in the way.
It’s useful to have multiple shirts because if you do different types of events, you can choose which one is most appropriate for the venue. It’s also useful when you do a multi-day event like Malice Domestic. You’ve got a clean shirt for each day that’s on brand, appropriate, and you don’t have to wash your one lone shirt out in the sink and let it dry overnight between wearings.
We fell into our choice of blue. It wasn’t planned. Next month, assuming the universe does not drop a house on me, I’ll discuss what color you should choose for your genre of books.
Color matters! So choose the one that works best for you.
Thanks again for joining us and we hope to see you at one or more of our next four events. There’s not much point in writing if readers like you don’t like the books we write.