KATHRYN VAN BEEK
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Pet is out now!

31/8/2020

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What a roller-coaster ride the past few weeks have been!

Pet launch
Changing Covid-19 alert levels put paid to my book launch plans - but luckily Newsroom (and No.1 Family Estate Wine) came to the party with an online book launch! 

You can check it out here. 

Sophia from Mary Egan Publishing (and dog, Gus) even recorded a special launch speech, above. 

Podcast
The Pet podcast is also available now! Thanks to OAR FM, Creative New Zealand and NZ On Air, the podcast is available via your favourite podcast app - and from the OAR FM website here. 

Publicity 
Thanks to ace publicist Sarah Thornton, the books have been getting some great media coverage too. If you're interested, you can check out these articles:
  • Otago Daily Times feature article
  • NZ Booklovers Q&A
  • Read NZ Q&A 
  • The Sapling's Mahy questionnaire 

Where to find a copy
If you'd like to get your own copy of Pet, you should be able to find it at your local bookstore. Otherwise, you can get it online from a number of outlets, including: 
  • University Book Shop 
  • Time Out Bookstore 
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You're invited to a book launch!

22/8/2020

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We've cancelled the Dunedin book and podcast launch for my short story collection Pet due to Covid-19 alert level uncertainty - but never fear, Newsroom has come to the rescue with an online launch, and there will even be goodie bags!

Yes, I have figured out how to have wine and chocolate at an online event! 


The link to the online festivities will be shared on the night. Hope to 'see' you there!

Join the Facebook event for updates. 
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Book launches!

14/8/2020

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Above: If you think I look tired in this photo, you're right! It was taken the night the crowdfunding campaigns finished. 

Thanks to the support of incredibly generous people from around Aotearoa and the world, my crowdfunding campaigns were successful and this month Bruce Goes Outside and Pet are both being released into the world! 

With any luck, the book launches for both books will go ahead in both Dunedin and Auckland. Everyone is welcome to attend. Click the links below to find the Facebook events. 

Bruce Goes Outside: Dunedin
10.30am Saturday 15 August, University Book Shop
Featuring face painting and colouring-in

Pet: Dunedin
5.30pm Tuesday 25 August, University Book Shop
Featuring wine, cheese, and performances from the Pet Podcast actors

Pet: Auckland
5.30pm Friday 28 August, Time Out Bookstore
Featuring wine, cheese, and performances from the Pet Podcast actors

Bruce Goes Outside: Auckland
11am Saturday 15 August, Dorothy Butler Children's Book Shop
Featuring face painting and colouring-in
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The Luckiest writer in the world?

12/5/2020

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I think I might be the luckiest writer in the world - I have not one but TWO books coming out this August! 

Pet
Pet is a dark and humorous short story collection that explores our relationships with children, lovers, and other animals. In these 18 stories we meet a girl in a standoff with the neighbourhood goose killer, a druggy who turns possums into pop culture icons, and an emotional support animal gone wild.
Visit Goodreads to learn more. 

Bruce Goes Outside
Kate’s tiny kitten wants to go outside. He struggles with the cat flap, annoys a bird . . . and ends up on the wrong side of the fence. What will Kate do? Bruce Goes Outside follows on from Bruce Finds A Home, which is based on the true story of Bruce the Cat. 
Visit Goodreads to learn more. 

I wrote and illustrated both of these books, which have both been labours of love. Bruce Goes Outside took me about two years to finish ... and Pet took a few more years than that! I hope you enjoy them. 

Pre-orders will be available soon ... watch this space! 
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Best of Auckland

12/5/2020

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I'm so excited to have a story in this gorgeous book, which is coming out in June! 

"Sleep-deprived doctors tread a fine line between reality and fantasy, grumpy baristas take up arms as society crumbles around them, and petty criminals brush shoulders with supernatural beings in this collection of stories and poetry from the best of Auckland writers. Best of Auckland deals with universal human themes: love and fear, hope and nostalgia, and everything in between.

At times quirky or optimistic, at times dark or wistful, the Best of Auckland collection is guaranteed to entertain you, move you, and show you the world from new angles."

​You can find out more, and pre-order copies, on the Writers' Cafe website. 
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2019 Annual Report

30/12/2019

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As a valued stakeholder of 'Kathryn van Beek: writer', please find your copy of my 2019 Annual Report below. The report is structured as follows: submissions, disappointments, successes, a tribute and a summary. 

Submissions
My goal was to make 100 submissions to journals, competitions, funding bodies etc, and I came close this year with approximately 81 submissions made. 
These 81 submissions yielded 9 successes and 38 declines. Twenty-three submissions still await their fates, and I withdrew 11 submissions after the stories were accepted elsewhere.  

Disappointments
Of those 38 declines, I would say that 35 were 'oh well' moments, while the other three led to full-blown  'what is the point in going on I should just impale myself upon my pen' crises. 
I am also disappointed in myself for not finishing the illustrations for the second Bruce the Cat book (working on them now!). 

Successes
  • I won the Mindfood Short Story Prize and was Highly Commended for the Sargeson Prize
  • I received a 'Complete Manuscript Assessment' from the New Zealand Society of Authors and finished the manuscript for Pet, my collection of short stories
  • I completed Local Legends, a series about Port Chalmers pubs 
  • I had stories published by Mindfood Magazine, takahē Magazine and The Valley Review (Massachusetts), and others have been accepted by Newsroom, Geometry and Cease Cows (USA) - look out for these in 2020
  • I was asked by the Otago Daily Times to contribute to the Best Book in the World series (I picked Charlotte's Web)
  • My story The Hoarder was included in Fresh Ink, and we had a wonderful book launch at the University Bookshop
  • I was invited to participate in Little Landers Literature with the wonderful Robyn Belton again this year. Thanks Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature! 
  • I participated in a number of events including Iona Winter's fabulous Te Hau Kāika, and the Wild Imaginings Children's Writers and Illustrators Hui (with Fifi Colston!)
  • The Holidays Act Amendment Bill that I have worked on with MP Ginny Andersen had its first reading in Parliament. You can watch it being read here, and check out a One News story here
  • In a success / fail mix I was shortlisted for the Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency (success!), but didn't secure it (fail!). However, I was described by Steve Braunias as "real funny and super talented" (success!) ... and I am just realising now several months too late that I should have made that description my Twitter bio (fail!). 
And of course I'm still managing social media for my cat, Bruce. He has over 46K Facebook followers now, the handsome devil. 

A tribute to David 
Writing the 'Best Book in the World' piece was one of the highlights of my year, and a real testament to the wonderful man behind the series - talented journalist and really nice bloke David Loughrey. Unfortunately David passed away recently. I don't know what to say except David, in the short time that I knew you, you really enriched my world. Thank you.   

Summary ... and hopes for 2020
Though I didn't get the exact feather in my cap that I really wanted this year, I did pick up a bunch of other very nice feathers. 

In 2020 I hope to publish both Pet and Bruce Goes Outside (my second children's book), and get a little further along on my doctorate of professional practice. 

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me this year. I love Aotearoa's literary scene - everyone I've met has been so generous and kind. Wishing all of you a happy and successful 2020. 
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Local Legends

16/12/2019

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Port Chalmers: Local Legends
Local Legends: photos by Andy Thompson
I live in historic Port Chalmers, Otago, and my neighbour Andy Thompson happens to be a very talented photographer. We teamed up to create a photo essay about three historic Port Chalmers pubs that are still thriving today: The Portsider, Mackie's Hotel and Carey's Bay Hotel. After spending a lot of time interviewing the publicans and sifting through Papers Past, we are thrilled that our story, Local Legends, has been published in local magazine Down in Edin today. 

Read the Local Legends story here
See more of Andy's beautiful images here
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'Flotsam and Jetsam' in mindfood magazine

1/7/2019

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I'm really chuffed that my short story Flotsam and Jetsam has been published in the latest edition of Mindfood Magazine. 

The story is set in 1980s Christchurch. It follows a train trip to Blenheim told from the point of view of a little girl who has a mother with stars in her eyes. 

As always, the rest of the magazine is filled with great content, including articles about innovation and wellbeing. 

And I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a lovely pink sweater like the one that Emma Thompson's wearing on the cover!

Later in the year, Mindfood Magazine readers will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite stories. I'll be sure to remind you when voting opens in November! 
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Bruce Finds A Home Auckland book launch!

13/2/2018

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Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Kathryn van Beek's 'Bruce Finds A Home' book launch
Thank you so much to everyone who came along to the Auckland book launch for Bruce Finds A Home - and to everyone who helped me organise it. An extra big thank you to the lovely ladies at The Dorothy Butler Book Shop who made the experience so special. 

I'm looking forward to the Dunedin book launch this Saturday 17 February at the University Book Shop from 10.30am. All welcome!
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The modern girl’s guide to publishing: 5 week Kickstarter countdown

17/4/2017

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I'd like to invite you to come on a crowd-funding journey with me. 

On 24 May I'm going to launch a crowd-funding campaign to raise funds for my illustrated children's book Bruce Finds A Home. Over the next five weeks leading up to the campaign, during the four weeks of the campaign itself, and in the weeks afterwards (when I get into the nitty gritty of printing the books and fulfilling rewards) I'll keep you posted with insights and updates. 

You're welcome to follow along and hopefully pick up some useful tips about crowd-funding and book publishing along the way. 

In today's post I'll explain the rationale behind the decisions I’ve made so far, and fill you in on my secret weapons!

Why not use a traditional publisher?
I’m a writer of short stories that have found a small audience in journals and magazines. When I ended up with a famous internet cat, I suddenly had a much bigger audience – 28, 886 to be precise! Creating a children’s book about my cat Bruce seemed to be a good way to marry my love of writing and illustrating with an in-built audience of people who care about Bruce and feel invested in his story. I wrote the text, completed the illustrations and then looked into traditional publishers. After spending all that time on the story and the pictures, I really wanted to avoid the hassle of the actual publishing! But when I realised it might take a year or more to work my way through my list of traditional publishers, I decided to take matters into my own hands. This isn’t necessarily something I would have done if I didn’t already have an established audience – I feel more confident taking this approach because of Bruce’s existing fan-base. 

I looked into self-publishing, but I was convinced that if I published the book myself I’d end up making a mistake somewhere along the line – and I want Bruce Finds A Home to be a quality product. So I was thrilled when I found out about Mary Egan Publishing, which enters into joint venture partnerships with writers. I contacted Mary Egan Publishing with my pitch and heard back from them immediately. It turns out that they were already fans of Bruce on Facebook and could really see the potential for this story. As an added bonus, they are well-versed in crowd-funding and have had considerable success with titles such as Tu Meke Tui and Feel A Little. 

Thanks to this partnership I’m getting all the benefits of professional editors, award-winning designers and years of industry experience – but this kind of quality comes at a price. Bruce himself isn’t able to contribute financially to the book (he still owes us $3K for his vet bills!) so I decided to use crowd-funding to cover the book’s production costs. 

Why Kickstarter?
There are some fantastic crowd-funding platforms in New Zealand, including PledgeMe and Boosted. Internationally, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the biggest. I am super keen to try Boosted sometime in the future, but the Boosted platform doesn’t offer rewards – and a key aspect of my Kickstarter is giving people the opportunity to pre-order the book. PledgeMe is also a highly-regarded platform, but because Bruce has an international audience I decided to go with a site that will hopefully already be familiar to more of Bruce’s fans. The research I did indicated that Indiegogo is more geared at tech projects. So that led me to Kickstarter – which also has the advantage of having a large inbuilt audience. What’s the disadvantage of Kickstarter? When it comes to getting your money, it’s all or nothing. So if I don’t reach my target, none of my backers will get charged. That’s great security for them – but nerve-wracking for me!

My secret weapons…
I have three secret weapons up my sleeve: interns, sponsors and resources. 

Interns. A couple of weeks ago I realised that it would be way more fun to do this Kickstarter with other people. Not only to help share the load of the work, but also to share in the excitement, the trials and tribulations, and the successes. I put an ad on The Big Idea asking for interns and have since connected with three amazing people who each have unique skills that will be incredibly valuable for this project. In fact, ‘intern’ doesn’t do justice to their skills so we are coming up with new job titles as we speak! I’ll do my best to make sure they each learn kickass marketing, crowd-funding and publishing skills… and that they finish the project with excellent references under their belts.

Sponsors. The research I’ve done tells me that crowd-funding campaigns are exponentially more likely to succeed if they reach 20% of their funding target within the first week. (This is because everyone loves to ‘back a winner’ – so it pays to put your best foot forward.) I’ve put together a sponsorship proposal and I’ve been reaching out to businesses that I think might be interested in supporting the project in exchange for reaching Bruce’s audience. An all-star cast of sponsors have come on board already – hopefully I’ll be able to spill the beans as to who they are in an upcoming post! These amazing businesses are essentially the ‘seed funders’ of the project, and if this we reach target it will be in no small part due to their support. Thank you sponsors! 

Resources. The internet is a wonderland of crowd-funding and Kickstarter resources. Many of these can be found on crowd-funding websites themselves:
  • Kickstarter
  • Boosted
  • PledgeMe
  • Indiegogo

Reading about what other people have done has also given me some useful insights into planning my own campaign. Here are some blog posts and articles that I’ve found particularly useful:
  • Kickstarter step by step
  • 9 Tips For Crushing It On Kickstarter
  • 6 Tips For Running A Wildly Successful Kickstarter Campaign
  • Every Resource We Used to Plan and Launch a $75K Kickstarter Campaign

See you next week in my Four Week Kickstarter Countdown post! 
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    Kathryn van Beek

    Author

    A graduate of UNITEC’s School of Performing and Screen Arts (BA) and Victoria University’s Institute of Modern Letters (MA), Kathryn is a published playwright who has won several Playmarket and Fringe Festival awards.

    An accomplished short story writer, Kathryn is the author of short story collection
    Pet, and the winner of the Mindfood Short Story Competition and the Headland Short Story Prize.

    Kathryn has written several zines, a podcast, a web series, and a number of articles for outlets such as The Spinoff. She has also written and illustrated two children's books about her rescue cat, Bruce. 


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    I am also hoping to put the power of the pen to good use by advocating for better miscarriage information and support. Click here for details.

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