"Mili Fay's Adventures In Publishing": Part 03--CIP and Newfound Vision

CIP or Cataloguing In Publication according to my research is a voluntary program that catalogues books nationally and internationally before they are published.  This information is distributed to librarians and bookseller.

You will often find it on the verso page, just before the title page of a book (or possibly right after).  This page is known as the copyright page, because it contains all the copyright and legal information.  The CIP looks like a bunch of mysterious codes, with author's name and birth year, ISBN number, etc.

My copyright page and title page (verso means left).

The CIP information is on the bottom left corner.

I assume librarians and booksellers need this information to figure out how to catalogue the book.  Regardless, Suzanne Anderson in her book "Self Publishing In Canada" urges us to obtain a CIP, and I have obtained a CIP.

I have no idea how it works in other countries, but in Canada you search CIP Canada in Google to reach a government site that gives you all the necessary information to register.  You will need an ISBN and you must know the price of your book before you can fill out the provided forms.  It takes 10 business days for a government CIP official to get back to you.  In my case it took longer, because of the Easter Holidays, but I have used those 10 days to improve my book.

I thought I would have to wait for some fancy paperwork, but in the end I got the information in an e-mail and was told to paste it exactly on the copyright page, without any adjustments to format, font or anything.

I have done so, and my copyright page is now complete.  (I looked through a bunch of children's books I own to figure out how to present this information as professionally as possible.  I am happy with the result. :-) )

If you have read Part 02 of my publishing adventures, you know that I have used those 10 days to create watercolour portraits for my authour's biography page and for my thank you page.

However, I also had time to have more conversations with my printer.  At one point, I misunderstood the layout designer and thought he wanted me to have 60 pages to make it easier for creating signatures (smyth sewn books are made up of "signatures" separately sewn pages (12 or 16) that are put together).  So there were two extra pages I did not initially count on.  

I do not like blank pages in books.  The verso page after a title page must be blank, but for my book, there is no reason to have other pages blank.

Instead of printing out a blank page at the end, I decided to contact wildlife conservation societies and ask them if they wanted to say something on the last page of the book; a sort of free advertising if you will.  I spoke to Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada (check them out if you haven't already--they do great work), but I mentioned that I intended to raise money to help the Toronto Zoo.  Fearing a conflict of interest they declined my offer, but kindly told me to inform them when my book was done and they will promote it on their page.  I spent days trying to contact the Toronto Zoo.

It was a fiasco.  I sent messages, left a phone message that I'm sure the poor woman on the other line needed an interpreter to understand...  Weeks passed, and there was no word.  I worried that I will have to abandon this noble idea of "free advertising" for the zoo.  Finally, they contacted me, and explained the delay was due to the arrival of VIP--Very Important Pandas--from China.  These pandas are going to be the zoo's main attraction for the following five years, and the media was too busy dealing with their arrival to spare me a thought.

However, they loved my idea of using my book to raise funds for the conservation of wildlife.  The Toronto Zoo does amazing work in reintroducing and breeding extirpated species, and they agreed to give me their statement to print at the end of the book.

So, while I was waiting for CIP I created the zoo's page as well.

More than all this, I have re-affirmed my purpose in life.

I have always liked helping others.  I've given to charities, I bought coffee-shop certificates for people begging on the street, I helped in organizing events, fundraisers...

However, I realized that I can do so much more.  With this talent I've been given I hope to help many worthy causes and organizations.

In the past, I created "Horsing Around" to raise funds for local children's hospitals, now this book is supposed to raise funds for wildlife conservation (Toronto Zoo) and I already have projects lined up that will help raise funds for animal shelters, children with disabilities, community dance programs,...

So, while I waited for CIP, I came up with Mili Fay Art's official vision statement: "Together we support the world one artwork at a time."

This is my dream: to create beautiful artwork that people around the world will love, and to give a substantial portion of my profits to help others.  In this way, I can help much more than if I was just to donate a few bucks here and there when I could. 

I know I can do this.  However, I cannot do this alone.  If you like Mili Fay Art's vision, please support Mili Fay Art by Liking me on Facebook (Mili Fay Art Page; Animals In My Hair Page), following me on Twitter @MiliFay, reading this blog, and sharing the information with others.

If you are looking for perfect gifts for children take a look at Horsing Around and Animals In My Hair.

To pre-order Animals In My Hair contact me through Facebook or info@artofmili.ca.  For more information  see What's So Great About "Animals In My Hair"? (previous post).

Thank you for reading.  Thank you for your support.

Mili Fay

P.S. Next time I will write about my unexpected trouble.