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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Little Lobo gets to howl in English, SpanishLos Chavez Los Chavez couple writes 'flip' book of story based on their own family's howlingly good times What do two retired military nurses living in Los Chavez do with their free time? Well, if you are Antoinette and John Austin, you write and illustrate a bilingual children's book. Antoinette, who was born and raised in Albuquerque, met John after joining the military as a nurse, and the couple spent 10 years together in the military. John retired last year after 20 years of service. "It was 20 years, six months and 10 days, but who's counting?" he joked.
During their time of service, the couple had the opportunity to travel. They have done the "short tour" of Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and lived in Germany. But they always came back to New Mexico. "This just felt like home," Antoinette said. "We'd come back here to visit family, and it didn't matter where we were or how great it was, here just felt right." John is now the director of the OR at University of New Mexico Hospital, and Antoinette took a teaching position at University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus. "But, right now, my kids are my biggest job," she said of sons Johnny, 6, and Luke, 20 months. They are her biggest job and the genesis for her and John's new children's book "The Little Lobo Who Lost His Howl." The idea for the book, Antoinette says, is kind of funny. "Sometimes when the dogs would start howling, we would start howling along for fun," she said, without a hint of embarrassment. "One night, we were doing it after dinner, and the baby wouldn't do it. He just smiled and looked at us. Then John turned to me and said, 'Look - the little lobo who lost his howl.'" John, who shares a co-author credit on the book, says that was pretty much his entire contribution to the project. "Antoinette took it to the next level," he said, looking at his wife with pride. The book is based on the Austin family — from the youngest's spikey blond hair and blue eyes to mom's curly locks and green eyes. Bouncing ideas around, she and John started putting things together. "We had the story and started shopping for a publisher," Antoinette said. "We finally found one in Alabama, Neal Wooten." The publisher shares illustration credit with Antoinette because, as she found out, getting the book illustrated was going to be prohibitively expensive. "We looked into it, and it starts at $60 per hour with a minimum of three hours for each illustration," she explained. "And I needed 14 illustrations." Antoinette had done two illustrations in watercolor for the book, but life just wasn't cooperating. "I just didn't have time, with two kids, to sit and paint," she said. So, Wooten came up with an alternative. If Antoinette could send him outline drawings he would utilize an illustration program to color the pictures. "We went back and forth for a long time," she said. Finally it was right. Then Wooten suggested appealing to the bilingual market. Not wanting to go through the whole process of producing a separate book, Wooten and the Austins decided to do a "flip" book, with one side in English, the other Spanish. With a little help from her mother, Josie Chavez, Antoinette translated her story into Spanish. "That was a challenge. The proper Spanish word for howl is 'aullido,' which is what is in the title," Antoinette said. But there is also the word "gritar," which is kind of a colloquialism that means to call out to someone. We decided to go with 'aullido' because hopefully this will be read widely and it needs to be the more common word." After all the effort, both Antoinette and John said they enjoyed their foray into the world of publishing but, if they had known what it had entailed, they might not have pursued the project. "It is more convoluted than I ever thought," John said. Antoinette agreed, adding the old adage of if she'd knew then what she knows now. "If I knew how much work this was going to by, I might not have done it," she said. "Especially for something that just came about. I hate to say it, but it wasn't a lifelong dream." Even if it wasn't a long held dream, Antoinette and John both have ideas for future stories. John's sister has a hunting dog that goes by the name of Roscoe. One day Roscoe went for a walk and didn't come back for three days. "Maybe he met the Lobo family while he was out on his walk," John said. Saying that she is constantly inspired by her children, Antoinette is thinking of using her oldest son's love of his pet geckos as a jumping off point for a story. "He is a desert animal, and I'm thinking of using him to introduce different New Mexico animals," she said. "Maybe have him teach the Lobo family which animals are safe and which ones aren't." Now a published author, Antoinette has had the chance to share her book with her intended audience - kids. She has visited and read to students at Dennis Chavez Elementary School in Los Chavez and Alvarado Elementary School in Albuquerque. "At Dennis Chavez, I just read to the first-graders, but at Alvarado they rotated the entire school through," she said with a laugh. "It was a lot of fun and went fast." Antoinette said she is willing to read and share the book, in either English or Spanish. "All I need is an invitation," she said. In addition to sharing her book, Antoinette also has the task of marketing and promoting it. "I am a terrible salesperson," she says with a laugh. "I hate when people come up to me and try to sell me something I don't want." But with everything paid for up front, the Austins acknowledge that the business side of things has to be dealt with. "We're hoping this will just be a break even kind of thing," John said. One part of the business that Antoinette didn't like was having to price her book. Typically, a book like hers would retail for about $14.99, she said. "As a mom, I wouldn't pay that much," she said. "One reason they are priced so high is the buyers want a 40 to 50 percent discount when they buy them in bulk. That way they can make their profit." With that much of a discount, the authors usually don't see much profit. When push came to shove, Antoinette put her foot down and priced the book at a modest $8.99. "I just couldn't see paying more than 10 dollars for this book," she said. "That's why you aren't going to find us in a lot of the big local bookstores." The book did make its way into the Borders store at Cottonwood Mall because Antoinette happened to meet their book buyer. "She read it and loved it and bought it anyway," she said. "In some of the bigger stores, yes, you will see books for $5. But one thing you have to remember is that this book is published and printed in the U.S. We told that to the buyers, but it didn't help." A few of Antoinette's upcoming readings are from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Chuck Wagon Restaurant on Highway 314 near Belen on Saturday, Nov. 22; on Dec. 5 and 6 at Casa Sal Felipe in Old Town, Albuquerque; and at 10 a.m. on Dec. 10 at the Belen Public Library. Local libraries have copies that can be checked out by patrons. If you want to purchase the book, it can be found at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, the UNM bookstore and Borders Books near Cottonwood Mall. It can also be purchased through the author's Web site. www.littlelobobooks.com. "Oh, and it's at the airport in the Fiesta Market gift shop," John added. "We left no stone unturned — it's everywhere."
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