The Xieng Mieng kickstarter has just entered its final seven days. From a Lao American perspective it has been a phenomenal success and suggests a wonderful future ahead for Lao children's book publishing.
With over 200,000 Lao in the United States and abroad, but less than 40 children's books by Lao American parents and elders for their children and grandchildren, this is more than a typical kickstarter but a question of how can we work with the publishing industry, how will we preserve and pass on our stories and update them with new technology and new opportunities.
Right now, they're at 75% of the funds necessary to print it in a full-color hardcover book, but they have enough to print it as a high-quality softcover. They're now looking at all of their options, and how they will be able to get all of the copies into good homes.
They could use a hand finding people who'd like to get a copy. The kickstarter rate is $5 for an e-book, $15 for the hardcover, and more gets you, well, more. It's very exciting to see how he will fulfill all of these expectations and open more, real doors for Lao American publishing in the future.
It's been interesting from a marketing and publicity process because there have been few mainstream Asian American publications, blogs, and websites who've helped Nor Sanavongsay get a signal boost for this project. But he is still making headway and not getting discouraged by this. Mainstream media has been 'responsive' as usual, which is to say, not very. But it's been a learning process, and we have a lot more to look forward to in the future from him.
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