Blog Post #8: Project Sharing and Reflection

Today I finally presented my Genius Hour Project, and a lot has happened since my last blog post. I officially published my book, Reality; Poems of Joy, Sadness, and Life's True Nature. In addition, I completed my Tri-fold poster, which I used to present, and made a speech as well. Pictures of these items will be later on shown in this blog post. In my final blog post, Blog Post #8, I will be ruminating on my Genius Hour Project experience, explaining what went well and what didn't, some challenges I faced, and things that I can improve.

The Genius Hour experience for me was quite exciting and satisfying. This is because I had always wanted to publish my work, but also leave a mark on this world and feel like I had done something important, no matter how small. It was satisfying to search up the title of my book and my name on a search engine, and see my book come up as one of the first options. When seeing this, I felt like I had finally done something, and that now I was actually somebody. The excitement of course came when I saw my book on Lulu.com for the first time, professionally published and ready to buy. There was also obviously the excitement of receiving the hard-cover copy of my book I had ordered, and holding it in my hands as well as being the first one in the world to read it cover to cover for the first time.

The positives of this experience is that now, I am more motivated to publish more and more books, as I write more and more poetry. In addition, instead of just telling myself to wait when I am older to publish (which is something I did again and again and again), I got a chance to be proactive and get and do it, resulting in me becoming a brand new author, and having my poetry out in the world, copyrighted, for people to see.

The negatives, however, for this project included the fact that out of all the poems from second grade to now, only about 40 of them seemed publish worthy. This made me realize that to publish another poetry book, it may take me another 5 years before I can have a decent collection of poems I can publish. So, it may take me even longer than college to publish 3 books and create an actual series. I realized that it is going to take me a long time to do this, and that I am going to have to work long and hard if I want to successfully publish another book.

Today, overall, the exhibit went really well. The successful thing about my exhibit was probably the fact that I had a well-prepared speech, with lots of emotion and enthusiasm as I presented it. I do pat myself on the back for the added humor I integrated to it, because normally this is something that is hard for me to do. In the past I really struggled with having an enthusiastic voice, which is something I improved in today's presentation. In addition, I was really proud to have a hard cover copy displayed with my poster, which was really successful as well because people seemed to be eager to get their hands on it. I have noticed that poetry is usually not the main thing students want to read these days, but they took quite an interest to my poetry book today.

Some things I could improve upon next time include possibly having a drive of motivation for people to come see my presentation. I noticed that many people went to the presentations with food-related items or candy. So, to attract more viewers, next time i can also include candy or food related items in my presentation, maybe as a reward for answering a trivia question right, or just even for spending time to watch my presentation.

After viewing some of my peers' presentations, I find a few ideas I got from other students that I wanted to add to my presentation. On a peer review sheet, someone gave me some advice to interact with the audience more. I got the idea, after watching it occur a couple of times in multiple presentations, to make a trivia at the end of my presentation. This way, I would know whether or not my audience actually retained some information from my presentation. A motivator could be candy if they get a questions right, so that then they will want to pay even more attention to my presentation, in a result of being ale to answer the questions and therefore get candy.

There were many challenges that I faced while creating my Genius Hour Project. Three of the more major ones for me, included: the cost to make my book, the time I had to wait to receive my book, and the formatting of my book.

The first challenge of cost was a challenge because I had to make some critical decisions involving it when creating my book. I had to decide between publishing a paperback copy, which would cost me about $5, and a hardcover copy, which would cost me about $14. The dilemma was that a hardcover copy seemed more professional, but cost nearly 3x as much as the paperback copy. However, I feel a paperback copy would kindle as much awe in a viewer as a hardcover copy would, when holding and reading my book. In the end, I went with a hardcover copy, because since this was my first time publishing, I wanted my book and poetry to be taken seriously by people and to do that, I needed a professional hard cover. Basically, I wanted to make an impressive first impression, even if it cost $9 more.

The second challenge of the time was hard to cover come because I wasn't sure exactly when my book would arrive after ordering it, or if it would even arrive in time for the presentation at all. I know it takes time to make and deliver a book, but I new that without my book at the presentation, it wouldn't have the same "Wow" factor on my audience vs. if it was there. In addition, to be taken seriously, I needed proof that my book was actually published and available to buy. Originally, my book was to arrive on June 9th, but then there was a delay, so it arrived on June 12 instead. This is why I chose to present today, on the last day for presentations, because i wanted to be prepared if my book was delayed any further.

The third challenge of formatting was probably the hardest challenge of all, and parts of my book were not able to overcome the obstacle. Formatting was a hard obstacle because there were so many rules I had to follow, such as the fact that when numbering pages, odd numbers had to be on the right side of the book, while even page numbers had to be on the left side of the book. In addition, the pages in the beginning of the book had to be numbered with roman numerals until the “Introduction” section of the book. The page numbers would then start over from 1, 2, 3 onward, but now the pages would numbered with the classic American numbers. Furthermore, there was a specific order the sections of the book went in, such as the “Copyright” page must be before the “Dedication” page, and the “Preface” must be before the “Introduction”. Some parts of my book have the text at the bottom of each poem, telling the grade I wrote it in, not completely lined up with the rest of the poem. Also, there is that unwanted extra page dividing my preface into two separate parts.

As I had to research for my project, I learned multiple new things I hadn't know before, such as what self publishing is, what traditional publishing is, and the purpose of an ISBN number, as well as what the digits in it stand for.

The first new thing I learned was that self-publishing was when authors publish books on their own, from typesetting to arranging for printing and distribution. As the author, they get to keep 100% of the sales, and it doesn't cost them a lot. The cons are that there is a higher chance of having poor formatting, and editing, causing your book to look less professional than ideal. However, now, some authors publish with the help of POD publishing, which is when a self-publishing company aids you in the process of publishing by providing a step-by-step process for you to follow, a book template, or resources like a means to acquire an ISBN number.

The second new thing I learned was that traditional publishing is when a publishing house is responsible for the editing, printing, lay out and distribution of your manuscript, after acquiring the right to publish your book. I learned that the pros of this option is that your book would be overall professionally formatted and edited, since a publishing house would be in charge of doing this, as well as distributing your book through stores. You as the author would have less responsibility when it came to publishing your book. However, the cons of traditional publishing are that if a publishing house publishes your book, you as the author would only get paid royalties, while the rest of your book’s profits would go to the publishing house. Royalties are when you are paid a small percentage of the money from your profit, which is usually not majority of the money made. In addition when publishing with a publishing house, if my book lacked the solid platform, I would not be able to distribute it.

The third new thing I learned was the purpose of an ISBN number, as well as what the digits stand for. However, I also learned that the information in my book that is associated, or affects the ISBN number is the publisher, title, author, edition, binding, and language of my book. The definition of an ISBN number is that it is a 13-digit number that has multiple functions, such as:

A Prefix: The first 3 numbers "978" will remain the same until the supplies run out. Once they do, the industry will then use a new prefix, like "979".

A Registration Group: These next few numbers can vary in length up to 5 digits. They specify the country, region, or language area.

A Registrant: This section of the ISBN can vary in length up to 7 digits. These numbers specify the publisher or imprint.

A Publication: These numbers can also vary in length up to 6 digits. They specify a certain edition by a particular author.

A Check Digit: This last number is created using an algorithm that was applied to the rest of the ISBN. If the check digit doesn't match, that indicated there is something wrong with the ISBN.

During my presentation, I had many props and methods of communication used to get my message across. Below are some pictures of my presentation, all of which were critical in playing a part to convey my speech to my viewers.

To the right is a picture of my trifold board. This board was a visual representation of my project, including giving all my research a polished way of being presentable to an audience. This trifold included my " Works Cited" ,which showed all the sources my research came from, and an "Information About my Book" section which gave some basic information about by book, such as the price, and number of pages. I also had a "Publishing Process" section, showcasing the process I went through to publish my book, and of course a "Terms to Know" section, defining some critical terms in order to understand the my process of publishing, or just publishing in general.

To the right is a picture of my hardcover copy of my book that I published. This book was a visual representation of the product or the result of my process to publish. This book showed how all that hard work and research paid off, and what was created from that labor. My hardcover book may have motivated my audience to possibly try and publish, by showing them how real and authentic a self-published book can be. By seeing one of their peer's published books, it showed my classmates that publishing a book at their current age is not as impossible as they may have thought it to be.

To the right is a picture of my notecards where I had written the main bullet points of my speech. These notecards are a visual representation of what I was going to say, and was one of the critical methods I was going to use to get my point across. My speech was important because it allowed me to communicate the information on my trifold in an even clearer and filtered way, as well as make the connections between the information on my trifold and my book, and how they were related to each other. My speech allowed me to give a summary of my entire project, making all my research more interesting to listen to (by adding a bit of humor here and there) as well as more understandable to my audience who hadn't done or seen this information before.

In conclusion, my Genius Hour project was a great success, allowing me to do something I had never thought I could do at this age: publishing a book. There were some challenges I faced, but in the end I was able to overcome them and learn some new things along the way. As I had said for my speech, "In the end, I conquered my fear and published my poetry. I vanquished my plaque of uncertainty and replaced with my overjoyed excitement and pride. I could thank my parents, my teachers, my friends...but really, I thank myself. After all, it all came do to one thing, one word, one idea. It all came down to courage. And what better thing to do for my courage project than conquering my fear? What better thing to do, than publishing my poetry, and sharing it with the world." I surpassed my goals, and had courage all the way, and for that I am glad. With this, I conclude my last, and final blog post. Thank you for listening, and farewell.