Support the film Peekaboo!

A movie on the topic of stillbirth. Wow! It's called Peekaboo, and it's being made in the UK by award-winning Big Buddha Films with an amazing pair of lead actors. In the story, a mother loses her triplets, and the movie deals with the aftermath in her life.

Shooting begins in mid-March, so it's time to show them some support--time to say--it's ABOUT TIME to get this issue more out in the open!

What can you do?

1. "Like" them on Facebook. Leave a comment. Get the word spreading.

2. Get a copy of the DVD when it comes out by donating. There's no sure thing that it will be widely available to see, so ensure your copy right now by going to the Indie Go Go site where people like YOU help fund independent films. (They have just a few thousand dollars to go to be completely funded--they've already raised several thousand on their own.)

3. Already buying one of the Baby Memorial Books for your sweet angel? Casey Shay Press is donating $10 towards the filming of Peekaboo for every book sold through the end of February. That adds up fast! So GO, buy yours now! The book is $18.99 and is made specifically for babies lost to miscarriage or stillbirth, emphasizing the sweet memories of your pregnancy as well as having space for memorials and angelversaries. You don't have to do anything special, the donation happens automatically.

4. Take action, talk about this, and know you have done something for yourself, for your baby, and for the moms who will come after you. The more we do, the easier it will be for each successive generation of grieving mothers to talk about their babies. Remember how no one used to talk about breast cancer? Look at the pink explosion now. Let's make this happen for miscarriage and stillbirth too. We don't have to shut our mouths. Our babies were real, our grief is real, and we shouldn't just be quiet and get over it. The only way is to get involved.

New video from our Balloon Book author

Elizabeth Chauffe, the co-author of Kids Show Kids How to Make Balloon Animals, saw that parents were posting to Amazon about how impossible it was to use the spinning plate kits.

Since she has a lot of experience juggling from Magic Camp, she decided to make a quick video showing kids how to spin a plate properly.

Sale on the Angel book

Casey Shay Press has made its memorial book a flat $10 and its Angel bumper sticker $1 from now through Oct. 15. US Shipping is only $3.99 for both, but they ship anywhere. Go get yours!

See the book in this video (click on it to see it full screen).



Remember to light your candles at 7 p.m!

New bumper sticker in honor of Mother's Day

We decided that it would be fun to create a bumper sticker in honor of all the angels we want to keep close to our hearts. Get yours!

In the Company of Angels Release Day

I'm caught up in my tale, finally, and the day we put out the book Casey Shay Press was created to make has finally arrived.

To help pay for the print run, we did preorders of the book. We got about 1/3 of the cost covered before they arrived.

Of course the shipment had problems. New laws on importing books meant they got held up in customs for a couple weeks until the broker and I could get everything straight. This also meant the books that were preordered through the press didn't make it out in time for Christmas, which I had hoped for.

I sent the first shipment to Amazon and they just immediately began selling them rather than waiting for release day. But I was okay with that. The baby was here! Really here!

The trailer was shared so much during Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Month. I remember watching the stats and thinking--really? That many people?

I haven't even posted it. Here it is!

Taking the overseas print run plunge

So you'll probably remember the original problem from an earlier post: I needed $6,000 to print the book I'd started the press to do.

I wasn't any richer.

But I did have one somewhat successful book. Even though I wasn't making enough money to fund the second, I felt a lot better about this whole venture.

So I decided just to do it. Even though the bank had turned down a loan, they had given me a low-interest credit card. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to make this happen. And so I did it.

I was halfway through production on In the Company of Angels, using photographs I'd already taken and models for whom I already had releases, trying not to spend any money until I knew what I was doing. I sent out a notice that I'd love to have additional children pose as angels for the book, as long as the families had a pregnancy loss in their history. I had an idea that to make the book really special, I wanted the parents who filled out the book to feel a connection with the images in this precious album. I had to get it right.

So shooting resumed, and I contacted the broker for the good overseas bid to start production.

Barnes and Noble backs the book

Our first book, Kids Show Kids How to Make Balloon Animals, was off and running, and not doing too badly. Hilariously, Klutz made a balloon book that came out almost simultaneously with ours. I watched the Amazon ranking of both with a bit of stalker glee, and was a little surprised at how well they both did.

We bought the Klutz book and loved the colorful images and fun designs. The book was much harder than ours, though, and soon the reviews reflected that.

Our Magic Camp connection came through during a week of promotion at one of the big Barnes and Noble stores in town. One day was dedicated to balloon twisting, so the authors were invited to assist in a demonstration on how to make basic balloon shapes.

Barnes and Noble decided to stock the book in their store, with 10% of the profits going to help raise money for kids to get scholarships to Magic Camp. I checked the Ingram account a few days later and saw -- gulp -- they'd ordered 50 copies. Visions of returns began dancing in my head. But we'd do the best we could to sell them.

We fixed a few mistakes we'd made at the festival. The girls dressed in their outfits from the book so they'd be instantly recognizable. We brought easier pens to sign the books with (Sharpies only, people!)

What a great event. Dozens of kids showed up. The girls worked the crowd and helped the kids as the Magic Camp instructor explained the steps to twisting. Elizabeth got on stage and showed everyone how to make a balloon bee.

We sold a good chunk of the books. They probably had 15-20 left.

(Update: Barnes and Noble kept these books in stock and never returned them. In fact, after we altered the cover many months later, I went back and bought a few of the originals--I'd sold out of stock suddenly and had no first editions--and the sales lady went on and on about how the girls had come out to the store last fall and how adorable they were--and this was definitely the best of the balloon books--perfect for birthday gifts. I could not have stepped any more lightly as I left.)