Kim Werker's latest book, Make It Mighty Ugly, comes out in August and will be widely available at bookstores. In it, Kim tackles things that may be holding you back from unleashing your creativity, giving you permission to fail and to learn from failure. Do I need this book? Probably not. My personal problem isn't unleashing my creativity, it's sorting out my creative priorities and seeing projects through to the end. Do I want this book? YES, and I'm so excited about this book that I may have scared a few people with my enthusiasm for it. After multiple workshops and events teaching people to knit and crochet, I have met many grownups who are so afraid of failure that yarn is scaring them before they even touch it, no matter how much they want to be able to make things out of it. Do I need to pre-order this book? No. I want to pre-order this book, and not just because I'm excited about it. I've pre-ordered Make It Mighty Ugly because I respect the work that Kim is doing and I want to help the book do well. Pre-orders are an important part of the success of a published book, counting towards the first week of sales and helping build bookseller interest, which can then lead to more sales, and ultimately, helping to not just support Kim's book, but helping to support her career as an author and editor in general. Beyond that, Make It Mighty Ugly doing well also lets publishers and booksellers know that there's a good market demand for books about creativity that aren't all sunshine and positivity (seriously, Kim gets very, very real about the subject). It's a book that I may not need for myself, but it's a book that I think needed to be written and I'm so glad that I can point other people to it. By pre-ordering, I hope to help make this book readily available for the people who don't even know they need it yet.
Read more about Make It Mighty Ugly at www.mightyugly.com (and don't miss the For Librarians page if you are interested in what a Mighty Ugly workshop or craft event could look like!).
I pre-ordered Make It Mighty Ugly from Powell's Books in Portland, my personal favorite bookstore.