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ibnelson

Bill Nelson
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With the third story in the Little Munch series now released on the iTunes App Store, our total downloads reach ever higher numbers. After years writing and illustrating unpublished children's story books, it's nice to see something I've worked on actually being READ - now in 75 countries. I bought an iPhone for my wife last Thursday at Walmart, as it was on super sale. Now, I finally have access to the App Store (my computer is too old to access the App Store) - the first thing I did was fire up the phone and search the App Store for Little Munch - and there he was in all his baby Black Angus bull glory... in all three of the Little Munch stories - I practically jumped up and down in excitement (actually I think I DID jump up and down...). Turns out our largest market is the U.S.A, followed closely by Saudi Arabia and China. Hmmm...why Saudi Arabia? Are they especially fond of Black Angus baby bulls? I can see an iPhone user playing with "How Little Munch Got his Name" on their phone as they circle the Kaaba in Mecca. I'm not allowed to go to Mecca but Little Munch can go. And, hopefully, I will finally finish my friend Greg's kids story, "Skipper", and little Skipper the Sparrow will grace the screens of iPhones and iPads around the world, same as Little Munch. But --- without a finished eBook, no downloads... so it's nose back to the grindstone to illustrate and animate the next few stories.
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91 downloads in the last 30 days - climbing steadily. The third story in the series, "Ho3w Little Munch got his Name" is now complete and will be released to the App Store soon. ibnelson.com/childrensBooks/mu…
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2264 downloads for Little Munch stories #1 and #2. We're not 'burning the house down' but I consider that many downloads a rousing success.... considering the years of trying to get published in the childrens storybook market. I spent YEARS trying to find an agent that would handle my work, spent YEARS knocking on doors and trying to get a foot in the door.

All I got was "polite refusals" or more often, just packets pf materials in the return mail. Pretty tough to keep one's courage up after years of rejection. It wasn't that I was a complete failure - far from it - I was published in the comics pages in the USA, Canada and England, and in numerous newspapers as an illustrator - and also illustrated books. It was just that I wanted to see one of my very own stories for children in a hard copy in the actual hands of a real child or that of its parent as they read to them.

No such luck.

So here I am looking at 2264 "downloads" of our Little Munch stories as electronic Apps - it certainly is a different era for artistic production, one in which the end product exists only as electrical voltages in a digital device. But if it means my work is seen by people on the other side of the globe, then I say "More power to it!"

Book three of the series is nearly complete, "The Adventures of Little Munch - How he got his Name". Just a few more days of work and off he goes to the App Store, hopefully to amaze the world or at least to be "downloaded" a few times.

Moo!!!
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It seems that the first story in the Little Munch series, "The Adventures of Little Munch - First Day" has done a little better than I expected - as of yesterday we've had 2190 downloads - in 62 countries. Funny to think that someone in Yemen or Saudi Arabia or China might be playing with Little Munch, our Black Angus Calf, as I write this.
The third story. "The Adventures of Little Munch - How he got his Name", is almost finished - just one more narration to record and install and two more characters to draw and install (and animate).

If nothing else, the project has been quite a learning experience. Its the first time I've been involved in a project where I don't get to see the finished project - I don't have a device that runs Apps. Kind of funny since I've saved copies of everything I've ever published since...well....for many years, ahem. Maybe this will force me to buy an iPhone or an iPad. Heavens!

When I drew the characters for the Sega Pocket Arcade Games and worked out the animation, Sega didn't give me copies of the finished games - I bought my own. Years later I took them into schools when I did cartooning demonstrations - and some kids broke them: they don't work anymore. So the game play exists only in my imagination - unless somehow, someday, I come into possession of working copies of the Pocket Arcade Games. Unlikely after 18 years, although I heard a bunch of unopened, pristine condition games in original packaging were discovered in a warehouse in Minnesota (Minnesota? bizarre)

As for little Munch, I built a page on my website so I could see the sequence of changes to the story and the final sequence of pages as they would appear on a smart device...ibnelson.com/childrensBooks/li…

So happy game playing, people in Yemen - it's lots more fun than plotting to destroy things, yes?
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Yogyakarta

1 min read
You have hidden
treasures behind your eyes
and concealed intimated fulfillments
in your words
that I drink like seasoned burgundy

and soon
and soon am giddy
with the joy
your half glance
from an eye's corner
gives me
in a fire's glow

in sleep   then
you have pulled me close
to see your face
brought to me
from a world apart

Would there ever
have been another
hiding treasures
behind her eyes
speaking only words
of warm browns
brushed with the heat
of midday sands
upon some gentle island
greens and gold?

I feel you in my heart
in an ocean
laughing at my nakedness
to you
exposed for all my faults
against your faults
that I can never find

You splash me with cleanness
to become as a new
winter's day in crisp delight
but by firelight
in evening
you have hidden treasures
in your touch like summer's day

Infinity Limited Magazine Winter 1993
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Featured

Little Munch Downloads reach 2707 by ibnelson, journal

Little Munch story App now at 2406 downloads by ibnelson, journal

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The Adventures of Little Munch App 2190 downloads! by ibnelson, journal

Yogyakarta by ibnelson, journal