Merry Christmas

Christmas is almost here. Only 4 sleeps until Santa arrives.

Emily has asked for a "yellow" dolls house for Christmas. Santa's elves have been painting it in the garage at night, it is looking lovely.

I just need to ensure that we get a photo of the girls sitting on Santa's knee. I have continued on the "First Christmas" pages. We have additional pages available and I have used these in both the girls books to continue the photos of them sitting on Santa' knee.

Have a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year.

My School Days - an inside look

Alyssa is the daughter of my husband's workmate. She is 12 and has just achieved the mega milestone of graduating Year 6 and finishing primary school (that's how it works here in Victoria!). She was kind enough to share it with us, so I have taken some pictures to show you.

Isn't she talented?? Alyssa was able to sort through all the stuff her parents had put away and update her book even from Prep. Its amazing how much kids can recall about the names of teachers and friends. I always assumed I would maintain the same level of recall but the opposite is true! My School Days has been really popular with shops ordering extra as they are great Christmas gifts.

Alyssa, you have made a beautiful record to look back on, espcially when your own kids are at school. I hope they get as many certificates as you! - Fiona

No 3 is on it's way.......

I am thrilled to share the news that I am expecting baby number 3. I am due in April 2008.

We had our 18 week scan last week and decided to not find out the sex. (We didn't with the girls either). I have started filling in A Book About Me and can appreciate the fact that the book is unisex so whatever we have it does not matter.

I am feeling really well, I was a little tired at the start....ok a lot tired.....but am now feeling great. I am half way tomorrow and I am hoping that the next 20 weeks will fly as much as the past 20 have.

We had a phone call the other day from a friend saying that My School Days was in the December issue of Australia Home Beautiful magazine which was a lovely surprise.

A Book About Me has also been featured in the December issue of Style Magazine. Style Magazine is a Queensland and Northern NSW magazine.

Milestone Press have our first market stall

Last Sunday, Milestone Press had a stall at Mathilda's Market in Malvern, Melbourne. We traditionally wholesale to retailers, so thought this would be a good opportunity to promote A Book About Me and My School Days and get some feedback from people. It was a great market to be involved with as the organisers have a great mailing list, plus it was for only 5 hours on a Sunday, so it meant I could get a babysitter for the children and rope in my husband Will to help me sell!

Will (like his sister Annabel) is a natural born salesperson, and it was great watching him in his element. He has been supportive of this venture from the start, so this was just a continuation. I loved the immediate feedback from customers and we sold heaps of books. My School Days is really taking off, I think partly due to all the 2008 school starters going through orientation and also through word of mouth. Thanks for your support. We hope you love it!! Fiona

Pregnancy and Birth

This week has been a busy week. Fiona and her family are enjoying their well earned holiday in Coffs. I am jealous as I know from holidaying with them last year, they have fun holidays!!

A Book About Me was featured in the Nov/Dec issue of Pregnancy and Birth. It is still a thrill to open a magazine and see the book featured.

We are finding things are getting a little busier. My School Days sales have really picked up. We think it is because people are thinking of the school year now that it is coming to an end, or a beginning for the new ones that start in 2008.

My daughter Emily starts preprep next year. We had orientation yesterday and she loved it. I also got around to putting Georgia on the ballot for enrolement in 2010.....seems like a long way away.

Speaking of ballots I have great news, but it will have to wait until I get back from Hong Kong. I am heading there on Saturday and will be gone a week. I am looking forward to the shopping

A happy customer

Annabel and I love receiving emails from customers saying how much they love our books. Actually love is an understatement, but I can't think of a bigger word! It can really make our day!!

Madeline emailed us a while ago, looking for extra pages for her A Book About Me. Then she emailed again for more, then again last week. This was a record, I was curious. So I asked Madeline if she would share some photos of her book (and her gorgeous son Zedekiah). Madeline was very generous in obliging, and I thought it might give some people some inspiration and ideas.

Zedekiah is going to LOVE looking at this book even in just a couple of years time. Even I get teary looking at it, and I've never met this family!!

Madeline's big tip was is "to get your photos printed 7.5 x 7.5cm so they fit nicely in the allotted spaces & you can fit two side by side then too."

When I get back from a couple of weeks holiday, I promise to include some photos of Monica's baby book, so you can see something from the 'less effort' end of the spectrum. I love seeing people's work with more talent, just sad that I am not one of them!

If you have any photos or ideas that you would like to share please email me fiona@milestonepress.com.au

Not a diary keeper......

I really have to apologise. Fiona and I are taking turns to do the blog and I am not a diary writer or keeper, so you will notice when it is my turn it will probably be a little late, or not happen at all...... Which is why I love our baby books. I can honestly say that Emily's and Georgia's books are filled. I love the prompts. This means that I write in the spaces provided and I don't have to think myself. On the back of the pages I stick photos. The books look bright, colourful and filled in!!

In the girls books we do have a few blank pages. My pets is one. I would like to get the girls a puppy at some stage, but as much as they would love it, the timing at the moment is not right. Apparently a good stage to think about getting a dog would be when everyone is toilet trained. I think that sounds like a great idea.

Speaking of dogs......my grandparents (91 and 86) just got a maltese x poodle called Harry. I hear that he is very cute.

My niece turned 4 today. This means that my parents have grandchildren the following ages, 6, 2 x 4, 3, 2, 2 x 1. I better go as we are having cake and presents there shortly

Another Family Milestone

My eldest son Ben turned 6 on Wednesday. I think that nothing illustrates the passing of time better than your own children's birthdays and milestones.

It is the first birthday that I haven't been able to 'officially' update his progress in his copy of A Book About Me. Being the co-owner of the business does have its privileges, and I have appropriated a spare packet of blank sheets, and just made some notes and pasted some photos. At this rate, Ben's baby book should continue until sometime after he has his own child! Milestone Press do have sell extra sheets of blank paper, that just has the stripes across the top. It is $6 for a packet of 10 including postage in Australia. Just email us at sales@milestonepress.com.au and we can help you out.

Ben's baby book started as a Winnie the Pooh version that Annabel gave him when he was born. I think I managed to write when he got his first tooth but I kind of got side tracked after that....I would be at mother's group and be asked if Ben had his two year old molars yet. No idea. After much wiggling, Ben lost his first tooth a few weeks back - I did manage to jot that down, but I think losing teeth will lose some excitement from a parental perspective. When Annabel and I designed the layout for A Book About Me, I ensured that Teeth could be an 'optional' page for slackers like me, or standard for those parents more aware of their children's dental progress.

Better go, and get a start on Ben's 6 shaped cake that he agonisingly selected from the Women's Weekly cookbook.... another special family tradition! Fiona

We were on TV! Well our book was......

Mornings with Kerri Anne Kennerley had a segment on getting ready for school yesterday which featured many cool products including "My School Days". The producer of the segment saw it in Shop 4 Kids magazine, so it was extra exciting to be approached, rather than send out another press release! It was the first time any of our products have been on TV and it was great to be in cool company like Fruity Faces and Eco-friendly lunch wraps. Think I will have to do some shopping.....

Editorial like this, or Shop 4 Kids can be extra powerful for a two-person business like us. We don't have the budget that the big publishing companies do, so an editorial is like gold for Milestone Press and our books. At last count we have 150 stockists around Australia, and we like to support them by doing as much promotion as we can. Fortunately Annabel is blonde and attractive - so she scores extra photos! See http://www.milestonepress.com.au/news.html if you don't believe me. I hate posing for family photos let alone stuff that strangers will see so am much more reticent. I think I will have to overcome my self-conciousness "for the good of the company" as Annabel tells me. We'll see.

The format, design and internals were very important to us. Our idea was to have a baby book that was very comprehensive and allowed people to remove pages without altering the overall look of the book. We were so proud that we managed to publish a book that included adoption and assisted conception. (When we did our research we found that other books did not include these.) We also loved the fact that if you were too busy and missed a month, you could remove the page and your child would never know.....

A Book About Me was born in late 2005. Shortly after the art work arrived at the printers we both realised that we were pregnant, due two weeks apart in March 2006. (Fiona with her third and me with my second) Monica arrived in late Feb and Georgia arrived in mid March.

It was going to be a challenge distributing the books ourselves while tending to the new babies. It all went very well as we sold 4,000 books before the girls turned 1.

We've finally started!

Milestone Press started because Annabel had experience in publishing and printing, and I had the start up capital and the time. Thanks to my employer offshoring to Manila I was suddenly asset rich and time rich! (not so much anymore...!)

Annabel had given my sister a lovely baby record book, which is no longer printed. The best she could find for me back in 2001 was one with Winnie The Pooh pictures and quotations. No offence Winnie, but it wasn't my style. So Annabel and I began this mini obsession with finding the perfect baby book, and joking that we should make one ourselves. At this time, my fantastic two day a week job at Citibank was being wound up. I couldn't imagine where I would find another part time job in my skill set that was a five minute drive from my home in suburbia - so decided to work for the best known employer in the world - ME (and Annabel but she lives 1600km away).

We purchased or borrowed every baby record book we could. To this day, Amazon still sends me those "Amazon recommends " emails. We analysed what we liked and disliked, we asked focus groups about their preferences. So the final result is A Book About Me. We have such amazing feedback ever since. It makes our day when someone sends a random email to say how much they love using it. My son turns 6 next month, and he loves looking through his Winnie the Pooh book (I promise to have transferred to A Book About Me before he is 12) and laughing at photos and asking questions. So many happy memories!