Publishing Workshops for Kids

HOW DOES A BOOK BECOME A BOOK?
A Workshop and Field Trip for Students of All Ages

Teachers, Librarians, Parents--school is about to start again. If you're in El Paso or the surrounding area, remember that Lee Byrd, the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos, gives a wonderful workshop for kids of all ages during the school year and the summer too. It's a great field trip for kids. Below is our description of the workshop.

A group of kids from El Paso Northeast 

sponsored by the Girl Scouts

Thanks to Sandra Iturbe and her team!

El Paso’s Cinco Puntos Press presents a Publishing Workshop and Field Trip that will introduce students to the world of publishing. The hour-long workshop includes a tour of Cinco Puntos offices at 701 Texas Avenue. Students will find out that a book doesn’t just get written (that might even be the easy part!): it needs to be edited, translated, designed, illustrated, shipped and distributed, advertised and marketed. And they’ll get to meet the people who actually do these jobs.

After the tour, we’ll show them how a book goes from manuscript to final copy, using samples of the beautiful bilingual children’s books that we have produced ourselves. These questions and more will be answered:

•    How do we decide what books to publish?
•    How do we pick an illustrator?
•    How much do writers make for a published book?
•    Who puts the illustration and the text together?
•    Where do the books get printed?
•    What happens once the book is finished?
•    How do we decide what a book costs?

Students will then have an opportunity to ask their own questions. We can talk about the publishing business and the business of writing from almost any perspective—we’ve been publishing books for the last 18 years.

After this, we’ll have a story time, using a book appropriate for the age of the students. And then—at the end of the question-and-answer period, every student will be able to choose a book to take home!
   
Workshop costs: $20 per student. Minimum number of students is 25; maximum is 40. We can customize the workshop for a variety of different needs—elementary, middle school, high school, creative writing students, students of the border, newcomers who speak very little English, and more. Call Lee Byrd at 915-838-1625 or email Lee at leebyrd@cincopuntos.com to book your publishing workshop.

For adults--especially teachers and librarians--we do the workshop free of charge. It's our way to saying hello and introducing our books to future customers. We think you'll like what you see!