Book can be found at:
Book Webpage http://rainbowreefbooks.com
Email address rainbowreef-jellyjoe@yahoo.com
Here are some thoughts about writing, illustrating, and self-publishing Rainbow Reef.
Creating and writing the story was fun. The story began as a random bedtime story that was embellished with each telling. My children liked the story. I wrote the first draft and continued to tell the story in various versions to my children. The first draft took about six weeks.
The writing began as an outline. Over months of telling the story, I filled in the outline. Characters were developed based on responses from my oldest daughter. The story had a simple point; life is an adventure to enjoy.
As far as the book structure, I thought about chapters, instead I decided to keep it a single story. Chapters seem to help with complex stories. Since this work was geared for three to nine year olds, there was not a need for chapters.
How did you illustrate a children’s story?
I wanted to hire an artist. I considered a graphic artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and more, anyone that enjoyed doing artwork. However, unless you find illustrations that already exist and that work for your book, well, the artists will ask you a simple question, “what do you want the pictures to look like?”
That seems simple enough and requires a couple of things. Ask the illustrator to independently mock up some drawings, sit with the illustrator to mock up some drawings, or draft up some drawings to give to the illustrator to mock up some drawings. Given my budget, I started with option three; draft-up some drawings to give to the illustrator to mock up some drawings.
So I started with colored pencils. I sketched a few drawings. I sketched a few more. I spoke to the printer and revised a few of the drawings. As I contemplated my drawings, my five-year old daughter brought home a watercolor of a fish; a rainbow colored fish. The watercolor jumped out as a perfect fit for the cover of the book…sort of made all my drawings work. At that point I decided to use my drawings (although I still want to have an artist do the drawings for the next book, once I get a publisher). Here is an example drawing:
I have to say, the drawing became another creative outlet and I find myself drawing more. I enjoy the creative process and drawing is a nice compliment to writing.
How did you publish your kid’s book?
The book is self-published at the moment. I put the text and the drawings into a digital format: Word for the text and JPEG for the graphics. I linked up with a printer/graphics man to get the book in print. For a set price the man – Gordon – did a rough layout and printed me100 copies. The first set of books cost about $4.00 per book – just for the books. I did all the proof and edit work.
Who might do the work for you?
Depending on your budget, someone will do any and all facets of book preparation. There are ghost-writers (will do the writing for you), artists, printers, promoters, and literary agents. There are publishers that will let you pay them to print your book in block (multiple copies) and others that will print books on demand. Doing most of it myself, many hours of time not included, I have somewhere between $3000 – $6000 dollars expended. I have product to sell, so I hope to recoup those costs and more. Bottom line for me, is that I keep hitting the streets to market the book
What have I learned about writing, marketing, and distributing my Kids book?
Sooooo much. The book is out to over 50 publishers. Been rejected by 15 to 20 of the publishers. I did have a publisher offer to print the book at my expense, which I am already doing. So I remain self-published at this time.
I am learning about marketing. For the book, I have developed a website, blog, and have a site at ETSY, a site the sells hand made objects. I am evaluating other items to place on my web page, since a single item website does not command a great deal of traffic. The ETSY site helps because there are numerous items for an individual to check out; draw back is my book is just one of them.
It is good to have a partner. I have a friend that helps out sometimes. She identified the publishing houses. I draft the letter and put together the items to send to the publishers and she mailed them out…it was really helpful. She also took the book to two stores. We will follow up this week with those stores.
Distribution has been word of mouth. The book is across the nation in small numbers. Friends and family have purchased the book for use in schools and such. I have the book available on the web, no online sales to date. I have donated the book to various schools, libraries, and individuals. I have done a few garage sales and that has resulted in sales of 10 to 20 books.
I continue to develop the online access with the webpage, blog, and ETSY site. I plan to do more online development and see what happens.
About the story:
Rainbow Reef is the adventure of three brothers Jelly Jim, Jelly Joe, and Jelly Bob. The story reveals that the adventure in life is in living the journey. The book is 14 pages long with original illustrations and offer readers a happy adventure. The story is appropriate for children ages 3-9.
If you have any thoughts on the book or have any questions, you can email me.
