My new project, and probably the last one for this year, is to write children stories. Why, you ask? The idea crossed my mind when I noticed how much money I spent on Amazon Kindle each week to buy new stories for my kids. We have a bedtime routine that includes each one of them gets a story from our Kindle library, and after the 2 stories, they end up me asking for the “bear family story, mammy please”. That one is a story that I start making it up when I was pregnant with Anny, in order to prepare Pat for the arrival of a new family member. Three years later, and still this is his favorite story to tell before he goes to bed. Of course, it is not always the same story, I made up so many since then, but it is always something that the same bear family does or experiences. In three years, the bear family went to the swimming pool, to the gym, to school, kindergarten, pick up raspberries from the forest to make jam, blueberries, made pancakes on a Sunday morning, the mammy and the daddy got different houses (the separation), the bear kids got to have 2 houses, and now we are at the point where maybe in the future the bear kids will get a bonus mamma or a bonus pappa (new girlfriend or boyfriend for mammy and daddy).
The objective for the “bookie project” , let’s call it like that for now, is to have 5 short stories written, illustrated and printed before Christmas. This is going to be my Christmas present for my kids this year. And it will not be a cheap gift, as I will have to spend quite a lot of money on a talented illustrator, as my drawing skills are equal to 0.
As far as my research on writing a book for children went, here are the first steps that I need to take:
- Start writing the stories. My idea is to make them a little bit educative, with a strong inclination towards mathematics, and science. My son just started school this year, and I want to introduce to him the love for mathematics through the stories that we read together. Also, I want to encourage him to start reading some more.
- Find a good and experienced children’s book editor, who would be willing to edit my stories, and make them more children friendly. I don’t know anyone in particular, so I will have to go on Upwork and find someone there.
- Find an illustrator and start getting my stories to life. Again, I will use Upwork to find a good illustrator.
- While waiting for the illustrations, I will start looking at tutorials on how to put up a book together. My plan for now is to start with the Amazon Kindle Publishing, and take it from there.
- Find a self publishing company or something similar where I can print on demand the books. I would normally order them from Amazon, but I live in Norway, so probably it will be easier to find a printing company over here.
Bookie Project – Day 1
I just wrote this post. I wrote down the plan. I need deadlines as well, so I will have to make a more detailed plan of actions, with deadlines included. I will do that tomorrow, as now it’s late and I am half sleeping.
Day 2 & 3
Nothing really happened. Day 2 was spent thinking of what my next steps should be. All I came up with was that I need to watch at least 3 youtube videos on how to write a children’s book before I start making my own plan of action. Day 3 was spent watching 3 videos on youtube. No plan made yet.
Day 4
Today I re-listened the videos I watched yesterday, because I did not take notes, and so, I barely remembered any of the steps I need to take in order to successfully write my book. So, new lesson learnt: “Always take notes when you learn something new”. They say that you forget more than 90% of what you hear almost straight away, but if you write it down, the chances for you to remember increases. And then if you come back and read it again, then it might stick to you. So, I wrote down what I found interesting the videos I listened, and as a next step, I am going to include the notes here in my post. Here are the steps that I decided to follow for writing my kids book (or books):
- Decide and understand your market. Here I have to decide on the age range for my book. My kids are 6 and 3 years old, so I will choose one of those ranges. One of the videos recommended to go on Amazon and actually look at the age ranges there, to have an idea. The age ranges you will find on Amazon are:
- Baby to 2
- Ages 3 to 5
- Ages 6 to 8
- Ages 9 to 12
I decided that I will go for category 2 and 3, because my kids fit in those two ranges. My first book will be for ages 3 to 5, and I decided to write a book about how to learn to count to 10, and how to recognize the numbers 1 to 10. I will also buy at least 3 books from this category and have a look at their structure, style, and find ways to improve on. Of course, I will have to find my own style, but better to learn from other’s mistakes.
2. Choose a writing style. Here, based on your market, and on the storyline of your book, there are few possibilities. You could go for rhyme, past tense vs. present tense, first or third person storytelling. The past tense is more used when telling true events, however, the present tense keeps the kids more actively engaged into the story. I have to agree that art and literature are not my strongest skills, so I will not go for rhyme. I will go for present tense, and first person base for my first book.
3. Include important children book elements. What is that for? Here the aim is to create unforgettable characters with strong and bold personalities that kids would remember and would want to read more about later on. Some of the tips I found useful are to include realist dialogues, story elements like obstacles, challenges, and not forget about happy endings. One interesting tip I found to be the instant recall factor, which basically means to give your character something special, like a funny hat, or weird glasses, or a strong colored scarf or something. Remember the Cat in the Hat? I think that is a good example for a recall factor (the cat’s hat)
4. Find an attractive title for your book. When writing for smaller children, maybe the title is not as important as the book cover, however, the title and the cover are the first things that kids will notice (and parents for that matter), so make sure to pick something that will convince them to read it.
5. Find a good editor. Once you finish writing your book, it is wise to give it to someone to proof-read it. Of course you will proof read it yourself, but an extra pair of eyes, are always better than just you. And if you don’t have a thing for writing (like me), then maybe you need someone to go over your story, and make some adjustments content-wise as well. My plan is to hire a children’s book editor, to go over my story once I am done writing it, as content writing or creative writing are not my strongest skills.
6. Decide on your book’s orientation. Here you basically have three options:
- vertical : this is normally used for character based books
- horizontal: for journey based stories
- spherical: for instructional books
For my first book I will go for a spherical orientation, as my book will be about counting from 1 to 10.
7. Create a book dummy or a storyboard. Now, even you have a talent for drawing (which I don’t), you still need to make a first sketch of how you want your book to look like in terms of illustrations. I will, of course, hire an illustrator, so I will need to have some first instructions on how I visualize my book in terms of characters, actions. This will make the illustrator’s job easier, as he or she needs to know what are your expectations and your thoughts. If you can grade your drawing skills for a scale of 0 to 10, I would get a -5, so this step will be quite painful for me, and how knows, maybe even more painful for my illustrator when he or she would want to make sense of my drawings.
8. Find a good illustrator. A good story is important for the success of your book, but I believe that a picture can sometimes say more than words. So, in my opinion, the illustrations of my future books will play a very important role, so I will make sure to find an illustrator that fits with style. I will also be looking for one on upwork, but from the videos I have listed to, someone mentioned also childrensillustration.com or something similar to that. I might check that out too, but if it is too expensive, I will stick to upwork.
Day 5, 6
I was lazy today. I didn’t do anything. It is also weekend, so I take the opportunity to not feel guilty that I am not working on my project.
Day 7
I decided today to find a list of 5 potential categories for my first 5 books. My idea is to write shorter stories, as younger kids get bored easily. I know for sure that my 3 years old daughter is not able to concentrate on a story that takes more than 5 minutes to read.
The categories that I decided on are:
- Age 3 to 5 : how to count from 1 to 10. Help children to recognize the numbers , patterns, help them count.
- Age 3 to 5 : a short story, but focused on recognizing the letter A in the text. Finish
- Age 3 to 5: same as 2. but for leter B
- Age 3 to 5: same, but letter C.
- Age 3 to 5 : how to count from 11 to 20. Help children to recognize the numbers , patterns, help them count.
Best of luck, looking forward to see how it turns out!
Thanks 🙂