Making A Book

Young readers tend to talk about 'making' books. 'Are you going to make another book?' 'Would you ever make a book about…?' This is often because they have an image of the author as the sole creator of the book – the one who not only writes the book, but prints the pages, binds them, designs the cover, etc.

Still. Does it help us to think about 'making' a book instead of 'writing' one? We understand that with 'making' there are often mistakes and bits that need to be thrown out. 'Making' sounds more practical somehow. More doable, maybe. Demystified. More about being lots of different activities instead of just 'writing', like planning and thinking and outlining and daydreaming and despairing.

It might be a better way to think about it.

Plus I'd stop gritting my teeth every time I hear the phrase. Because at the moment it just sounds wrong.