An Illustrated Children's Storybook in a week (okay, maybe two)...
I can't tell you the number of women (sorry men...so far, none has indicated an interest) who, over the years, said they would love to write a children's book but simply didn't have the skills to illustrate one, much less publish the book they have in mind. I found the challenge daunting, as well, until late last year, during the holidays, when the idea struck me that instead of using an illustrator, I could use royalty-free art and digitally manipulate the material to achieve any effect I wanted.
I already knew the story I wanted to tell. It had to do with making correct decisions and standing up to bullies. My focus was on readers in the 1st and 2nd grades. Inspiration came from my experiences in Antarctica some 55 years earlier, when, on breaks in the field, I used to watch penguins stealing stones from one another to use in their own nests. Since you asked, the book is entitled Pepe Builds a Nest.
But the focus of this little discussion is to tell you how the book came together so quickly.
I write intuitively...which is to say, whether a novel or a children's book, I simply dive in and start writing. In the case of "Pepe," I started illustrating first. The key, basically, was to search my favorite royalty-free photo Website--Big Stock Photo--for pictures of penguins (and there were literally thousands to sift through!) that I could use to tell a story.
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/
Now, arguably, there are 17 different species of penguins, so it took some doing to assemble a good set of pictures in which the birds looked similar. However, I knew that with the help of Photoshop (and my daughter, in some cases), I could turn an Rockhopper into a Gentoo. Ditto an Adelie! From there, I decided to digitally alter the pictures so that they resembled colored pencil drawings:
http://funny.pho.to/color_pencil_draw...
The resulting pencil "drawings" had a bit of a dark edge to one side, but cropping with Photoshop took care of that problem.
After I had my illustrations, I laid them down on the EVEN pages (left-hand side) of an 8.5 x 8.5 book template and put the text on the right-hand side. (I used MS Word to create the book. BTW, I put some Wingdings on page 1 so that the first illustration appeared on p. 2. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.) For the font, I use Segoe Print 18 pt (though you could use Century Schoolbook Normal, if you wanted something more conventional). I decided to use verse as my way of conveying the message because it would be more interest and have a lyrical quality. The text came together in one day. Here's an example (though the font is fixed by this forum's protocols):
Pepe, the penguin, a bright lad of one,
looked up to the sky and welcomed the sun.
The long night was over, no time to rest.
It was time to rejoice and build his first nest.
From there, I had my wife, two daughters, two former elementary school educators, and my editor review the manuscript, with the admonition I need their input in three days. (My wife accuses me of asking why I haven't received something before having even asked her for it!). Being between Christmas and New Years, all met my target date. Then, the manuscript was modified and the first proofs rolled out of CreateSpace two days later. One more iteration to catch those nasty little errors that always seem to crop up, and the book went live on January 6, 2017. It's here on my Website:
https://www.theodore-cohen-novels.com...
One possible hitch you may run into is creating the pdf cover art for your book. Having done this multiple times for my novels, I've gotten it down to a science. But this is the one area you may need some help from CreateSpace or someone you know familiar with creating the needed cover art to spec. Not having to worry about a spine does help somewhat (just ad 0.1 inch to the width, given your book probably will be about 50 pages in length). And don't forget to leave room on the back cover for the ISBN barcode in the lower right-hand corner. BTW, I let CreateSpace provide the ISBN and chose extended distribution.
The book has received five 5-STAR Readers' Favorite reviews, the Pacific Book Review STAR Award, and very positive words from Feathered Quill Book Review (among other reviews).
Developing the Kindle edition took less than an hour. Using the new Kindle Direct Publishing platform, it was just a matter of dropping some of the front material, placing each text module above its associated illustration on a single page, and uploading the Word document. In less than a minute, the Kindle edition was ready for proofing on-line using three simulated eReaders. It could not be easier. And if you want to update your cover and/or text, just upload the new version. Approvals come within 24 hours. The same can be said of updating text and covers on CreateSpace.
I know the first-timer will have questions--and I'd be happy to answer those I can--but once you get into the swing of writing and illustrating children's books in this way, it could open a whole new world of writing to those who felt frustrated by what they thought were their limitations. The availability of royalty-free art at reasonable prices, together with the options available on-line for creating special effects, has the potential for turning all of us into "illustrators" of our own books. In the process, we may just discover new talents that have lain dormant for decades.
Ted
PS My youngest granddaughter will be reading "Pepe" to 20 kindergarten and first graders today as a special project on "cooperation and working together" for credit in one of her high school classes. The elementary school teacher with whom she is working was "blown away" (to quote my granddaughter) by "Pepe."
I already knew the story I wanted to tell. It had to do with making correct decisions and standing up to bullies. My focus was on readers in the 1st and 2nd grades. Inspiration came from my experiences in Antarctica some 55 years earlier, when, on breaks in the field, I used to watch penguins stealing stones from one another to use in their own nests. Since you asked, the book is entitled Pepe Builds a Nest.
But the focus of this little discussion is to tell you how the book came together so quickly.
I write intuitively...which is to say, whether a novel or a children's book, I simply dive in and start writing. In the case of "Pepe," I started illustrating first. The key, basically, was to search my favorite royalty-free photo Website--Big Stock Photo--for pictures of penguins (and there were literally thousands to sift through!) that I could use to tell a story.
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/
Now, arguably, there are 17 different species of penguins, so it took some doing to assemble a good set of pictures in which the birds looked similar. However, I knew that with the help of Photoshop (and my daughter, in some cases), I could turn an Rockhopper into a Gentoo. Ditto an Adelie! From there, I decided to digitally alter the pictures so that they resembled colored pencil drawings:
http://funny.pho.to/color_pencil_draw...
The resulting pencil "drawings" had a bit of a dark edge to one side, but cropping with Photoshop took care of that problem.
After I had my illustrations, I laid them down on the EVEN pages (left-hand side) of an 8.5 x 8.5 book template and put the text on the right-hand side. (I used MS Word to create the book. BTW, I put some Wingdings on page 1 so that the first illustration appeared on p. 2. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.) For the font, I use Segoe Print 18 pt (though you could use Century Schoolbook Normal, if you wanted something more conventional). I decided to use verse as my way of conveying the message because it would be more interest and have a lyrical quality. The text came together in one day. Here's an example (though the font is fixed by this forum's protocols):
Pepe, the penguin, a bright lad of one,
looked up to the sky and welcomed the sun.
The long night was over, no time to rest.
It was time to rejoice and build his first nest.
From there, I had my wife, two daughters, two former elementary school educators, and my editor review the manuscript, with the admonition I need their input in three days. (My wife accuses me of asking why I haven't received something before having even asked her for it!). Being between Christmas and New Years, all met my target date. Then, the manuscript was modified and the first proofs rolled out of CreateSpace two days later. One more iteration to catch those nasty little errors that always seem to crop up, and the book went live on January 6, 2017. It's here on my Website:
https://www.theodore-cohen-novels.com...
One possible hitch you may run into is creating the pdf cover art for your book. Having done this multiple times for my novels, I've gotten it down to a science. But this is the one area you may need some help from CreateSpace or someone you know familiar with creating the needed cover art to spec. Not having to worry about a spine does help somewhat (just ad 0.1 inch to the width, given your book probably will be about 50 pages in length). And don't forget to leave room on the back cover for the ISBN barcode in the lower right-hand corner. BTW, I let CreateSpace provide the ISBN and chose extended distribution.
The book has received five 5-STAR Readers' Favorite reviews, the Pacific Book Review STAR Award, and very positive words from Feathered Quill Book Review (among other reviews).
Developing the Kindle edition took less than an hour. Using the new Kindle Direct Publishing platform, it was just a matter of dropping some of the front material, placing each text module above its associated illustration on a single page, and uploading the Word document. In less than a minute, the Kindle edition was ready for proofing on-line using three simulated eReaders. It could not be easier. And if you want to update your cover and/or text, just upload the new version. Approvals come within 24 hours. The same can be said of updating text and covers on CreateSpace.
I know the first-timer will have questions--and I'd be happy to answer those I can--but once you get into the swing of writing and illustrating children's books in this way, it could open a whole new world of writing to those who felt frustrated by what they thought were their limitations. The availability of royalty-free art at reasonable prices, together with the options available on-line for creating special effects, has the potential for turning all of us into "illustrators" of our own books. In the process, we may just discover new talents that have lain dormant for decades.
Ted
PS My youngest granddaughter will be reading "Pepe" to 20 kindergarten and first graders today as a special project on "cooperation and working together" for credit in one of her high school classes. The elementary school teacher with whom she is working was "blown away" (to quote my granddaughter) by "Pepe."
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