REALITY SHOW: KIDLIT WRITER GETS BOOKS FROM LIBRARY

Recently I maxed out both my husband’s library card and my library card as I sat at home and requested books to be picked up at my local library from my county’s library system. All the books arrived in about a week’s time (I’m so thankful the library is open again!), so we picked them up, used them for my purposes, and then returned them.

Then I promptly maxed out both our library cards again as I requested another batch of similar books. Every book I ordered in was a book on Mother Goose.

What did I do with all these Mother Goose books, you may ask? For starters, I was preparing a proposal for another Mother Goose spin-off picture book. (My first one is A PIRATE’S MOTHER GOOSE which was published by Albert Whitman with adorable art by the delightfully talented Colin Jack. CLICK HERE to learn more about A PIRATE’S MOTHER GOOSE.)

So I read through bunches of these library books and found comparable titles I could list in the proposal I was crafting. (And yes, I submitted the proposal to my agent…whew!)

Then I did some photo shoots with the books I liked best. Like the one above, grouping some favorites with my own picture book. I just used my phone. Nothing fancy. These photo groups can be used for a variety of purposes such as posting here on my blog, or creating a pin on Pinterest to help market my books.

I also took individual shots of lots of my favorite Mother Goose books because I like to “give back” to fellow KidLit authors and post 5-star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon and also on Instagram, to name a few.

And then I actually purchased at least one of my absolute favorites! To read with my grandkids, of course. I plan on purchasing more of my favorites, too, for sharing in the Little Free Library we’re planning on building for our front yard. (Thanks to my hubby for an awesome Christmas gift!)

So today, I’m already planning on the next batch of books I’m going to order in from my local library. This time I want comparable titles for a series of bedtime baby books I’m working on, the first one being BEDTIME WITH MOMMY, which has a book birthday of August 24, 2021.

So that’s what’s been going on recently in my corner of the KidLit world. If you’ve been using your local library for something, I’d love to hear about it, too. Don’t you just love your local library? (And librarians?!!!)