Watching the illustrations become a book

Do you know what it is like to envision an illustration for each page of your text and have a creative graphic designer understand, create and build each page into a book? Richard, my illustrator, has been able to complete this project for me. As we worked together building this early reader book, he seemed to be able to read my mind and illustrate the exact picture that I could see in my mind. Sometimes, his illustrations were even BETTER than what I had envisioned!

We worked together for approximately 2 months creating this 24 page book, The New Blue Tractor. He would send me illustrations and I would show/share them with friends and family. Occasionally, we would think of something to add to the illustration but most times Richard nailed it. At one of our last meetings before submitting the book to the publisher, he had put together the illustrations in a book format so we could see a mock up of what it will look like.

At this point, we have not heard from Dog Ear Publishing but hope to this week. It is hard to be patient but at least it is summertime and I am busy with family things to keep my mind active.

Stacey
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Staying Positive During Publishing

Thanks for your question/comment last week, blogger! I try to stay positive during this process by remembering that I am working with a reliable partner, my illustrator, and by trusting my publisher. I think we have a great book to publish that children will read when they first start to read on their own. I am a little nervous about getting the word out though that we HAVE this great book! This blog and my website are attempts to bring awareness to The New Blue Tractor.

This is the first blog that I have ever done as well as the first website I have ever set up. If interested, my site can be found at http://www.readinmachines.com/. It is sure a learning process for a person who hasn't ever done it! I have been working through Google using their services for web design as well as the blog. I have a wonderful sister who is more active in both of these areas that has been, and continues to be, a great help! I have to say that working with the website has caused a little stress. I was trying to add a link to this blog and apparently hit something different and I thought I lost my home page! I was really in a panicked state! Fortunately, I had to leave to go to my son's baseball game so I logged out and the program just reset itself with my old home page. What a relief.

Richard, my illustrator, just sent me some coloring pages to put on the site so I will be adding those in today. Hopefully all will go well.

Stacey

Quiet Time Continued....

Still in "quiet time" mode. I haven't heard from the pubisher about any problems so that must be a good thing. Richard and I chose a small publisher that uses publish on demand technology named Dog Ear Publishing. I read, printed off, and emailed many publishing companies on the web and was impressed by DE's friendliness, professionalism and lack of bad reviews! Some other companies are a little too big for my taste. I was even able to contact a couple of authors of children's books that were published by Dog Ear and they had positive comments.

More history of this process.... After Richard and I agreed to work together, I set out as the research partner to find a publishing company. We equally agreed to give Dog Ear a try. I had sent Richard my text for this early reader book and he began to work up some drawings. He created a page layout of the book pages. We were meeting approximately every two weeks and discussing/sharing information. We emailed every couple of days with information or questions to each other. I don't know how traditional authors survive during this process! Some NEVER even meet their illustrators!!! How could you communicate your ideas if you never even meet??!!

We also were trying to make cost effective decisions with size of book, hardcover vs. softcover, number of pages, cost to print and submitting print ready files. Richard is a graphic designer so he is able to work with the type of files needed. I was also researching a marketing plan and looking up early childhood learning objectives to target our market of readers.

That takes me through months one and two of the process. More on another day.

Stacey

Publishing an early reader book

My author contact at the publisher calls this the "quiet time". I am waiting to see what they think of the book files that I have submitted. While the process up to this point has seemed long to me, it is short by traditional publishing standards. I began this discovery process with an illustrator back in January of 2007 and we sent the files of the book to the publisher just last week. It has only been about 4 months in the making. We have chosen to self-publish our early reader book. I had tried the traditional publisher path and deemed it too long and restrictive.

I am working with a wonderful illustrator whom I met by chance (or fate) that takes my simple text and adds life. I had briefly met Richard at a craft show when I purchased some of his construction machinery art for my son's room. When I was searching for an illustrator back in January, I looked him up on the web. I fired off a hesitant email asking if he had ever illustrated any books. I never thought I would even get a response. But, within days he contacted me and replied that he was most interested in illustrating a book but had never had the opportunity. He wondered if I had any ideas on the subject. We met shortly after and decided to go into this project as partners. He has since become a treasured friend.

Many things happened in these four short months, those items are to be continued......

Stacey