Spinning plates, but wondering if...

 

Still here, still spinning plates, but wondering, if I just stopped and concentrated on one thing for a while… would it be so bad to let some of the plates crash to the floor, sweep them away into a corner and get lost in a book? The dilemma is, if I don’t run around chasing book sales, books won’t sell. But if I don’t finish the next book I won’t have anything new to sell, and the characters will carry on bugging me until I let them have their say.

So if you’ve stumbled across my bookshop, welcome, please come in and have a rummage around, if you need anything I’ll be right here behind the desk persuading characters to work nicely with words and illustrations to build the perfect picture book.

More words are always needed to tell of the words already written…

 More words are always needed to tell of the words already written…

In the case of a picture book, words are used carefully and sparingly to keep the story within the attention span of a very young reader or listener. But the words used to tell, of the words already written can vary widely. The blurb on the back of the book may be very brief, to convey a simple story or theme, or it might exceed the word count of the book itself. This is because the pictures in a picture book work hand in hand with the words to tell the story. When the words meet the illustrations in the making of a picture book, there’s always a bit of argy bargy as words need to be edited to accommodate the pictures, to build a balanced book. And of course there’s always the opportunity to add your own words when reading a picture book to a young child, to talk about the story, the pictures or relate it to something in your own personal experience.

Even more words are needed to bring a book to the attention of potential readers, especially in an overcrowded market place online, where books are everywhere, and many get sold through a few of the bigger marketplaces. Every book with an ISBN will be listed in all of these book outlets, but it’s not a level playing field, and self publish books will frequently be listed as unavailable or with a long lead time, at a time when shoppers expect products instantly.

So what is the answer? Well, more words are needed to get the message out there of the books that need to be read, because books need to be out of their boxes and into the hands of readers, and that is my mission. But is it enough just to throw words into the abyss in the hope that some will stick? That is a question that I am still wrestling with, and the fact that you are reading this now rather suggests that I’m throwing enough words out there to find a few readers, and I now have my own little bookshop, where you can rest assured that your order will be quickly gathered together, signed and dispatched, not from a faceless warehouse, but direct from the author, illustrator who created the book from the first idea that floated through the imagination. The only thing I outsource is the printing and binding of the books, which is done locally, I drop off a memory stick with my book on, and they make the next stage of magic happen. It’s always an exciting trip collecting the books, to hold the precious story in a physical form, in a book!        

Holding the book for the first time is a moment to celebrate, to pause and appreciate the achievement. Then it’s on with the marketing hat, which can be a bit tight and uncomfortable, but must be pulled into the shape and made to fit.

Happy Book Birthday to The Monster Under The Bed

 Happy Book Birthday to The Monster Under The Bed!

Initially published through Trafford Publishing in 2005, The Monster Under The Bed came in-house under my own imprint Lost in a Book, in 2010 in its second edition. It’s still a talking point at book signings, some people comment that they don’t want to scare children, while others reminisce about the monster under their own childhood bed, which can take many forms. But the monster under this particular bed is a fun twist that isn’t revealed till the last page, and far from scaring children, I’ve had positive feedback about it helping children not to be scared of the dark.

I’ve been on quite a journey with this book: my first published book, first book signings, and first book in a mainstream bookshop! That was an exciting moment, to see my book displayed in Borders in York. Seeing it on online websites was quite a buzz too, if a short lived one, as self publish books get listed as not available, or with such a long order time that customers are put off from buying them. It also brought about me cutting the ribbon at a school library opening, and reading not only The Monster Under The Bed, but also an early draft of Doodle Mayhem, and the reaction I got from that reading told me that I had something special, but that’s another story… in fact it’s three stories, the characters were too much fun for just one book, and became a series.

And so 20 years on, I now have 10 books to my name as well as articles and stories published in magazines. Most of my sales still come from book signings out in the real world, but my ongoing mission is to bring the personal experience of the book signing to my website bookshop. So here I sit behind my virtual counter, dividing my time between writing content for my website, blogging about books and self publishing, and working away on the work in progress. There’s a picture book brewing, the words are in place, but they may have to shuffle a bit as the illustrations take shape. There’s always a bit of argy bargy when words and pictures come together in a picture book; the words having to make way for the pictures to work their particular magic.

 

 

 The Monster Under The Bed

A bedtime story that the little monsters in your life will love.

The Blurb:

“Mum……Mum…..There’s a monster under my bed.”

Billy sits up in the dark, he can hear something moving around in his bedroom. When his mum puts the light on there’s no monster to be seen. But when Mum goes back downstairs the noises start again.

“Get back into bed Billy,” calls Mum.

Something is making a noise, and if it isn't Billy – who can it be? Find out in this full colour picture book that’ll keep you guessing till the last page.

Buy a signed copy from my website: rummage4words.co.uk

16 page full colour picture book

ISBN 978-0-9560232-2-3

Self Promoting and the magic of the imagination

So why is it so hard to promote the book that we've worked so hard on?

When you write a book, you live in that book for the duration of its creation; become friends, or maybe enemies with the characters. You may think you're in charge of the process, but sometimes there are forces at work within the imagination that we can never really understand.

Have you ever written a piece and then read it back and wondered where it came from? Or drawn an illustration that you can never recreate, because you're not really sure how you drew it in the first place? That is the magic of the imagination and of creativity - now if I can just harness that magic into promoting my book, instead of researching promotion only to fall into the clever marketing traps set by others and end up buying a product instead of selling one - but hey, there are worse things than buying another book, so I forgive myself...