Exploring #Picturebook #selfpub on @EatSleepWriting

Over on Eat Sleep Write, I've now got two columns under my belt. Pop on over if you're interested.

Self-Publishing Your Picture Book 1: Kindle Kids' Book Creator

Self-Publishing Your Picture Book 2: Alternatives to Kindle

I'm having a fun time so far, and learning a lot as I go. Let me know what you think, and also if there are certain topics you'd like me to cover.

Maggie Hogarth: Creating children's books as a mother-daughter project

Today's guest is Maggie Hogarth, an experienced author (as MCA Hogarth) who recently jumped into the deep end of the kidlit pool, self-publishing her first works for children. She shares her very personal story:

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              "I'd like to write an adventure for Vinny the armadillo," I say to Daughter of her new plush toy. We are in the car, driving home from her grandmother's house. "What should I write?"

                Daughter, who is six, says with enthusiasm, "He can go to the sea! And meet a shark! And the shark can eat him!"

                "But if a shark eats him, there won't be any more stories!" I say. "Besides, I'd like him to learn something in these books. How not to be eaten by sharks isn't a lesson most children need to learn."

                "How about Vinny climbs a telephone pole and can't get down!"

                "All right," I say, trying to work with this. "Then what happens?"

                "And then he falls down and dies!" she finishes gleefully.

                "That's a horrible ending!" I say, and she's already giggling, so I start laughing too. "Besides, what's the message there?"

                "You shouldn't climb up places you can't climb down from."

                I can't disagree with this, but I find myself explaining the concept of reader expectations, and what will happen to Mommy if she writes a book for first-graders that involves the hospitalization of armadillos after all the appalled parents find Mommy's email address.

***

                Later, I am working on art for Vinny the Armadillo Makes a Friend when she finds me at the kitchen table. I decide to apply for her opinion. "Do you think I should put the unicorn on the cover, or would that spoil the surprise?"

                "I think it would spoil the surprise," Daughter says. "Besides, if you put a unicorn on the cover, boys won't read it."

                "What?" I say, startled into looking up from my sketchbook.

                "Boys don't like unicorns," says Daughter firmly. "They think they're too girly."

                "Even my unicorns?" I say. "My unicorns live in swamps! They have gnarled old horns like the roots of mangrove trees! Moss grows in their manes!"

                "Boys won't buy it. Sorry, Mommy," she tells me, and pats me on the shoulder sympathetically before skipping off to play.

***

Of all the things I anticipated when deciding to write a chapter book, the one thing I didn't was how much fun my daughter would have walking through the process with me. I normally write for adults—science fiction and fantasy novels and business nonfiction—a process that she knows only as "Mommy stands at a computer and says she's working." For the first time, I was able to expose the inner workings of Mommy's job to her in a way that allowed her to participate. I was surprised at her enthusiasm during every stage of the book's creation, even for the strange minutia, like checking the galleys and making decisions about margin size and font choice. When I finally handed her the Real Live Book, she was as excited as if we'd performed magic. From the intangible discussion we'd had in the car about her new stuffed animal, we'd created a physical object her friends could now buy from the bookstore.

Self-publishing a chapter book was probably not the wisest financial decision I've ever made. Selling children's fiction without traditional publishing's conduits into school and library systems is (at this point) a near non-starter. But getting to hear my daughter's ideas on story, art, and marketing, and seeing the excitement in her eyes when she paged through the final copy, was worth it. Vinny the Armadillo, and my Laundry Dragons, might never make us more than a little grocery money, but we'll both be able to say, one day, "We did that together."

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Learn more about Maggie Hogarth on her website.

Purchase Vinny the Armadillo and the Laundry Dragons books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

M. K. Theodoratus on the Twists and Turns of a Writing Career

Nobody promised us a rose garden, yet here we are anyway, trying to make it as writers. Today's guest, fantasy writer M. K. Theodoratus, has been wending a crooked path through the garden of words, looking for a place where her career can blossom. She shares a bit about her journey so far. 

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Twist & Turn – It’s Not a Dance, It’s a Writer’s Life

by M. K. Theodoratus

After four, maybe five, writing careers, I feel like I’ve seen it all. Publishing now is nothing like when I started writing.

How have I sold over the years? Confession magazines (if you can remember them). Short newspaper features back when they took freelance human-interest stuff. A weekly political column back in the Reagan years. Multiple sales of the same article to lots of little magazines who only bought one-time rights. Now, I’ve been playing with fantasy fiction.

Yeah, my “writing career” has done a lot of twisting and turning over the years as the publishing industry has changed. All the time while, I wrote bits and pieces of fiction, mostly unfinished.

I can verify that change equals opportunity. If the indie publishing movement hadn’t gained a foothold, I wouldn’t be writing this.

My most recent publishing venture started out at a writer’s conference when an indie (aka mom & pop) publisher said they were interested in my dark YA fantasy novel, There Be Demons.

Hooray for me. I got a contract that included nice royalties and a hard cover as well as an ebook. Got some wonderful editing which made the book totally better. Started building a social media platform to help with the marketing of my book, by revising and publishing some of the short stories languishing in my computer. Then, the publisher got sick, and the publishing process has stalled until she recovers.

Welcome to the real world of publishing. A world where writers have to twist and turn in order to survive. Bummer. Publishers and editors no longer hold a writer’s hand and teach them their craft or publicize their books unless they are A-list.

The good news in all of this turning: the “platform” I built now includes eight epubs – four free short stories and four 99c epubs. In them, you can see how I twisted away from one world – the Far Isles Half-Elven – to another – the world of Andor where demons roam.

My world of the Far Isle Half-Elven started when I was searching for a new idea to write about and began wondering how genetic drift within an elf-human population would influence the politics of a magical medieval world. I immediately had conflict in the change from a feudal society to a mercantile one plus the conflict among various individuals based the levels of magical power they controlled. I didn’t have any characters to play with until Mariah jumped into my mind, standing on a cliff in the midst of a receding gale. She was miserable because, after 400 years, her life had turned to dust.

Result: 500,000+ words sitting in my computer, a draft of Dark Solstice (a completed novel without a home now), plus some novellas and short stories. The free stories are downloaded frequently. The 99c novellas sell at a sick snail’s pace, though most of the reviews are nice.

Of course, you should never put all your stories in one world. I wrote other stories but nothing captured my imagination until I wondered about the problems gargoyles faced.

Night for the Gargoyles, which sold to a British e-magazine, was born. I liked the idea so much I drafted a complete novel, There Be Demons, switching points of view between Gillen, leader of the gargoyles guarding Trebridge, and Britt, one of the teens drafter by the angels to help the gargoyles. Snarky teens, conscientious gargoyles, and demons bent on conquest. What’s not to like?

The publisher liked it so much she wanted a sequel … and maybe a trilogy. My story writing twisted only enough to revise some stories to exist in the world of Andor where the demons roam.

End result: I’ve self-publish four Far Isles Half-Elven epubs and four Andor ones. Who know where my next twist will take me?

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You can learn more about M.K. Theodoratus on her website or follow her on Twitter. You can also visit the Far Isles Half-Elven website.

Purchase her fantasy books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers.

Sandra Saidak on the Joys and Trials of Commissioning Cover Art

We have an especially interesting and practical topic today from author Sandra Saidak, who writes novels inspired by prehistory and folklore. Her latest work is The Seal Queen, and she shares some insight into how its cover came to fruition.

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Art : The Journey

Of course I knew that artists did things a certain way—notably their way.  After all, I’m an artist myself, in that I’m a writer.  As far as I’m concerned, writers, painters, musicians, costumers, jewelry makers, and several groups I’m probably leaving out (sorry folks) are artists.  And there are certain stereotypes associated with all of us: we’re flaky; we create when the spirit moves us, not because someone tells us to; deadlines are more targets to aim for; we’re passionate about what we do, or we don’t bother to do it.

I’ve been a writer since I could hold a pencil and make letters.  But my first novel was published in November, 2011.  Since then, I learned a startling fact: I am no longer a single-person business.  I need professional help (no, not that kind).  With every book, I need editing, marketing advice, computer help, and the most exciting so far: professional cover art. 

For info on artist Fred Capp, visit www.littlelevers.com/Angels

I was nervous, but still very excited when I approached my first artist.  I knew just how it would work: I would describe in words what I could so clearly see in my mind’s eye, and I’d get to watch the process of seeing it come to life in all its glory.  Then the plan met reality.  I worked with three artists before The Seal Queen was finally graced with the cover you see here.

The first artist I found sent me some terrific pencil sketches—before deciding she had taken on too many commissions, and just when some real life issues hit her out of the blue.  (It might have been nice if she had told me this; unfortunately, she just stopped responding to my e-mails.  I found out all that other stuff much later.)

I’m not quite sure what happened to the second artist.  I found him through DeviantArt.  We exchanged e-mails.  I sent descriptions, he sent a price quote.  Then nothing.  Apparently, somewhere along the line, he had decided we weren’t a good fit after all.  That was a new one for me.

The next artist was the one who finished the piece on time, and got it to look like what I had envisioned.  Fred Capp is an old friend of mine, and I was nervous about working with a friend.  What if I didn’t like what he came up with?  What if he flaked out like the others?  What if the art was great, but he couldn’t meet the deadline?  What if we ran into artistic differences?  What if he couldn’t draw a seal! I discovered I was scaring myself.  And some of those things did become issues, but I’m happy to say we worked them out.  And we’re still friends.

Out of all this, I’ve come to understand certain differences between the people who write the books, and the people who create the cover art.  Mainly, that an author will usually work on one project at a time.  An artist will likely be juggling many projects at once.  And every client is concerned about the art being perfect for his/her work; that this book will be released on time.

The artist also has the difficult balancing act of getting the author’s vision to appear on a piece of paper (or computer screen).  Easy if you’re a mind reader.  Not so easy if all you have to work with are words.

So a toast to all the artists out there, in all the different media.  As everyone who’s done any of it before knows: it’s not as easy as it looks.  

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You can learn more about Sandra Saidak on her website.

You can purchase The Seal Queen on Amazon.