When I first started writing Children’s Picture Books, I thought
it would be reasonably easy. After all, I had seven children and
many a night I told them stories and kept them entertained
before bed. Little did I know how wrong I was. It will take many
hours, lots of hard work and a good imagination. I hope this
blog will help you get started because the end product is well
worth the effort. Just imagine the smile on a little five-year
old’s face when you read the story to them, and show how they
can be a hero and make people happy. With that in mind, I will
now tell you how I constructed my stories for children.
The first thing I needed to do was determine the age bracket
for which I wanted to make my stories. That was not easy. Do
you write for the age bracket of 1 to 4 which would be Alphabet
books, Animal books, books about babies, etc. Or, do you pick
an age group of 4 to 8 or older. This age group is more
interested in having their heroes go on adventures, learn about
the world and explore not only the world around them, but also
the world of your imagination. I chose the age group 4 to 8.
Once I had picked this group, I had to choose a hero for my
stories. In my first book, I decided to make my hero a young
boy in the same age group as the group I was writing for. I also
had to decide what he would look like. I visited book stores and
libraries and looked through many books to see what other
authors had done when picking their heroes. After many hours
and many trips, to the stores and libraries, I determined that I
wanted my hero to look as realistic as possible. Now, since I am
not an illustrator/artist, I had to find a person who would
illustrate my books and also who was affordable. So, I went to
the Internet. I looked up illustrators. I found quite a few, but all
were too expensive. Then I heard about a website called
“www.fiverr.com”. I looked up illustrators and graphic artists
and found page after page of samples of their work. I spent
weeks going through this site and after looking at almost 1000
illustrators’ drawings, I finally found one I thought could do the
job I wanted. My illustrator is located in the Philippines.
I then had to explain to him what I wanted my hero to look like
and also give my hero a name. Prior to all of this work, I had
already written my story. I now had to determine what I
wanted my cover to look like and what my hero should look
like. Since I have 22 grandchildren, I thought it would be a good
idea to have my hero look like one of them. I looked through
some old pictures and found several, of my oldest grandson
when he was between the age of 3 and 5. I chose several
pictures of him and sent them to my illustrator. My grandsons
name is Sam. Thus, the name of my hero became Sam. When I
sent my illustrator the pictures, I also indicated what I would
like on the cover (the title, Sam walking down a path, etc.). My
illustrator was a little different in that he did not want to see
my story before he did any of the illustrations. All he needed
was a list of illustrations and what I wanted on them. In
another blog, I will give some samples of what I sent him.
Below you will see the results of how the illustrator interpreted
the photos and the final results of the cover. I was very pleased
with the cover.
I can go into a lot more detail about what I had to do to
negotiate price for each illustration, but I will leave that for
another blog. Just let me say it was interesting and beneficial
for both the illustrator and me. After I got all of the
illustrations completed, I had to lay the book out and send it to
the publishing company. I will cover what it took to layout the
book and get it published in my next blog. It was a very
interesting experience since the publishing company I chose did
not have a template for children’s picture books. I now have
one for all of the books I have produced. Because of the
problems my wife and I have encountered in getting our books
published, we have created a Publishing Company (COT
Publishing.com) to help other authors get their books
formatted and printed. I hope this blog has helped you aspiring
authors of children’s picture books in looking at and thinking
about what it takes to put a book together. It’s a lot of work
but the end result is always well worth it. I have enjoyed my
story time with the little kids and as I said in the beginning of
this blog, “There is nothing like the smile on a little five-year old
child’s face as you read them your story.”
