To all of my bird and human friends. I would love to know that you visited my new blog site. Please leave a comment or two.
April Robins
P.S. Also, you can go to my Robin Falls Contact Us link under my portrait and leave a Chirp.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
What To Do When an Event Goes Bad
Recently, I was the storyteller at a charity event. It was a national event with hopes of hundreds of people showing up. First that did not happen. Mostly the attendance was made up of the vendors and their children. This leads to my role, I became the babysitter. Only two families visited the storytelling room that were not vendors; but the room was full most of the time with small, bored children. I left without selling one book after reading to children for three hours. My real goal of networking with the community did not happen, my name was misspelled on the advertisement flyer, and I did not even get a proper thank you from the parents I babysat for. I was down emotionally to say the least.
As a children's book author, there will be many times when an event will not be what you expected. Take stock of the situation and learn from it. Ask yourself, should I have attended the event to begin with? Was I the only Author there? Was I offered any compensation for my time and expenses? Did I fully understand my role? Would I do it again?
Now comes the part of what to do to lift your spirits when you are down from such an event. First, put the negative feelings in the past and don't dwell on them. Start thinking of more productive ways to spend your time in the future. Start the outline of another book, that will always cheer you up. Go to your on-line networking forum such as Facebook and send a gift to a friend. Read your e-mails which have stacked up from other author friends. Last but not least, remember the children that benefited from your time. After all, you are a children's book author.
Please enter your thoughts on this subject. They will be appreciated.
As a children's book author, there will be many times when an event will not be what you expected. Take stock of the situation and learn from it. Ask yourself, should I have attended the event to begin with? Was I the only Author there? Was I offered any compensation for my time and expenses? Did I fully understand my role? Would I do it again?
Now comes the part of what to do to lift your spirits when you are down from such an event. First, put the negative feelings in the past and don't dwell on them. Start thinking of more productive ways to spend your time in the future. Start the outline of another book, that will always cheer you up. Go to your on-line networking forum such as Facebook and send a gift to a friend. Read your e-mails which have stacked up from other author friends. Last but not least, remember the children that benefited from your time. After all, you are a children's book author.
Please enter your thoughts on this subject. They will be appreciated.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Finding an Illustrator for Your Book
OK, you have decided to write a children's picture book but you can't draw a straight line. How do you find an artist. First if you are publishing traditionally, you will not submit illustrations with your book. Most large publishing houses have certain artist that they use for their books. They don't even care to hear your suggestions. Your job is to simply supply the words.
For our conversation, we will look at self publishing, and you will need to provide the illustrations. This was my first real challenge. I had no idea how to start so I just had at it. First I asked every member of my family if they knew how to draw. My daughter did but was not interested in being involved with that aspect of the books. Second, I asked every artist with a sidewalk stand if they drew illustrations. I found a neat young man from New York at the state fair, but my daughter did not like his drawings. Third, I called the local art galleries and asked if anyone was interested. Fourth, I looked up the local colleges and asked their art department heads if any of their students might be interested. Fifth, I contacted a trade college specializing in art students who would post your job for students to bid on. Sixth, I joined Yahoo Groups for authors & illustrators and posted my needs.
After numerous failures I decided to pay for the in-house illustrations for "Where is My Bennie?" In-house illustrations are expensive, and I could not afford to do all my books this way. But it was a great learning experience. They take you through all the steps necessary to produce a book. You supply illustration notes for each page of illustrations, view and approve the pencil sketches, and then view and approve the finished product of colored illustrations.
Finally, I did a web search and accidentally came across a job placement service called guru.com. After weeks of getting nowhere, this service was so easy and how I found my artist. You register with http://www.guru.com/ as an employer. You place a job description with a price range. You wait for artist to bid on your job. You will probably have ten plus bids the first day. After viewing the portfolios of the artist bidding, you award a contract. Look at my books to see what wonderful work they produce.
By the way, I have really made it easy for you by supplying information on how to get in touch with my artist at my Meet the Author page http://www.robinfalls.com/meetauthors.html on my website.
For our conversation, we will look at self publishing, and you will need to provide the illustrations. This was my first real challenge. I had no idea how to start so I just had at it. First I asked every member of my family if they knew how to draw. My daughter did but was not interested in being involved with that aspect of the books. Second, I asked every artist with a sidewalk stand if they drew illustrations. I found a neat young man from New York at the state fair, but my daughter did not like his drawings. Third, I called the local art galleries and asked if anyone was interested. Fourth, I looked up the local colleges and asked their art department heads if any of their students might be interested. Fifth, I contacted a trade college specializing in art students who would post your job for students to bid on. Sixth, I joined Yahoo Groups for authors & illustrators and posted my needs.
After numerous failures I decided to pay for the in-house illustrations for "Where is My Bennie?" In-house illustrations are expensive, and I could not afford to do all my books this way. But it was a great learning experience. They take you through all the steps necessary to produce a book. You supply illustration notes for each page of illustrations, view and approve the pencil sketches, and then view and approve the finished product of colored illustrations.
Finally, I did a web search and accidentally came across a job placement service called guru.com. After weeks of getting nowhere, this service was so easy and how I found my artist. You register with http://www.guru.com/ as an employer. You place a job description with a price range. You wait for artist to bid on your job. You will probably have ten plus bids the first day. After viewing the portfolios of the artist bidding, you award a contract. Look at my books to see what wonderful work they produce.
By the way, I have really made it easy for you by supplying information on how to get in touch with my artist at my Meet the Author page http://www.robinfalls.com/meetauthors.html on my website.
Determining the Size of a Children's Picture Book
When I first started writing, I thought all children’s picture books had to have 16 written pages with 16 pages of illustrations. I read that somewhere, in fact, in more than one somewhere. I would work and work to divide my book into 16 even sized pages. That rule of thumb is not actually true.
My real problem was in cutting my words back to fit on only 16 pages. My co-writing daughters often asked if maybe we could be less wordy. I tried and cut down from 2000 words to 1500 words per book. I think the number of words in a children’s book is more important than you think. Too many words and the child will lose attention. Too few words and the child will feel shorted. All of our books, except Xlibris, are geared toward early readers to grade 3.6. They need around 1500 words. We are very proud of the acceptance we are getting in the schools and libraries for our books.
If you are self published, the cost of your book will increase as the number of pages increase. I would never recommend going over a 40 page children’s picture book. In fact, I will be slimming our books down to 32 to 36 pages in the future. You need to add 6 pages into your calculation for the following pages: title, copyright, dedication, page after the last page of the story, about the author, and a blank page at the end. This varies with publisher, but is a general good rule to follow. Just remember that the total number of pages needs to be divisible by 4.
So I would recommend that you have fun with your words, make them words that others will want to read over and over again, and check with your publisher to determine the price they will set for your book at various number of pages.
My real problem was in cutting my words back to fit on only 16 pages. My co-writing daughters often asked if maybe we could be less wordy. I tried and cut down from 2000 words to 1500 words per book. I think the number of words in a children’s book is more important than you think. Too many words and the child will lose attention. Too few words and the child will feel shorted. All of our books, except Xlibris, are geared toward early readers to grade 3.6. They need around 1500 words. We are very proud of the acceptance we are getting in the schools and libraries for our books.
If you are self published, the cost of your book will increase as the number of pages increase. I would never recommend going over a 40 page children’s picture book. In fact, I will be slimming our books down to 32 to 36 pages in the future. You need to add 6 pages into your calculation for the following pages: title, copyright, dedication, page after the last page of the story, about the author, and a blank page at the end. This varies with publisher, but is a general good rule to follow. Just remember that the total number of pages needs to be divisible by 4.
So I would recommend that you have fun with your words, make them words that others will want to read over and over again, and check with your publisher to determine the price they will set for your book at various number of pages.
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